Joho the Blog
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August 16, 2006
Eric Norlin has posted using my piece on pseudonymity as a springboard. Unfortunately, comments on his site are not showing up. Then, Kim Cameron, digital ID architect at Microsoft, reprinted Eric's piece, but I'm unable to leave a comment at his site either. So, I was going to post my comment here. But, since then, the debate has expanded (my contribution seems to have been the phrase "anonymity is the default"): Ben Laurie argues that anonymity should be the substrate of identity systems. (Kim replies.) David Kearns has posted on the topic, arguing that privacy, not anonymity, is the issue. He follows up here. Tom Maddox replies. And Eric has posted again. This time I think his argument is weaker because he defines anonymity in a way that I think probably no one else does — he does not count a cash transaction as anonymous — but this is in service of raising the important question of what we should learn from our real world experience. So, in lieu of leaving comments on other people's sites, here's an attempt to be clearer about what I mean by saying that anonymity should be the default. The Internet is a social medium. In fact, it is a social world, a new public space. We are in the process of inventing the types of selves and societies that inhabit this public space. Because these are selves, the nuances and subtleties are as great as humans can manage. Nothing is simple. We do have some experience with this, however. We have a real world. While obviously what we do — and who we are — on the Net keeps surprising us, we would be fools not to learn from the real world. So, here's something I think the real world teaches us. The term "anonymity" has a bad connotation because it's used primarily where there's an expectation of identification. We don't say that someone entered a movie theater anonymously unless we're implying that the person had reason to hide her identity, even though, in truth, anyone who pays cash for a theater ticket is entering it anonymously. So, because we use the term "anonymous" mainly where identification is expected, this may lead us to think that being identified is the usual state — the default state — in the real world. In fact, the rarity with which we use the term actually indicates that the opposite is the case: Anonymity is the default in the real world. That of course doesn't mean that we're always anonymous. There are zones where ID becomes the default by law or policy. And, in a small-ish town or within a work community, we may expect to know who everyone is. But, even so, the people in the small town are not entitled (by law or custom) to demand to see a drivers license of a visiting aunt walking down the street. You need a special justification (in the real world) for demanding ID, but you don't need special justification for not demanding ID. Of course that doesn't mean that anonymity should be the default online, just as e-commerce sites shouldn't replicate the real world experience of waiting on check-out lines. But, it's worth looking at the real world in this case because it can help undo anonymity's bad reputation, so that we can make a better judgment about what we want online. Anonymity (including pseudonymity) does much good online. It also allows bad things to happen, but so does free speech. Before we tinker with the defaults, we ought to at least recognize what we may be giving up in the realms of (1) the political, (2) the social, and (3) the personal. 1. Anonymity allows people to say and do things that those in power don't like. It enables dissidents to speak and whistleblowers to blow their whistles. 2. Anonymity allows people to say and learn about things from which social conventions otherwise would bar them. It helps a confused teen explore gender issues. 3. Anonymity (and especially pseudonymity) enables a type of playing with our selves (yes, I know what I just said) that may turn out to be transformative of culture and society. Anonymity also allows some awful things to happen more easily, but we can't fairly decide what we want to do about it unless we also acknowledge its benefits. Just as with free speech. As David Kearns points out, some of these issues have to do with privacy. Since I'm interested in norms, I don't want to stipulate definitions of "privacy" and "anonymity," which is probably the only way to make their relationship crisply clear. The fact is that the two terms, as we use them in the real world, are murky alone and in relation. Roughly, when we talk about anonymity, we generally mean not knowing who I am, whereas when we talk about privacy, we generally mean not knowing things about me. (Logically, privacy includes anonymity since who I am is something to know about me, but in practice we use the terms separately.) In many instances, a strong right to privacy confers the benefits of anonymity. But, the real not-knowing of anonymity may be required in some regimes for people to feel free to speak. And it may have a subtle, liberating effect on the selves we're building in the new connected public. Worse — at least if you insist on clarity — both terms are complex and gradated. Privacy is obviously something we can parcel out in dribs and drabs; that's what the new digital identity management systems enable. Anonymity sounds more binary, but because "who we are" is complex, so are the ways in which we can hold back information about who we are. An anonymous donor has probably identified herself to the organization that has agreed to withhold her name. An anonymous author may disclose that she has twenty years experience in the trade she's writing about. An