Identity Woman

Independent Advocate for the Rights and Dignity of our Digital Selves

Archives for March 2007

Flickr SUCKS

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They are forcing us to merge our identities. I thought they decided not to do this. They let us keep our old way of logging in.
I joined FLICKR not YAHOO.
I really don’t care that they got bought. I do care that my login is being merged.
Does anyone know a good alternative to Flickr/Yahoo that uses openID?

2. On March 20th, 2007 we’ll be discontinuing the old email-based Flickr sign in system. From that point on, everyone will have to use a Yahoo! ID to sign in to Flickr.
We’re making this change now to simplify the sign in process in advance of several large projects launching this year, but some Flickr features and tools already require Yahoo! IDs for sign in — like the mobile site at m.flickr.com or the new Yahoo! Go program for mobiles, available at http://go.yahoo.com.
If you still sign in using the email-based Flickr system (here), you can make the switch at any time in the next few months, from today till the 15th. (After that day, you’ll be required to merge before you continue using your account.) To switch, start at this page: http://flickr.com/account/associate/
Complete details and answers to most common questions are available here: http://flickr.com/help/signin/
If you have questions or comments about signing in with a Yahoo! ID, speak up!

INVITATION: Internet Identity Workshop & IOS

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Here is the invitation to the IIW that I will be sending out via e-mail over the next week. Please pass it along to others who might be interested in attending.

Internet Identity Workshop (IIW) May 14-16, 2007
Computer History Museum, Mountainview CA.
In Europe there is a similar event that I am facilitating as well.
Identity Open Space April 26-27 in Brussels.
The Interenet Identity Workshop is about moving user-centric identity ideas and technologies forward. Come to this event to learn more, participate in the community and shape the future of the web.

What is User-Centric Identity?
User-centric identity starts with the individual, and his or her needs. It is about working relationships and services between individuals and retailers, employers, membership bodies, and organizations of any kind. It is not about a centralized solution, or anybody’s silo. As such it solves different problems than the familiar ones of providing authentication and authorization services within a single organization, or federation between different organizations.
What is going on in the field?
OpenID is emerging as a protocol for SSO across the web.

  • It has major adoptions from sites like AOL, Digg, FaceBook, and
  • open source platforms like MediaWiki, WordPress, Drupal, Joomla using it,
  • startups are forming around this emerging field like NetMesh, Sxip, and JanRain,
  • and reputation services are emerging like Opinity and Jyte.

Legal and Social issues about norms and uses of identity continue to surface.

  • How can I share my information and know it will not be misused?
  • How can we innovate better End User License Agreements?
  • How do young people, men, women and diverse groups understand and represent identity differently online?
  • How do online and offline identity relate?
  • How does ‘official identity‘ and ‘web constructed identities’ relate?
  • What is the role of anonymity and pseudonimity and how are they explicitly supported in this ecology?

What about Mobile Devices and Identity?
Vendor Relationship Management as an potential market segment is emerging
Microsoft Cardspace has been released on to Vista and XP desktops and Symantec has a user-centric Identity management product for the desktop.
There are several Open Source efforts to weave tools together – like Higgins, OSIS, Bandit.
Liberty protcols continue to be deoployed in enterprise and on the web.
Who is going to be there?
User-centric identity is an extremely active and growing conversation involving many converging development efforts — by open source communities, by vendors large and small, and by customers of all sizes. Internet Identity Workshops are where Mozilla, Symantec Microsoft, IBM, Novell, Liberty Alliance, WS*, Verisign, Red Hat, SixApart, Kintera, Sxip, Cordance, NetMesh, JanRain and many other projects and companies meet to work toward common goals and real solutions. They are joined by customers of all sizes as well.
You won’t find a higher ratio anywhere of real productivity to idle chat and marketing BS that are typical to many conferences. They are informal and purpose-driven. In every IIW so far, a high degree of progress has been made, within and between separate development efforts.
The workshops are organized by a working group within Identity Commons, and are run on Open Space practices and principles*. There are no formal presentations, no keynotes, no panels. Instead, topics are vetted and chosen by participants when the workshop convenes, and open meetings are organized and scheduled for the day that follows.
Still wondering if it will be good or not? Read what folks said about the May 2006 conference.

Cost:
We are committed to keeping this conference open and accessible. If you want to come we want you there. If cost is an issue please contact us and we can discuss how to make it work.
* Students – $50
* Independents – $175
* Corporate – $300
The fees are used to cover the cost of the venue, organization, snacks and lunch both days. We encourage you to pre-register since we will limit attendance at the event to 200 people. The IIW workshop in December was strongly attended and we expect strong interest in this one as well.
If you would like to sponsor the event please contact us.
If you would like to speak at the event sign up to come…anyone can.
_______________________________
Related to all of this is the Identity Management Focus Group of the International Telecommunications Union – here is the wiki and their mailing lists. The April meeting is the 23-25th in Geneva and May 16-18 is concurrent with IIW for one day and then continues for 2 more. They meeting following that is in July in Japan.

