Identity, identification and integrity (WAS: Copyrighting schemas ,Hailstorm)

[Dimitris Dimitriadis <dimitris.dimitriadis@improve.se>]

So let's try to separate the various aspects:

Identity (let's keep this constant for argument's sake)

Identification: when done digitally (through name/pw, retinal scans, odour
control, whatever, or in other words, assertion of identification)

Access to identification (keeping the right name/pw pairs stored away
somewhere)

"Trusted identification franschising" (I trust so-and-so to keep this
information on their systems, happens everyday everywhere nowadays)

Identification as a means of using web-based services (on a much larger
scale than now, possibly even for things we up to now use government
controlled frameworks)

Possibility of mis-use of indentification (and to keep to the vocabulary
introduced above, mis-use of means of identification assertion done by
trusted identification franchising parties).

And this is where it gets interesting. So, given that I trust a company, or
service provider, to the degree where I use them as a primary source of
access to the service-net, I need to rely on their good judgment not to make
things in an inappropriate way. One argument for not having to separate the
company that maintains identification info from the company that provides
services, is that prudence, among other things, would prevent them from
misuse.

As I am notorioulsy supsicious in nature, however, I would't be happy enough
with that. I like the good old public government departments and want them
to keep being the main validator of my identification claims (using their
approved identification cards, driver's licenses, passports, whatever). So
one idea could be to demand that government agencies all over the world
cooperate in creating some kind of identity/identification system _to which
service providers_ are gien access. That would take care of the trust part
(at least for me).

However, no such mechanism exists. And something tells me that any system
with similar functionality proposed by some other actor (or actors) would be
acceptable by the public in large, due to courage, ignorance, fear, or
indifference.

I don't have a problem with courageous people lending their means of
identification to others. That's their problem. Ignorance is also easy to
deal with. They'll do it anyway, so I'll see to that they do it the right
way (figurative speech, mind you). Doing it using fear, we've seen many
examples of (at least in my part of the world where most countries did their
utmost to erase a social order on the grounds that it was non-democratic,
instigated fear in it's citizens and other reasons); obviously we should try
to refrain from proposing similar ways now. Indifference is the scary
aspect. Or I'm just a one of a kind person who does not prefer being able to
buy things 0.000666 percent cheaper to knowing why I suddenly get these nice
offers and how it is that my fridge always manages to surprise me by
containing exaclty what I feel like etaing (which, of course, is what I ate
last week the same time having watched a similar movie).

There are a series of political aspects to making information available and
freely accessible. There are more aspects to information exchange than
choosing platform on which to do it and coding away. Code is the easy part.
Knowing why is the tough part, and I hope I'm not the only person who is
interested in duscussing this.

Also, you'll excuse me for not tying it too closely to technical issues, to
which we can migrate anytime. The reason is that XML, among other
technologies, makes these things possible to begin with, and that's why I
feel it's important to evaluate the various aspects.

/Dimitris

-----Ursprungligt meddelande-----
Från: David Brownell [mailto:david-b@pacbell.net]
Skickat: den 2 juni 2001 15:43
Till: Dimitris Dimitriadis
Ämne: Re: Copyrighting schemas, Hailstorm


Ah, but speaking to the peanut gallery (as we say over here :)
surely not everyone picked up on that second "f"!

Agreed, this is a tough problem.  How does one manage a
public resource?  I'm not a believer in privatizing everything,
there's too little accountability that way.  Agreed that it's not
an easy problem.

- Dave


----- Original Message -----
From: "Dimitris Dimitriadis" <dimitris.dimitriadis@improve.se>
To: "'David Brownell'" <david-b@pacbell.net>; "Dimitris Dimitriadis"
<dimitris.dimitriadis@improve.se>
Cc: "XML DEV" <xml-dev@lists.xml.org>
Sent: Saturday, June 02, 2001 6:32 AM
Subject: SV: Copyrighting schemas, Hailstorm


Thanks, I know what 'iff' translates to.

In any case, the point I'm trying to raise is that I'm not sure we will be
able to keep the river helthy, or at least it won't be as easy as 1 2 3

/Dimitris

-----Ursprungligt meddelande-----
Från: David Brownell [mailto:david-b@pacbell.net]
Skickat: den 2 juni 2001 00:03
Till: Dimitris Dimitriadis
Kopia: XML DEV
Ämne: Re: Copyrighting schemas, Hailstorm


> What's your view on if it were a public system?

"iff" == "if and only if" ... public systems wouldn't have
owners per se, except sometimes the custodial interest
of a government.  That's not an "ownership" interest,
and it's one where decisions must be attuned to "seventh
generation" timeframes as well as explicitly valuing
diversity.  That means among other things no biases
towards bigger fish and against smaller ones; it's one
river that everyone shares, and keeps healthy.


> Btw, that was a significantly more concise and
> bandwith-saving answer than I gave.

It's a time-budgeting issue ... :)

- Dave

-----Ursprungligt meddelande-----
Från: David Brownell [mailto:david-b@pacbell.net]
Skickat: den 1 juni 2001 22:07
Till: Bullard, Claude L (Len); Dimitris Dimitriadis
Kopia: XML DEV
Ämne: Re: Copyrighting schemas, Hailstorm


> But the original question is if the means is
> system wide, can they assert ownership of means.

"Can" or "should"?  Iff it's a private system,
there would be no problem in either sense ...