anonymous stranger who runs after you with the wallet you dropped makes no effort to hide her face, even if she refuses to give her name. And the range of ways in which we are pseudonymous is enormous. We don't have to sort this out entirely. Privacy, anonymity, publicness, resonsibility, shame, freedom, self, community...these and other core terms are properly in a royal stew of meaning. Before we have all this clear, we're going to have to make some decisions. My fear is that we are in the process of building a new platform for identity in order to address some specific problems. We will create a system that, like packaged software, has defaults built in. The most important defaults in this case will not be the ones explicitly built into the system by the software designers. The most important defaults will be set by the contingencies of an economic marketplace that does not particularly value anonymity, privacy, dissent, social role playing, the exploration of what one is ashamed of, and the pure delight of wearing masks in public. Economics will drive the social norms away from the social values emerging. That is my fear. I have confidence that the people designing these systems are going to create the right software defaults. The people I know firsthand in this are privacy fanatics and insistent that individuals be in control of their data. This is a huge and welcome shift from where digital ID was headed just a few years ago. We all ought to sigh in relief that these folks are on the job. But, once these systems are in place, vendors of every sort will of course require strong ID from us. If I want to buy from, say, Amazon, they are likely to require me to register with some ID system and authenticate myself to them...far more strongly and securely than I do when I pay with a credit card in my local bookstore. Of course, I don't have to shop at Amazon. But why won't B&N make the same demand? And Powells? And then will come the blogs that demand I join an ID system in order to leave a comment. How long before I say, "Oh, to hell with it," and give in? And then I've flipped my default. Rather than being relatively anonymous, I will assume I'm relatively identified. Does that matter? I think it does, for the political, social and person reasons mentioned above. Don't make me also argue against being on one's best behavior and against being accountable for everything one does! I'm willing to do it! I will pull this car over and do it! Just try me! The basic problem is, in my opinion, that the digital ID crew is approaching this as a platform issue. Most places on the Web have solved the identity problem sufficiently for them to operate. Some ask for the three digits on the back of your credit card. Some only sign you up if you confirm an email. Some only let you on if you can convince an operator you know the name of your first pet and the senior year season record of your high school's football team. Sites come up with solutions as needed. Good. Local solutions to local problems are less likely to change norms and defaults. But the push is on for an identity management platform. It's one solution — federated, to be sure — that solves all identity problems at once. If you want to change a social default, build a platform. That's not why they're building it, but that will (I'm afraid) be the effect. It's not enough that anonymity be possible or permitted by the platform. The default isn't about what's permitted but about what's the norm. If the default changes to being naked at the beach, saying, "Well, you can cover up if you want to," doesn't hide the fact that wearing a bathing suit now feels way different. Yes, there's something wrong - and distracting - about the particulars of this analogy. But I think the overall point is right: We're talking about defaults, not affordances. There are serious problems caused by weaknesses in current identity solutions. Identity theft is nothing to sneer at, for example. But are we sure we want to institute a curfew instead of installing better locks?* [Tags: privacy digital_identity anonymity pseudonymity] *The curfews-vs.-locks trope has started to sound familar to me. If I swiped it, it was unintentional... Posted
by D. Weinberger at August 16, 2006 03:01 PM
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Comments
I think it's interesting, as well, to note how much "tracking users" is considered standard-practice among web sites / services, and how this may skew digital ID system designers to assume too little about anonymity.
Tracking users with a combination of logins and cookies, tied to logs and IP addresses, allows websites (and their operators, and in some cases, their operators' governments, etc.) to know who you are. Web 2.0 has brought in some cross-polination and centralization of web services such that decentralized sites report identifiable information about your computer back to centralized services (like Yahoo, Google, etc.).
To the degree that this user tracking is believed to be in the users' interests, I think it's natural to see digital ID as, functionally, not much more than simplifying the existing tracking that already identifies us through more complicated means.
If the common practice were that sites / services didn't track users, and only identified users for the smallest windows when their identification was essential, I think the extent to which digital ID could be intrusive might be more obvious.
Posted by: Jay Fienberg | August 16, 2006 05:51 PM
Have you heard of "Piratartiet" ?
It's the pirate party that is goin to enter the swedish parlament at the following election.
It started at the time of 'Pirate bay' shout down, remember ?
