Freedom

Exciting SSI announcement was not well received by some

Kaliya Young · December 17, 2018 ·

The Microsoft-Mastercard SSI alliance is great news, but some thought it was a bad thing.

By all accounts, Fast Company’s Cale Guthry Weissman is a good reporter who knows his audience. Informed that Microsoft and Mastercard were partnering to create a new kind of digital identity, he went to get some answers, assessed the situation, and wrote an article that called the alliance “frightening”

But the solution they offer–a one-stop, universal identification for any and all applications–would mean that every citizen would be entering into a system built by private companies that centralizes all of their personal data. Every digital company wants to be a data hoover, and this program seems to underscore the extent of this pursuit.
[…]
Overall, this announcement speaks to a common tone-deafness among large companies when it comes to privacy. While proving digital identity can certainly be onerous, some solutions may only imperil us even more.

Microsoft and Mastercard have a frightening plan to create “digital identities”, Fast Company 12/04/18

Weissman can be forgiven for such a sentiment; tech companies have a well earned reputation for turning their users into unwitting laborers on data farms. But it should be noted that Mastercard isn’t “a tech company”. When Weissman reached the global credit card company for comment they explained their bold new venture with excitement, emphasising that they’re going to use trusted sources to give control to the user, who will “share only the information needed to conduct their transactions,” but it didn’t really seem to take. They came off like someone who walked into a party wearing a set of Google Glass, then tried to use the uncomfortable pause that it created to explain how his dork goggles weren’t just a mass surveillance tool, they were also going to change the world! The spokesman would have done better to explain that SSI applications are explicitly NOT “centralized” as Weissman came away understanding, but they appear to have got a bit carried away.

“The next update will let me see into your soul, but it’s nothing to worry about.”

It seems like a good solution because it is a good solution, but Mastercard won’t be able to sell it themselves

We have no reason to doubt that Mastercard’s excitement is earnest. Credit card companies live the third-party verification problem every day, because they’re third party verifiers. Mastercard sees ease-of-use and fraud prevention savings in this project that are meaningful, and are excited about being able to achieve them without having to handle customer data. They’re telling their merchants and cardholders: “Look! You’re going to FINALLY have control of your own verification process! No more 2 pieces of ID with a credit card, and we don’t even have to hand the process over to a data-harvesting behemoth to get it done! (You just know Facebook or Amazon would have underbid anyone to get their hands on card verification contract, and for all the wrong reasons.) But Fast Company isn’t inclined to take them at their word. After all, they are partnering with Microsoft, who would surely know what to do with a bunch of cardholder and merchant data.
Microsoft, for their part, declined comment, which is interesting since they have so many good people working on this project who could comment eloquently including Daniel Buchner, Pamela Dingle and Kim Cameron among others. Perhaps from the PR department the silence is born of experience. Microsoft is the butt of the funniest tech jokes, and is aware of the shadow they cast. There isn’t anything they say to the general public to convince them that an identity play they’re making isn’t just another way to sink their tentacles into their users a bit further. The process knowledge just isn’t out there. Best say nothing until it’s ready.

Microsoft have good reasons to be this helpful.

