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Field Guide to Internet Trust Models: Technical Federation

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In addition to contract terms, a Technical federation also provides a central service that acts as a clearinghouse for identity operations. It routes authentication requests from the service back to the requester’s chosen identity provider, translating protocols as needed. The existence of a central service lowers the technical and administrative costs of participating in the network. For contrast, a federation network where the participants connect directly with one another rather than going through a central clearinghouse is called a Mesh.

Examples: WAYF provides federated single sign-on to Denmark’s higher education, research institutions, and libraries.

When to Use: A large entity is available to act as an identity clearing house.

Advantages: Encourages use of digital identity by providing a central clearinghouse for authentication. Service providers only need to integrate with a single identity provider. Requesters can choose from a variety of identity providers.

Disadvantages: Requires substantial investment that may only be available to very large institutions or states.

Ability to Scale: Can scale to support national identity programs.

The full papers is downloadable [Field-Guide-Internet-TrustID] Here is a link to introduction of the paper and a at the bottom of that post is a link to all the other models with descriptions.  Below are links to all the different models.

Sole source, Pairwise Federation,  Peer-to-Peer,
Three-Party Model 1) “Bring your Own” Portable Identity 2) “Winner Take All” Three Party Model:
Federations 1) Mesh Federations 2) Technical Federations 3) Inter-Federation Federations
Four-Party Model, Centralized Token Issuance, Distributed Enrollment, Individual Contract Wrappers, Open Trust Framework Listing

Field Guide to Internet Trust Models: Individual Contract Wrappers

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Individual Contract Wrappers

When providing information to a service, the requester also provides terms for how that information can be used. Service providers agree to honor those terms in exchange for access to the data, and compliance is enforced through contract law. Terms might include an expiration date, limits on whether the data can be re-sold, or whether it can be used in aggregate form. This model is the mirror image of the Sole Source.

Examples: Personal.com offers a service that provides end users with a place to store personal data. Service providers agree to abide by a set of agreements in order to use this data.

When to use:

Advantages: Provides an incentive for the requester to provide clear, correct, and up-to-date information. In exchange for accepting limits on how the data can be used, the service provider gains access to better quality and more complete data.

Disadvantages: Emerging technology with evolving standards, not widely supported yet.

Ability to scale: It has a high ability to scale but it is almost a reverse architecture of the Sole Source and some of the same challenge.

The full papers is downloadable [Field-Guide-Internet-TrustID] Here is a link to introduction of the paper and a at the bottom of that post is a link to all the other models with descriptions.  Below are links to all the different models.

Sole source, Pairwise Federation,  Peer-to-Peer,
Three-Party Model 1) “Bring your Own” Portable Identity 2) “Winner Take All” Three Party Model:
Federations 1) Mesh Federations 2) Technical Federations 3) Inter-Federation Federations
Four-Party Model, Centralized Token Issuance, Distributed Enrollment, Individual Contract Wrappers, Open Trust Framework Listing
 

Field Guide to Internet Trust Models: Four Party Model

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Four-Party Model

A four-party model provides a comprehensive set of interlocking legal contracts that detail roles, responsibilities, and technical methods. In order to take part in the network, each party must agree to one of the contracts in a given framework. Identity providers specialize in providing support for particular roles.

Examples: The credit card networks, such as Visa and Mastercard, are implemented as four party networks. These represent a large collection of individuals and institutions, each of which must routinely trust participants they’ve never encountered before.

Parties of all types continually join and leave the network, making it impractical for any single organization to track them all. By creating a standard set of well defined roles that work together, the Visa and Mastercard enable risk assessors to specialize.

Because of the vast difference in the size of the entities involved (anywhere from an individual person to a multi-national corporation), and the complexity of governing law, no single contract could be both complete and understandable by all parties.

To solve this problem, the network created a comprehensive, interlocking set of contracts that lay out all of the roles that entities can play. For each role, the appropriate contract specifies the interactions and responsibilities. The network design allows for multiple identity providers, each of whom can specialize in managing risk for a particular set of users. Risks are managed at the system level.

When to use: Closed network where all parties can be expected to sign a contract to join.

Advantages: Enables a network where participants of different sizes can interact smoothly with one another. Allows for specialization of risk management in a complex, constantly changing network where participants frequently join and leave.