Now they launched a service for easy anonymity online, have a look, it s more like a manifesto
https://www.relakks.com/
Posted by: gianluca baccanico | August 17, 2006 07:18 AM
I agree
David, I've just received the JOHO newsletter. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. You say:
The people I know firsthand in this are privacy fanatics and insistent that individuals be in control of their data. This is a huge and welcome shift from where digital ID was headed just a few years ago. We all ought to sigh in relief that these folks are on the job.
I consider myself, and the people who works with me at the Tractis project, some of those "privacy fanatics". I also believe "anonymity" is one of the key ingredients that make cyberspace such a wonderful place for collaboration, sharing, innovation and human progress. I undersand your point: "Anonymity is the norm in meatspace. We're subverting that principle in cyberspace".
But it's unavoidable
Tim Berners-Lee says in "Weaving the Web" that the web is for everybody (companies included) and for everything (commerce included). And they walk their talk. Have a look at the W3C's "Future" webpage:
W3C is exploring ways to provide users and service providers more confidence in their transactions and easier identity management. The traditional public key infrastructure will also need to be augmented to accommodate the richness of different ways of life on the Web. Look at the standards they're promoting in the ID space: XAdES, XKMS, XKISS,… At the same time, major browsers are already prepared to work with PKI systems. I know this because we're right now developing Tractis on top of capicom, pkcs11, etc… all the needed pieces to complete the puzzle. The new architecture.
Some time ago I read "A brief history of the future", a wonderful book by John Naughton:
The implication is that Cyberspace - the most gloriously open, uncensored and unregulated public space in human history -could easily become the most controlled and regulated environment imaginable. That is the fear that pervades Lessig's magnificient, sombre book - "that the invisible hand of cyberspace is building an architecture that is quite the opposite of what it was at cyberspace's birth. The invisible hand, trough commerce, is constructing an architecture that perfects control - an architecture that makes possible highly efficient regulation".
Well, this is not a menace anymore. It's already happening. It has already happened (watch this video). The government in Belgium and Spain are already deploying national ID cards schemes. I got mine one month ago. There's a European Union Directive establishing a favorable framework for electronic signatures and several governments (not companies) are in different phases (or pressing) to implement it: France, England, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Estonia (how do you say "Estonia" in english?), Denmark, Japan, China, India, Brazil, New Zealand, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile… even you in the US are having your piece of fun. We have even started a wiki to collect all of them. Even ebay has spent 400 million dollars to implement strong authentication in ebay's marketplace at the end of this year.
So, there you have it. A whole new layer (technological and legal) on top of the primal architecture that renders Lessig' "Code is Law" obsolete. Or better said, updates its meaning to: "There's a new Code, a new Law".
So, what do we do?
While a "Say no to governments! Let them hear your voice!" attitude will appeal to Boing Boing fanboys and gain some time to build a more serious strategy, in the end, it'll be useless. See what's happening with Net Neutrality.
As you point in your article, anonymity could be used for good or for nepharious purposes. Same aplies to identity. We have to reframe the discussion. Somebody said that asking the right question for a problem is 50% of the solution. What we really want is to avoid government messing with the Internet. Governments using IDs to watch and control people.
The solution lies in going back to the good old "Let's hack it" internet tradition. We have such great precedents and social hackers. Two examples:
- Richard Stallman: instead of viewing copyright law with suspicion, Stallman viewed it as yet another system begging to be hacked. The GPL is the best Stallman hack ever. "It created a system of communal ownership within the normally proprietary confines of copyright law". He used copyright law to build the GPL. By assigning a GPL to your work, you grant exclusive rights to the Free Sorftware Foundation, which use those rights to put the work in the commons. In other words, Stallman used the very law created by governments to escape from them.
- John Perry Barlow: When the Communications Decency Act threatened the Internet in 1996. Barlow challenged the CDA as a violation of the First Ammendment and the Supreme Court ruled the CDA as unconstitutional. Again, another social hacker, John Perry Barlow, used the very law created by governments to keep them out of the internet.
These leads to some interesting thoughts about whether the internet is a truly an unregulated space or actually relies heavily in meatspace regulation to remain independent. Anyway, what it shows for sure is that you can effectively hack the law to avoid government interference with the net. That's what we are trying to do. Hyperlinks subvert Laws ;). To build a system where anonymity is an option, but also tokens, PGP, digital certificates… you choose. A place where you can use contract law to escape from governments laws. A platform where companies solve their trust, confidence, lack of recourse problems without government intervention. An online transnational justice system for the Internet nation. From the netizens, for the netizens, by the netizens. The task is huge. Any help is appreciated.As Prodigy used to say: "Fuck their law".
