Slashdot Mirror
The Seven Laws of Identity
pHatidic writes "Something strange is a brewin' at Microsoft these days. Check out this video interview with Kim Cameron, Microsoft's Architect of Identity, about Kim's Laws of Identity." From the post: "We have undertaken a project to develop a formal understanding of the dynamics causing digital identity systems to succeed or fail in various contexts, expressed as the Laws of Identity. Taken together, these laws define a unifying identity metasystem that can offer the Internet the identity layer it so obviously requires. They also provide a way for people new to the identity discussion to understand its central issues. This lets them actively join in, rather than everyone having to restart the whole discussion from scratch."
It obviously requires an identity layer? News to me. As a card-carrying member of the tinfoil hat brigade, I prefer anonimity.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
We all know that the only 2 rules are going to be:
1. Any corporation can find out whatever they want to about you for whatever reason, and use that information for any purpose they see fit.
2. Rule number 1 also applies to city/state/federal governments
I wish I was joking, but I'm not.
You're entitled to your tinfoil-wrapped opinion, of course, but as I always point out in these discussions, there would be a lot of advantages to having some form of confirmed identity connected with Internet-based activity, even if it's generally concealed or only anonymously verifiable except to suitable authorities.
If everything could ultimately be tracked back to you eventually, things like spamming, virus distribution, defamation, on-line fraud, and numerous other harmful behaviours would be dramatically reduced. You could improve a lot of people's lives here.
Of course, you also have to identify "suitable authorities" who should get the right to access this information. That might be relatively easy in the West -- we have court systems that most people would probably trust to issue such orders if and when necessary -- but the Internet is international and what's free speech to you might be illegal anti-government propaganda in certain other places.
Personally, I think most of the supposed advantages of anonymity on the Internet are illusory anyway. Does anyone really believe that all these people in China are happily speaking freely on the Internet as it stands today anyway?
Hence, on balance, a reliable identity system gets my conditional agreement, subject to the devil in the details of course.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Indeed. Passport should be proof enough that most Internet users are not interested in an identity layer.
On the other hand, the Internet is sorely lacking in appropriate identity verification measures for the sorts of e-commerce being done by people who don't grasp the concept of spyware (despite it having a firm grasp on them).
The problem in this case is, who gets to implement such a standard? The list of laws sounds good on paper, but once corporations or governments start trying to implement it, any concept of user privacy goes out the window. And as commercialized as the Internet has become, it's becoming incredibly difficult for benevolent users to set these standards and have them perpetuated without abuse or wanton modification.