The Microsoft that dominated the 90s and early oughts got their lunch eaten by Google, Facebook and Amazon, who cornered users into a Faustian bargain that they didn’t even know they were making. Microsoft’s unbreakable hold on the enterprise software market financed attempts to compete in the data and advertising realm, but it’s clear by now that beating data harvesters at their own game isn’t in the company’s DNA. This identity play may be Microsoft doing the next best thing: taking them out at the knees by giving the data control back to the customers.
Facebook is able to give access Cambridge Analytica and others access to user data by virtue of the fact that they have it. They could (and still do) broker access to users via their data, because they have ongoing user consent. If the user revokes that consent, nobody is checking if they’re honouring that revocation.
But they can’t sell what they don’t have. A user-centred permissions system would allow individuals to give Twitch streaming access to their X-Box ONE account, or not. LinkedIN could offer seamless work history verification, which would allow for an easy transition into the corporate HR services business, handling payroll, insurance and benefits for enterprises – all newly simplified user centric verifiable credentials. There are all sorts of places Microsoft can organically grow their core software business once the framework is in place to allow users and organizations to provide and revoke data from each other… once they can get over concerns people have over how the system actually operates.
There is not yet an SSI killer app. While Microsoft would no doubt like very much to develop one, they’re probably just as happy having someone else strike the discovery vein that gets the public’s attention. Once the user base gets wise to their new-found control, a self-sovereign-ID-enabled Microsoft will be in a position to enter the 2020s as a major player in this new market place of decentralized identity and credentials under the true control of the user.
(With files from Braden Maccke. Feature image courtesy Humans Unlimited Blog.)

The Identity Film from IIW

Kaliya Young · October 19, 2016 ·

This film is getting released at IIW. When it is up it will be posted below.

Talk at TEDx Brussels

Kaliya Young · October 19, 2016 ·

I was invited to give a talk at TEDx Brussels.
I explain Identity in the context of the Future. Enjoy!

Rethinking Personal Data: 3 WEF reports

Kaliya Young · October 19, 2016 ·

I met Marc Davis at SXSW in 2010, we instantly clicked and began working together. He was on contract to develop pre-reading material for a WEF meeting in the fall about Personal Data. I contributed significantly to the document which became the basis of the first Rethinking Personal Data project Report, Personal Data the Emergence of a New Asset Class. [click on the image to download the report].

I remained actively engaged in the project and two of the Appendixes in the 2nd report were authored by me. The MindMap of Personal Data Types and the Value Network Analysis of the Exploitive Personal Data Ecosystem (Both of these are in the My Data, My Value, 6 Sense Making Diagrams) [Click on the image to download the report PDF]

Diagrams that appeared in the third report I helped sketch out with Bill Hoffman. Here is the Third WEF report PDF [click on the document image].

WEF Report #3 write up on my Blog.

WEF Report #3: Unlocking the Value of Personal Data!

Identity and Social Justice

Kaliya Young · October 18, 2016 ·

I co-presented Identification and Social Justice with Bob Blakley who is the Global Director, Information Security Innovation at Citi as the closing keynote at the Cloud Identity Summit in Colorado.
I gave this presentation in 2012 at the Cloud Identity Summit as the Closing Keynote address. It highlights issues that surround the rich having privilege and able to manage their identities more favorably then the poor.

Identification and social justice from Kaliya “Identity Woman” Young

Facebook so called "real names" and Drag Queens

Kaliya Young · September 25, 2014 · Leave a Comment

So, Just when we thought the Nym Wars were over at least with Google / Google+.
Here is my post about those ending including a link to an annotated version of all the posts I wrote about my personal experience of it all unfolding.
Facebook decided to pick on the Drag Queens – and a famous group of them the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Back then I called for the people with persona’s to unite and work together to resist what Google was doing. It seems like now that Facebook has taken on the Drag Queens a real version of what I called at the time the Million Persona March will happen.
One of those affected created this graphic and posted it on Facebook by Sister Sparkle Plenty:

Facebook meets with LGBT Community Over Real Name Policy on Sophos’ Naked Security blog.
EFF covers it with Facebook’s Real Name Policy Can Cause Real World Harm in LGBT Community.
Change.org has a petition going. Facebook Allow Performers to Use Their Stage Names on their Facebook Accounts.