Looking at Identity

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Andre has a great post that frames the identity zeitgeist.
Ancient History

  • PKI
  • Firewalls
  • My stack vs. your stack
  • Mooooaaannn

Mould

  • Strong Authentication
  • Federation & SSO
  • blah, blah, blah


Old

  • User-centric
  • Attribute Sharing
  • OpenID phishing
  • yak, yak, yak

Bold

  • Delegation
  • Smart clients
  • Protocol convergence
  • Identity meets payments
  • Just do it!

He has been in the business for 6 years. I thought my 3 years was a long time. The irony of it Mould and Old subjects is that it is still way early for all of those things beyond our circle – I had a conversation with a VC this past week and he said ‘I know there is something going on here – but it is still way to early.’ I hope that with the USA Today article that changes.

OpenID Going Mainstream

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OpenID made the front page of the Money Section of USA Today – Today.
From the community they quote, David Recordon, Scott Keveton, Brad Fitzpatrick, and Kim Cameron.

SAN FRANCISCO — An emerging technology standard could be the answer to a major headache: It lets consumers use the same user name and password for hundreds of websites that require a sign-in.

What an exciting day!

AOL launches cool OpenID enabled App: Ficlet

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Yesturday walking through the exhibit hall at SXSW the AOL Principle Product Managerd Micheal Cummins came up to me and said he had to show me this new OpenID enabled app – Ficlets.
It is a really cool idea – you get to start a story by writing a ficlet and other people get to continue it. The first thing that came to my mind was the fact that you could end up with collaboratively created Choose your own Adventure style stories.
The other thing that this makes clear is that someone inside AOL has read the Innovators Dilemma/solution and is supporting a creative culture within the company. With this I look forward to seeing what other cool apps/features emerged and how they can play in cultivating an thriving OpenID ecology.

Designing Experience is relevant to Identity

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Stop Designing Products was the name of the presentation by Peter Merholz from Adaptive Path.
I think the content of this talk is really important for us identity folks to think about. This past week I have been thinking about my own reason for being in identity as a field – because I wanted to support people being able to do things they couldn’t do without an identity layer. The core building blocks of the technology are finally here and their diffusion is beginning. So, this has got me thinking about what I would like to see built and how I want to contribute to projects building these things.
Yes after three years in this industry and starting out with a product project needed identity (but it didn’t exist). I do have some visions for products or perhaps more accurately visions of user experience that use identity that would be fun to manifest now that tools exist.

So back to the presentation at hand – Designing Experience.
It began with a sharing of some product development history – of the Kodak Camera and how they had a guiding star – You take the picture we will do the rest.
Triangle
POINT: Experience (cut to the point)
MIDDLE: Features (pile them on)
BASE: Technology (something you couldn’t do before)
Lesson: Start from the Experience
TiVo is an example.
Products are People Too
They Know Who they Are

(They are not trying to be something they are not)

As Designers and Programmers we think like this about products

data (Center)
logic (outside center)
user-interface (outer ring)
Data outward ->

But

They see the user-interface (Magic)
Outside In ->

He referenced Designing from the outside on O’Reilly Radar.
Experience Strategy
(collective shared by many people across many platforms)
You press the button and we do the rest. (Kodak)
Google Calendar – they had a vision…
Carl Sjogreen, Product manager)
Now they are nipping on the heals of Yahoo! Calendar.
Leapfrog potential when Experience Design.
Have a Star to sail ship by.
About Flickr has some good ones that are a filter for all decisions
Deliver on cohesive experience strategy.
THE EXPERIENCE IS THE PRODUCT.

I hate hotels!!!!

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I just got to South by Southwest in Austin and last night at the Hilton Garden Inn the Internet was free. By the time we checked out our bill was $200 for the night. TODAY a block away at the Hilton the conference hotel for an interactive event. The Internet is $10 A DAY ON TOP OF THE $250 a night we will end up paying. I HATE THIS. I HATE EXPENSIVE HOTELS THAT DON’T GIVE YOU THE INTERNET FOR FREE. IT IS ESSENTIAL NOT AN ADDITIONAL FEATURE LIKE A MINI BAR!!!!!!!!!

A Relationship with My School? Maybe if I make enough money.