Disadvantages: Depends upon the ability to create comprehensive contracts. Risk management can impose substantial costs on the network.

Ability to scale: Four party models can scale to a large number of participants.

The full papers is downloadable [Field-Guide-Internet-TrustID] Here is a link to introduction of the paper and a at the bottom of that post is a link to all the other models with descriptions.  Below are links to all the different models.

Sole source, Pairwise Federation,  Peer-to-Peer,
Three-Party Model 1) “Bring your Own” Portable Identity 2) “Winner Take All” Three Party Model:
Federations 1) Mesh Federations 2) Technical Federations 3) Inter-Federation Federations
Four-Party Model, Centralized Token Issuance, Distributed Enrollment, Individual Contract Wrappers, Open Trust Framework Listing
 

Field Guide to Internet Trust Models: Inter-Federation Federations

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[Image Coming]

Inter-Federation Federations

When organizations are unable to communicate directly with one another because of legal limits or national boundaries, existing federations can negotiate inter-federation federations which allow members of different federations to interact with one another.

Examples: REFEDS, eduGAIN, and Kalmar2 are inter-federation programs for research institutions and higher education.

When to use: Institutions are unable to form direct relationships with one another because of legal or national boundaries, but have existing federations that can negotiate on their behalf.

Advantages: Federations can act as agents, negotiating for members to simplify the complexity of getting agreement among a large number of institutions.

Disadvantages: The complexity of negotiating inter-federation agreements slows the process and may limit the interactions that are covered.

 

The full papers is downloadable [Field-Guide-Internet-TrustID] Here is a link to introduction of the paper and a at the bottom of that post is a link to all the other models with descriptions.  Below are links to all the different models.

Sole source, Pairwise Federation,  Peer-to-Peer,
Three-Party Model 1) “Bring your Own” Portable Identity 2) “Winner Take All” Three Party Model:
Federations 1) Mesh Federations 2) Technical Federations 3) Inter-Federation Federations
Four-Party Model, Centralized Token Issuance, Distributed Enrollment, Individual Contract Wrappers, Open Trust Framework Listing

Field Guide to Internet Trust Models: Mesh Federation

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Mesh Federation

A Mesh Federation provides a legal and policy umbrella so that institutions can interact with one another but does not specify technical methods. Each member organization issues digital identities for its people and the federation agreement provides the legal framework for them to use one another’s resources. The federation agreement might specify governance, policy, or roles, but the member institutions are free to implement using whatever technologies they like. This is referred to as a mesh because participating services connect directly with one one another in order to authenticate identities. For contrast, a federation network that provides a central identity clearing house is referred to a Technical federation (discussed below).

Examples: Mesh federations were pioneered by educational institutions. Universities already had a culture of cooperation and realized that the interest of students and research goals of faculty were best served by the free flow of information. NRENS (National Research and Education Networks) around the world include InCommon in the US, SurfnNET in the Netherlands, and JISC/Janet in the UK.

When to use: Large institutions wish to share resources and can agree on roles and governance, but do not need a central point for authenticating identity.

Advantages: Federation participants don’t need to negotiate custom agreements with every other member.

Disadvantages: Because of the need to gather broad adoption, mesh federations may be limited to the most common roles and might not cover complex use cases.

Ability to Scale: Because the mesh federation provides a standard contract, it scales to a large number of members.

The full papers is downloadable [Field-Guide-Internet-TrustID] Here is a link to introduction of the paper and a at the bottom of that post is a link to all the other models with descriptions.  Below are links to all the different models.

Sole source, Pairwise Federation,  Peer-to-Peer,
Three-Party Model 1) “Bring your Own” Portable Identity 2) “Winner Take All” Three Party Model:
Federations 1) Mesh Federations 2) Technical Federations 3) Inter-Federation Federations
Four-Party Model, Centralized Token Issuance, Distributed Enrollment, Individual Contract Wrappers, Open Trust Framework Listing

Field Guide to Internet Trust Models: Federations

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Federations

A Federation provides a standard, pre-negotiated set of contracts that allow organizations to recognize identities issued by one another. A federation agreement might specify user roles, governance, security and verification policies, or specific technical methods. The federation is organized around a Contract Hub, which is responsible for the agreements. Organizations with similar goals or structure create a standard agreement rather than negotiating individually.