Help co-create the Data Seder

Kaliya Young · February 6, 2013 · 1 Comment

Here is how I put forward the idea to a friend…
Me: Hey, so you know about Passover?
A: Yes, there is a meal… and its a jewish holiday
Me: Yes, its a religious service over a meal to retell the story of the jews escaping from Slavery in egypt 1000’s of years ago.
It is a celebration of Freedom.
We are uptdating it for the contemporary struggle to free our data.
We want to raise consciousness about current data practices through a modern version of the Seder Meal
Join us on our mailing list (and soon on the wiki)
I am also going to be seeking input from leaders of multiple faiths about what their tradition has to say about identity and data rights in the digital age. Feel free to contact me if you know a faith leader we might approach for such a statement.
There will be a physical seder in Oakland – but we are hoping the service we develop can happen all over.

Is Google+ is being lynched by out-spoken users upset by real names policy?

Kaliya Young · August 28, 2011 · 5 Comments

Following my post yesterday Google+ says your name is “Toby” not “Kunta Kinte”, I chronicled tweets from this morning’s back and forth with Tim O’Reilly and Kevin Marks, Nishant Kaushik, Phil Hunt, Steve Bogart and Suw Charman-Anderson.
I wrote the original post after watching the Bradley Horwitz (@elatable) – Tim O’Reilly (@timoreilly) interview re: Google+. I found Tim’s choice of words about the tone (strident) and judgement (self-righteous) towards those standing up for their freedom to choose their own names on the new social network being rolled out by Google internet’s predominant search engine disappointing. His response to my post was to call me self-righteous and reiterate that this was just a market issue.
I myself have been the victim of a Google+ suspension since July 31st and yesterday I applied for a mononym profile (which is what it was before they insisted I fill out my last name which I chose to do so with my online handle and real life identity “Identity Woman”)
In the thread this morning Tim said that the kind of pressure being aimed at Google is way worse then anything they are doing and that in fact Google was the subject of a “lynch mob” by these same people. Sigh, I guess Tim hasn’t read much history but I have included some quotes form and links to wikipedia for additional historial context.
Update: inspired in part by this post an amazing post “about tone” as a silencing/ignoring tactics when difficult, uncomfortable challenges are raised in situations of privilege was written by Shiela Marie.
I think there is a need for greater understanding all around and that perhaps blogging and tweeting isn’t really the best way to address it. I know that in the identity community when we first formed once we started meeting one another in person and really having deep dialogues in analogue form that deeper understanding emerged. IIW the place we have been gathering for 6 years and talking about the identity issues of the internet and other digital systems is coming up in mid-October and all are welcome. The agenda is created live the day of the event and all topics are welcome.
Here’s the thread… (oldest tweets first)
Note all the images of tweets in this thread are linked to the actual tweet (unless they erased the tweet). [Read more…] about Is Google+ is being lynched by out-spoken users upset by real names policy?

Lets try going with the Mononym for Google+

Kaliya Young · August 27, 2011 · 6 Comments

Seeing that Google+ is approving mononyms for some (Original Sai, on the construction of names Additional Post) but not for others (Original Stilgherrian Post Update post ).
I decided to go in and change my profile basically back to what it was before all this started. I put a ( . ) dot in the last name field. In my original version of my google proflile my last name was a * and when they said that was not acceptable I put my last name as my online handle “Identity Woman”.
[Read more…] about Lets try going with the Mononym for Google+

Google+ and my "real" name: Yes, I'm Identity Woman

Kaliya Young · July 31, 2011 · 25 Comments

When Google+ launched, I went with my handle as my last name. This makes a ton of sense to me. If you asked most people what my last name is, they wouldn’t know. It isn’t “common” for me. Many people don’t even seem to know my first name. I can’t tell you how many times I have found myself talking with folks at conferences this past year and seeing ZERO lighbulbs going off when I say my name “Kaliya”, but when I say I have the handle or blog “Identity Woman” they are like “Oh wow! You’re Identity Woman… cool!” with a tone of recognition – because they know my work by that name.
One theory I have about why this works is because it is not obvious how you pronounce my name when you read it. And conversely, it isn’t obvious how you write my name when you hear it. So the handle that is a bit longer but everyone can say spell “Identity Woman” really serves me well professionally. It isn’t like some “easy to say and spell” google guy name like Chris Messina or Joseph Smarr or Eric Sachs or Andrew Nash. I don’t have the privilege of a name like that so I have this way around it.
So today…I get this

I have “violated” community standards when using a name I choose to express my identity – an identity that is known by almost all who meet me. I, until last October, had a business card for 5 years that just had Identity Woman across the top.

