In response to Eric’s
musings,
Doc, Bryan, AKMA, Kevin and
I have been engaged in an email thread. With
their permission, I’ve bundled together the
messages, with some very minor cleanup (e.g.,
removing signoffs, etc.). You can read the loosely-raveled thread here.
Bryan: “In short, we may in the near term (e.g. 12-18 months) arrive at some truly great decentralized protocols for identity interchange, but find ourselves at the beginning of a long policy adoption battle between customers (who want decentralization, web-of-trust, etc.) and merchants (who want centralized trust authorities) over what is and isn’t an acceptable credential.”
You mean the credential’s reputation, based on issuance policy? That gives us a policy market. Maybe a lobbyist or ten. Transaction pricing based on credential risk. Big boards and over-the-counters. Armed credential enforcers and polite credential enforcers (stop or i’ll say stop again).
Anyone know why the launch of AmEx Blue’s smart card was so successful?
I think there is one element missing in this discussion..what are the applications that will make users desirous of having user controlled identity, where that identity isnt linked to currency, such as paypal. Without applications, digital identity is academic, and there isnt a large clamour from users for it. I suspect the answer lies in the person-person applications like blogging, IM and email, which is why the biggest arbiters of identity today are AOL, Yahoo, and MSN. But these identities are not user controlled.
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Bryan: “In short, we may in the near term (e.g. 12-18 months) arrive at some truly great decentralized protocols for identity interchange, but find ourselves at the beginning of a long policy adoption battle between customers (who want decentralization, web-of-trust, etc.) and merchants (who want centralized trust authorities) over what is and isn’t an acceptable credential.”
You mean the credential’s reputation, based on issuance policy? That gives us a policy market. Maybe a lobbyist or ten. Transaction pricing based on credential risk. Big boards and over-the-counters. Armed credential enforcers and polite credential enforcers (stop or i’ll say stop again).
Anyone know why the launch of AmEx Blue’s smart card was so successful?
Folks,
I think there is one element missing in this discussion..what are the applications that will make users desirous of having user controlled identity, where that identity isnt linked to currency, such as paypal. Without applications, digital identity is academic, and there isnt a large clamour from users for it. I suspect the answer lies in the person-person applications like blogging, IM and email, which is why the biggest arbiters of identity today are AOL, Yahoo, and MSN. But these identities are not user controlled.
I wrote some more thoughts on this at:
http://tig.nareau.com/2002/12/29.html#a311
I’m wondering what people think about this story of a technology, which is, much like RDF, in search of a userbase..
Thanks Rahul. I blogged a reply.
http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/mtarchive/001012.html