When to Use: A large number of organizations can agree upon roles and governance, and can create a standard contract.

Advantages: Organizations can recognize identities that one another issue without having to negotiate individual agreements with every party.

Disadvantages: Not customized for individual member organizations. Because of the need to create an agreement that a large number of parties can agree to, the federation might be limited to lowest common denominator roles.

Ability to Scale: Very high.

The full papers is downloadable [Field-Guide-Internet-TrustID] Here is a link to introduction of the paper and a at the bottom of that post is a link to all the other models with descriptions.  Below are links to all the different models.

Sole source, Pairwise Federation,  Peer-to-Peer,
Three-Party Model 1) “Bring your Own” Portable Identity 2) “Winner Take All” Three Party Model:
Federations 1) Mesh Federations 2) Technical Federations 3) Inter-Federation Federations
Four-Party Model, Centralized Token Issuance, Distributed Enrollment, Individual Contract Wrappers, Open Trust Framework Listing

Field Guide to Internet Trust Models: Winner Take All

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3Party

“Winner Take All” Three Party Model

A special case of the three party model where the service provider wants to allow the requester to use an existing identity, but only accepts authentication from a defined set of providers. Participants sign an agreement with the identity provider, which also allows them to talk to one another.

Examples: Apple completely controls the channel between app vendors and iPhone users, deciding which applications are available and which users are allowed to use them. Spotify and Zynga games depend upon Facebook for authentication.

When to Use: The service provider wants to take part in a large, established channel, or requires a high level of assurance.

Advantages: The requester can use an existing identity, which lowers the amount of effort required to use a new service. The service provider gets access to the users of an identity network without having to manage the accounts itself. Some identity providers offer higher security than the service could practically provide on its own.

Large three-party model identity providers like Facebook, Google, and PayPal dedicate substantial resources to security.

Disadvantages: Because participants can only interact if they have been authenticated by a single identity provider, that provider wields substantial power. The identity provider effectively controls the requester’s ability to use other company’s products. For instance, a requester who loses their account with the identity provider also loses all of the services where they used that identity. If you use your Facebook to sign in to other products then you also lose those other products if your Facebook account is closed.

Conversely, a service provider that depends on a single third party identity provider leaves themselves open to the third party deciding to change its terms.

Ability to Scale: Difficult to get started because it is only interesting to service providers when it has consumers, but only interesting to consumers if it can offer interesting services. Once they are established and functioning, however, a successful identity provider can build a very large network.

The full papers is downloadable [Field-Guide-Internet-TrustID] Here is a link to introduction of the paper and a at the bottom of that post is a link to all the other models with descriptions.  Below are links to all the different models.

Sole source, Pairwise Federation,  Peer-to-Peer,
Three-Party Model 1) “Bring your Own” Portable Identity 2) “Winner Take All” Three Party Model:
Federations 1) Mesh Federations 2) Technical Federations 3) Inter-Federation Federations
Four-Party Model, Centralized Token Issuance, Distributed Enrollment, Individual Contract Wrappers, Open Trust Framework Listing
 

Field Guide to Internet Trust Models: Bring Your Own Identity

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A special case of the three party model where the service provider specifies the technical methods that it will accept, but allows the requester to choose any identity service they like. The service provider does not set details for identity verification or authentication and simply assumes that the requester has chosen one that’s good enough for their purposes. The service provider and requester agree to terms, the requester and the identity provider agree to terms, but the service provider does not make any agreement with the identity provider.

Examples: The most common Bring Your Own Identity technologies are SAML, OpenID, and email address verification.

When to Use: The service provider does not want to bear the cost of managing the requester’s identity, or wants to simplify account creation and sign-in.

Advantages: The requester can use an existing identity rather than having to create a new one for this service. If the requester chooses a good identity provider, the service gets the benefit of higher security with no additional cost.

Disadvantages: The account is only as secure as the authenticating service. The service provider depends on the user to select a trustworthy identity service.

Designing a user interface that allows the user to specify an identity provider has proved to be difficult. Consumers don’t generally have the experience to know a good identity provider from a bad one so, in practice, they depend upon seeing a familiar brand. When OpenID was first introduced, supporting sites attempted to help by listing a large set of brands so that the user could choose a familiar one. The resulting products ended up so festooned with logos that they were likened to NASCAR cars, and ended up being more confusing than helpful.