Display Name – To help fight spam and prevent fake profiles, use the name your friends, family, or co-workers usually call you. For example, if your full legal name is Charles Jones Jr. but you normally use Chuck Jones or Junior Jones, either of these would be acceptable. Learn more about your name and Google Profiles.

The Trouble with Trust, & the case for Accountability Frameworks for NSTIC

Kaliya Young · July 31, 2011 · 3 Comments

There are many definitions of trust, and all people have their own internal perspective on what THEY trust.
As I outline in this next section, there is a lot of meaning packed into the word “trust” and it varies on context and scale. Given that the word trust is found 97 times in the NSTIC document and that the NSTIC governing body is going to be in charge of administering “trust marks” to “trust frameworks” it is important to review its meaning.
I can get behind this statement: There is an emergent property called trust, and if NSTIC is successful, trust on the web would go up, worldwide.
However, the way the word “trust” is used within the NSTIC document, it often includes far to broad a swath of meaning.
When spoken of in every day conversation trust is most often social trust.
[Read more…] about The Trouble with Trust, & the case for Accountability Frameworks for NSTIC

Freedom to Aggregate & Disaggregate oneself online.

Kaliya Young · August 19, 2009 · Leave a Comment

I presented this slide show at the Oxford Internet Institute meeting in April that considered A Global Framework for Identity Management.

You could sum it up this way – “stuff happens in peoples lives and the need the freedom to go online and get support for those things and not have it all linked back to their “real identity.”

The slides are moving (drawing from post secret post cards) and it is worth watching if you don’t think people need this freedom.

Freedom to Aggregate, Freedom to Disaggregate

View more documents from Kaliya Hamlin.

Web Mobs and Proposition 8

Kaliya Young · November 20, 2008 · 14 Comments

I am Canadian so you can probably guess how I would have voted if I could have on Proposition 8 (the California constitutional amendment to define marriage as only between a man and a woman).
My views are not the point of this post. I am very concerned about what is playing out – online and in real life between the two sides of this issues following the passage of the amendment.
First of all we live in a democracy – the people of California voted for it – albeit by a small percentage but that was the will of the people.
When I look at this I think well the way the NO side wins is by doing all the work the YES side did last time – only better. They go and put an amendment to the constitution on the ballot and then build support for it.
The NO campaign assumed it couldn’t loose, was badly organized, didn’t have a comprehensive strategy for building support for its side across diverse communities throughout California. (The YES campaign was on the ground engaging with the black church community for example – they never saw anyone from the NO side come to their communities to engage them on the issue).
As the vote approach the NO side in a final very flawed move started attacking in television adds those who funded the YES side of the proposition and in particular the Mormon Church.
It was this turn of events that has lead into quite disturbing actions and behaviors by the NO campaign post election.
The blacklisting and subsequent public harassment and targeting of specific people and specific religious groups for their beliefs and support of YES on prop 8 is wrong.

I take this personally, I have and do work with people who are Mormon – (When I played water polo in university and in the Identity field). I respect the LDS church and the people in it – they have good values. Their religion is a very American one too (like Christian Science its origins are on this continent). Watch the Frontline/American Experience 4 hour documentary on the history of the church and their experience as a people/religious group.
A close personal family member I know also voted YES and for all I know could have donated.
When mobs start appearing at places of residence of YES contributors and their businesses. It makes me worried.
I thought about this issue earlier in the campaign when I wrote this post There are a lot of donkey’s in my neighborhood (and I know who they are)
From The Hive:

because she did about 60 gay ‘activists’ went to her restaurant and strong armed her in a scene reminiscent to Nazi Germany. They went down a list of people who gave as little as 100 dollars to boycott, harrass and attack them. They went there to ‘confront’ her for giving a measley hundred bucks based on her personal faith that she has had since childhood. They argued with her and it was reported by local news reporters was a “heated” confrontation.
So is this the America we want? Where if a private citizen wants to participate in the governmental process that they be harrassed and acosted. Their freedom of speech chilled by thugs.