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For those of you who don’t know I went to UC Berkeley. I recently got an e-mail from Ms. Elisabeth Scarborough from Simpson Scarborough a marketing firm specializing in higher education. I was invited to participate in a focus group about ow they could connect with alumni. I was really excited….because I LOVE MY SCHOOL and I want to connect with them better – I wanted to share how they could connect to me better.
The only catch was they wanted to know how much I give to non-profits every year. To me this was them asking “How rich are you?” and saying “We are really just trying to figure out how we can have a relationship with you so you will give us more money.” It was quite upsetting.
I wrote them back and said I would participate but also shared that I give almost no $ to non-profits (at this time in my life). I also said that I was a bit offended by this line if questioning. Apparently this disqualified me from participating. If I had a real relationship with my school that was founded on mutual respect and the ability to give gifts back that were more then money I am sure that in the long run I would give lots of money.
I know I would like to contribute to the women’s water polo team and specifically towards a scholarship for an out of country student. I have already thought about that. But apparently not giving to charity now in my recently out of college trying to get out of debt mode disqualifies me from sharing how they might connect with me a future donor.
I hope they get with it and read the ClueTrain manifesto and Doc’s latest riff on relationships. Oh yeah – they even have a “blog” currently on the top of pile is a post about “Brand Fatigue.”

Dear Kaliya:
This invitation is to take part in research and not a sales or fundraising solicitation.
We’re inviting you to participate in a focus group with other UC Berkeley alumni. SimpsonScarborough, a higher education market research firm, was hired by the University to conduct a study of alumni. The purpose of the focus groups with alumni is to explore a variety of issues including your thoughts on Berkeley’s image and how you stay connected with the University. At no time during the focus group will you be invited or encouraged to submit a gift to the University. In fact, you will be paid an honorarium of $50 in cash for your participation!
YIf you are able to participate, please email Meredith Simpson at
1. Full name
2. Phone number where you can be contacted
3. First choice date/time
4. Second choice date/time (if applicable)
5. The total amount you have donated to non-profit organizations in the last year (so that we may place you in the appropriate group)

Your participation in the focus group is extremely important. This study will guide Berkeley’s future efforts to communicate with alumni. Please respond today!
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Scarborough
President and Partner
SimpsonScarborough

Bots gone Bad

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I am hanging out in Portland today and the AboutUs offices. They are a wiki of the web. Mark Dilly their community manager just shared with me a fun Identity issue they have. Bots go around and scrape things and then Camel Case them – but some times they mess up. It seemed like a bit of light Identity Humor to share.

We had fun in Geneva IdMing

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I have been on a whirlwind of a month and not really had a tone of time to Blog. Mike Jones just sent some great pictures of our time at the ITU. Someone found the country placards and gave them out to us while we listened to Lee of Connection Commons give a friendly rant about the future of telco’s, the internet, identity and business models. Only 1/2 the people in the room have a “buddy list.”
I must thank David Recodon for being a great travel buddie on this trip. Two jetlagged brains are certainly better then one navigating the London underground between airports.
Open Space at the ITU was fun for all involved and a bit revolutionary for them. We got a wiki going for the event and ongoing work of the Working Groups. I am playing a bit of a “Paul Trevithick” role heading up the group on the Lexicon, and Ecosystem. I am going to really dive into that starting on the 15th or March when I finally land for 3 weeks at home.
David and I also stayed at Ben Laurie’s house (Thank You BEN and CAMILLA) on our way back and helped with the Identity Society Meeting that Luke and Mark helped out with at the BT Tower. We were lucky to be there. Apparently some of the Londoners in attendance had never been up in it ever.
We are headed back to Geneva in April from the 23-25 for meeting 2 of the Focus Group and then to Brussels for the Identity Open Space in association with Liberty Alliance on the 26-27. That starts at 11am on the 26th.
If you want to help with the Lexicon the first thing we are doing is collecting links to existing ones in standards groups or organization working on this topic. Send me a link or add one to the wiki page. We should have an e-mail list going by the end of the week. The ITU-T focus group on Identity Management will have its third meeting Internet Identity Workshop [16-18 of May] (the 16th will be part of the IIW open space and the 17-18 will be of site at Verisign). So don’t feel you have to get to Geneva to participate.

OpenID in the NYTimes

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I just got a note from my friend Jo Lee a woman active in the Nonprofit Tech sector (she developed citizen speak – the MoveOn for ultra local campaigns) that OpenID was in the NYTimes today.
Here is a link to the article where the reference is. (page one) and Page Two where the reference is.

Another challenge is persuading users to enter their information over and over when they join new online communities. To solve the problem, several firms are pushing a standard called OpenID, which would let users sign on and easily transfer profile information among social sites.
Marc Canter, a former Tribe.net consultant who has created his own social networking firm, People Aggregator, was an early supporter of OpenID. “Humans are migratory beasts, and we do not want to re-enter our data every time we join a new site,” he said. “Users own their data and should be able to move it around freely.”

It is interesting that Marc would say this about what OpenID does. Since all it does right now is let users authenticate porting their identifier around and if you use the simple extension a tiny amount of data. I hope that the community does find an open standards solution to data movement that empowers people. I think it is a bit irresponsible to tell the NYTimes that is what it actually ”does’ right now.