Posted by: David Blanco | August 22, 2006 10:13 PM
I signed up 7 years ago as a Cluetrain signatory to a manifesto which a whole bunch of people agreed that markets are conversations. No sooner as I understood that the human voice should get through the corporate wall, the whole idea of personal branding kicked into high gear with concepts such as Brand You.
I think some of the Cluetrain signatories must have just moved a few blocks up and created their own brands. Now human voice isn’t contending with the corporate wall, but also with personal brand because the meme that should have crossed barriers became a meme that necessitated becoming self-promotional products. Fast forward to today, and we see a movement from branding self to identifying self.
Nothing wrong with identifying self because trust is an important component of group interaction, but identifying self seems to be moving from Web 1.0 self branding and gravitating to Web 2.0 narcissism. If Web 1.0 was a promotional vehicle for the self, Web 2.0 is becoming outright devotional to the self. The history of dumb human interactions that seemed to be caused by corporate silo’s and linear mechanistic approaches to life was actually fueled by a willing participation of a culture that operated more effectively on the basis of engaging stupidity.
Seven years later there is a far deeper disconnection within the mainstream body of people, and consequently we as a society are not seven years more mature as a societal body about grasping issues of identity. We have seemed to regressed in terms of Socrates Maxim “To Knowing Thyself” but rather gravitated to “To Know Thy Network”. So the question of identity platforms is quite meaningless to me at a personal level, because it is no longer about anonymity or privacy but simply silence.
Silence is ability to get through this life without muttering a single opinion or reflection and in many ways seems to be an appropriate response to identity management. Is it better today to simply shut up and watch a web world become a series of personal checkpoints.? It isn’t really identity management we are seeing today, it is a combination of cashflow and narcissism management.
As for me the only identities I would like to understand are all those people who signed the cluetrain manifesto with me. Where are they now? If they are not stuck in some identity platform on Planet Social, would any of them agree with me that we have regressed in terms of the human voice or do they have evidence that I am ignorant of, that we have not moved towards a world of increasingly virtual boundaries?
Posted by: Manjit Syven Birk | August 22, 2006 10:40 PM
Dear friend,
this is not exactly a comment, but I'm posting it here so that it is subject-specific and facilitates our communication.
I have translated the main body of the article on "anonymity as the default" in the greek language and it appears on our site at
reconstruction . gr
As our site is bilingual, I took the liberty to post the original version there too.
We are a group interested in the urban landscape and the discourses and corollary actions around life in big cities and more specific to our city, Athens.
Our group, initially sent out some "anonymous" emails, in order to assess reactions and the interest of people in participating, irrespective of "names" and affiliations, with emphasis on the issues.
We have been signing with our names all specific projects and articles posted since, but we are still debating the issue and want to defend the possibility of anonymous speech, in order to protect the option for people to express themselves free from restrictions imposed by economic and other only too real dependences.
I thought that it was useful for all of us to read your article and follow the debate even further; I have provided links to Kim Cameron and others.
I have to point out that I have made two changes:
1) the title which seemed to work better in the translation was "anonymity as the norm". This was a title you seemed to consider too. So, I adopted this title.
2) For reasons regarding our debate, I have separated your article in two thematic parts: the first, more theoretical and general, the other more specific, on the subject of a platform to solve all identification issues. The first part interested our group more, but I didn't want to truncate the article.
Hopefully, the debate in our group will produce a series of small articles from members, to be published (and translated in English) in the near future. I wanted the translation of your article to be a starting point for further dialogue.
If there is any problem of copyright, or you disagree with our postings please let us know!
Best
Manos Kornelakis
Posted by: Manos Kornelakis | November 12, 2006 10:30 AM
On personal opinion, I find this very helpful.
Guys, I have also posted some more relevant info further on this, not sure if you find it useful: http://www.bidmaxhost.com/forum/
Posted by: guanhua | March 22, 2007 11:21 AM
Hopefully, the debate in our group will produce a series of small articles from members, to be published (and translated in English) in the near future. I wanted the translation of your article to be a starting point for further dialogue.
Posted by: Alan | June 30, 2007 03:14 AM