From the NY Times:

The artistic director, Scott Eckern, came under fire recently after it became known that he contributed $1,000 to support Proposition 8…
In a statement issued on Wednesday morning, Mr. Eckern said that his donation stemmed from his religious beliefs — he is a Mormon — and that he was “deeply saddened that my personal beliefs and convictions have offended others.”

From the SF Chronicle:

Phillip Fletcher, a Palo Alto dentist who donated $1,000 to the campaign, is featured prominently on a Web site listing donors targeted for boycott. He said two of his patients already have left over the donation.

This is the site of the Anti Gay Blacklist Then there is a blog called Stop the Mormons.
The night Obama won and there was a party in the main street 6 blocks from my house – I had a moment of insight into the future. This was a happy celebratory Mob – it was basically safe. People were texting their friends and telling them where it was inviting them to join. I Tweeted about it so 900 people knew about it and where it was. I also knew that this new technology of texting and presence based real time information creates an increased capacity for mob formation. It made me wonder about the cultural skills and capacities we need to develop to interrupt mob behavior turning bad.
I think what is going on with the blacklists – that are directly targeting people in their private life is wrong. I think targeting specific religious institutions for protest is wrong.
These people and these religious institutions are not propagating HATE they are just not agreeing that marriage can be between a man and a man or a woman and a woman. This is a cultural difference of opinion.
I “get” where many of the gay activists are coming from – but it is not a place that will get them what they want. Many “fled” to the Bay Area to find a community and place where they could be who they were (gay, lesbian, queer, transgender etc). They were raised in conservative churches in other parts of the country that may have been explicitly anti-gay. They likely have strong feelings against these institutions and similar ones. It does not make it OK to the hate these people and act out against them. (If they want to proactively work on cultural change within these communities – Soul Force is doing a good job using nonviolence to work on change.)
We in the identity community need to understand what has unfolded here. The No on Prop 8 groups are using publicly available information. However this used to be information you could get if you went and asked for the paper versions from the court house. So it was public but with high friction to get the information. The web lowers the cost of getting this information (close) to zero – Daniel Solove writes about the change in publicly available information in the Digital Person.
I wonder about how we can balance the need to know who has contributed to political campaigns and propositions while at the same time prevent harassment and the emergence of negative physical and cyber mobs.

Lessig on the FCC and Internet

Kaliya Young · March 9, 2008 · Leave a Comment

Lessig is on to corruption this is quoted from a recent interview he gave on the subject:

One of the biggest targets of reform that we should be thinking about is how to blow up the FCC. The FCC was set up to protect business and to protect the dominant industries of communication at the time, and its history has been a history of protectionism — protecting the dominant industry against new forms of competition — and it continues to have that effect today. It becomes a sort of short circuit for lobbyists; you only have to convince a small number of commissioners, as opposed to convincing all of Congress. So I think there are a lot of places we have to think about radically changing the scope and footprint of government.
Most interesting to me was when I was doing research very early on about this, and I talked to someone who was in the Clinton administration. They were talking about Al Gore’s original proposal for Title VII of the Communications Act. Title II deals with telecom and Title VI deals with cable and Title VII was going to be an Internet title. And Title VII was going to basically say, no regulation except for minimal interconnect requirements — so it would be taking away both DSL and cable and putting them under one regulatory structure that minimized regulation of both. When this idea was floated on the Hill, it was shot down. The answer came back was, “We can’t do this! How are we going to raise money from these people if we’ve deregulated all of this?”
So I completely agree. I think we’ve got to recognize that the way the system has functioned is to insinuate regulation in all sorts of places that aren’t necessary in order to fuel this political machine of fundraising. There’s this great speech of Ronald Reagan’s in 1965 where he talks about how every democracy fails, because once people realize they can vote themselves premiums, that’s what they’re going to do, and they’ll bankrupt the nation. Well, he had it half right, in the sense there’s a system where people realize they can vote themselves the benefits and destroy the economy. But it’s not the poor who gathered together and created massive force in Washington to distribute income to them. It’s this weird cabal of politicians and special-interest insiders that have achieved this effect. Basically, they can pervert the economy and growth in ways that protect and benefit certain interests.

Kevin Kelly on Better then Free

Kaliya Young · February 16, 2008 · Leave a Comment

From Better Better Than Free:

The internet is a copy machine. At its most foundational level, it copies every action, every character, every thought we make while we ride upon it…..
When copies are super abundant, they become worthless.
When copies are super abundant, stuff which can’t be copied becomes scarce and valuable.
When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.
Well, what can’t be copied?
There are a number of qualities that can’t be copied. Consider “trust.” Trust cannot be copied. You can’t purchase it. Trust must be earned, over time. It cannot be downloaded. Or faked. Or counterfeited (at least for long). If everything else is equal, you’ll always prefer to deal with someone you can trust. So trust is an intangible that has increasing value in a copy saturated world.

He goes on to articulate the Eight Generatives Better Than Free:
Immediacy
Personalization
Interpretation
Authenticity
Accessibility
Embodiment
Patronage – people want to pay creators.
Findability

Olympic Athletes have 'right to blog' (with restrictions)

Kaliya Young · February 16, 2008 · 1 Comment

I have a posts in the wings about my experience of ‘security’ at Olympic like events – I participated in ‘the system’ for a few years of my life while on the Canadian National Water Polo Team.
I just found on slashdot. The restrictions they are putting on athletes freedom of speech. I was forced to sign a big legal agreement about what I would and wouldn’t do before i could attend the Pan American Games as an Athlete.
Is it the tone of things to come? Will people who attend certain kinds of events be forced to sign away their right to write about them to attend?

The IOC has given athletes the right to blog at the Beijing Games this summer, a first for the Olympics. They’re allowed, as long as they follow the many rules it set to protect copyright agreements, confidential information and security. The IOC said blogs by athletes ‘should take the form of a diary or journal’ and should not contain any interviews with other competitors at the games. They also should not write about other athletes. Still pictures are allowed as long as they do not show Olympic events. Athletes must obtain the consent of their competitors if they wish to photograph them. Also, athletes cannot use their blogs for commercial gain.”

That part at the end is just insulting to athletes too. If they made any money it wouldn’t be ‘that much’ and after a life time of sweat and training for the love of their sport. It would be a small gift. The whole system is set up to make money off athletes – they (the IOC) sells their performance to corporations to used to promote their products and services (worse still junk food (McDonalds) and sugar water (Coke) to the worlds children). Then some of that money goes to the National Olympic Committees. It bearly makes it back to the athletic programs that need money to train and prepare for the games. The budget of my National team was lower then that of my college varsity team. Mean while as an athlete – you make below what you would in a minimum wage job with the stipend they give you. I trained in Montreal and so couldn’t really supplement that with ‘work’ as I didn’t speak French and besides training takes up your life.

Yeah! for the Fourth Amendment

Kaliya Young · June 18, 2007 · Leave a Comment

I have been worried about this for a while (see this post from Dec 2006 and way back when in August 2005 when I first was alerted to this issue) Just when things were looking really grim on the online privacy front this ruling came in…..from Wired Blogs:

The ruling by the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Ohio upheld a lower court ruling that placed a temporary injunction on e-mail searches in a fraud investigation against Steven Warshak, who runs a supplements company best known for a male enhancement product called Enzyte. Warshak hawks Enzyte using “Smiling Bob” ads that have gained some notoriety.

The case boiled down to a Fourth Amendment argument, in which Warshak contended that the government overstepped its constitutional reach when it demanded e-mail records from his internet service providers. Under the 1986 federal Stored Communications Act (SCA), the government has regularly obtained e-mail from third parties without getting warrants and without letting targets of an investigation know (ergo, no opportunity to contest).

It is sort of odd that it is about penis spam but hey – freedom is freedom is freedom.
To reach its decision, the court relied on two amici curiae that presented compelling arguments for shoring up current privacy law with respect to e-mail. The article is worth reading in full.

Freedom of Speech Seriously Threatened.

Kaliya Young · January 22, 2007 · Leave a Comment

Some highlights from this Blog speak for itself. (I didn’t have time to do all the linking from the quotes so click through to get them.

The U.S. Government wants to force bloggers and online grassroots activists to register and regularly report their activities to Congress in the latest astounding attack on the internet and the First Amendment.
Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of GrassrootsFreedom.com, a website dedicated to fighting efforts to silence grassroots movements, states:
Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill currently before the Senate, would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report quarterly to Congress the same as the big K Street lobbyists. Section 220 would amend existing lobbying reporting law by creating the most expansive intrusion on First Amendment rights ever. For the first time in history, critics of Congress will need to register and report with Congress itself.

During an appearance with his wife Barbara on Fox News last November, George Bush senior slammed Internet bloggers for creating an “adversarial and ugly climate.”
– The White House’s own recently de-classified strategy for “winning the war on terror” targets Internet conspiracy theories as a recruiting ground for terrorists and threatens to “diminish” their influence.
– The Pentagon recently announced its effort to infiltrate the Internet and propagandize for the war on terror.
– In a speech last month, Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff identified the web as a “terror training camp,” through which “disaffected people living in the United States” are developing “radical ideologies and potentially violent skills.” Chertoff pledged to dispatch Homeland Security agents to local police departments in order to aid in the apprehension of domestic terrorists who use the Internet as a political tool.

Make no mistake, the internet, one of the greatest outposts of free speech ever created is under constant attack by powerful people who cannot operate within a society where information flows freely and unhindered. All these moves mimic stories we hear every week out of State Controlled Communist China, where the internet is strictly regulated and virtually exists as its own entity away from the rest of the web.

Just what I was afraid of.

Kaliya Young · December 21, 2006 · 1 Comment

From Slashdot: Federal prosecutors say they don’t need a search warrant to read your e-mail messages if those messages happen to be stored in someone else’s computer.
“We’re looking at a future in which almost all of our private papers are in the hands of third parties and not protected by the Fourth Amendment,” said Kevin Bankston, an attorney with the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation
I hope the EFF, ACLU, EPIC and everyone else who can possibly pile on to this one.
From the Star Tribue:

The government needs a search warrant if it wants to read the U.S. mail that arrives at your home. But federal prosecutors say they don’t need a search warrant to read your e-mail messages if those messages happen to be stored in someone else’s computer.
That would include all of the Big Four e-mail providers — Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail and Google — that together hold e-mail accounts for 135 million Americans.
Twenty years ago, when only a relative handful of scientists and scholars had e-mail, Congress passed a law giving state and federal officials broad access to messages stored on the computers of e-mail providers.
Now that law, the Stored Communications Act of 1986, is being challenged in federal court in Ohio by Steven Warshak, a seller of “natural male enhancement” products who was indicted for mail fraud and money laundering after federal investigators sifted through thousands of his e-mails.

I would like the language in the i-broker agreements for XDI.org to have language that basically says they will treat personal data held as if it were in someone’s house and therefore protected under the 4th amendment.