Ability to Scale: Very high.

The full papers is downloadable [Field-Guide-Internet-TrustID] Here is a link to introduction of the paper and a at the bottom of that post is a link to all the other models with descriptions.  Below are links to all the different models.

Sole source, Pairwise Federation,  Peer-to-Peer,
Three-Party Model 1) “Bring your Own” Portable Identity 2) “Winner Take All” Three Party Model:
Federations 1) Mesh Federations 2) Technical Federations 3) Inter-Federation Federations
Four-Party Model, Centralized Token Issuance, Distributed Enrollment, Individual Contract Wrappers, Open Trust Framework Listing

Field Guide to Internet Trust Models: Three Party Model

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Three Party Model

A trusted third party provides identities to both the requester and service provider. In order to interact with one another, both must agree to trust the same identity provider.

Examples: Google, Facebook, American Express, Paypal, Amazon, iTunes App Store


 

There are two broad types of Three Party Model. If one (or both) of the parties insists on a particular identity provider, we refer to it as a Winner Take All network because other identity providers are locked out. If only technical methods are specified and the requester is free to specify any identity provider they like, we refer to it as a Bring Your Own Identity network.

When to Use: An identity provider may choose to offer a three party model when it can provide identities more efficiently than the requester or service provider can on their own. Requesters and service providers may choose to implement a three party network for access to an existing market.

Advantages: Separates identity management from the service being provided. In cases where a shared third party is available, this model simplifies the process of exchanging trusted identities. Malicious actors can be identified and isolated from the entire network. Requesters can use a single identity with many service providers, and service providers can trust requesters without having to verify each one.

Disadvantages: Because participants can only interact if they have been authenticated by a single identity provider, that provider wields substantial power. The identity provider effectively controls the requester’s ability to use services and the services’ ability to work with requesters.

For instance, a requester who loses their account with the identity provider also loses all of the services where they used that identity. If you use your Facebook to sign in to other products then you also lose those other products if your Facebook account is closed.

Ability to Scale: Very difficult to get started because a three party network is not interesting to service providers until it has users, but only attracts users if it has interesting services. Once they are established and functioning, however, a successful three party network can grow extremely large.

The full papers is downloadable [Field-Guide-Internet-TrustID] Here is a link to introduction of the paper and a at the bottom of that post is a link to all the other models with descriptions.  Below are links to all the different models.

Sole source, Pairwise Federation,  Peer-to-Peer,
Three-Party Model 1) “Bring your Own” Portable Identity 2) “Winner Take All” Three Party Model:
Federations 1) Mesh Federations 2) Technical Federations 3) Inter-Federation Federations
Four-Party Model, Centralized Token Issuance, Distributed Enrollment, Individual Contract Wrappers, Open Trust Framework Listing

Field Guide to Internet Trust Models: Pairwise Agreement

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Two institutions want to trust identities issued by one another, but there is no outside governance or policy framework for them to do so. They negotiate a specific agreement that covers only the two of them. Each institution trusts the other to properly manage the identities that it issues.

Examples: A pairwise agreement can specify governance, security and verification policies, or specific technical methods.

Businesses might negotiate pairwise agreements with large supplier. Educational institutions may craft specific research agreements.

When to Use: Business or institutional partners want to grant one another access to confidential systems or information, but no standard contracts or umbrella organizations exist.

Advantages: Organizations can grant one another access to scarce resources and confidential information. Highly customized for the specific situation and participants.

Disadvantages: Time consuming and complex to negotiate, expensive. Difficult to scale.

Ability to Scale: Pairwise federations do not scale well, because each additional party will need to make a custom agreement with every other party.

The full papers is downloadable [Field-Guide-Internet-TrustID] Here is a link to introduction of the paper and a at the bottom of that post is a link to all the other models with descriptions.  Below are links to all the different models.

Sole source, Pairwise Federation,  Peer-to-Peer,
Three-Party Model 1) “Bring your Own” Portable Identity 2) “Winner Take All” Three Party Model:
Federations 1) Mesh Federations 2) Technical Federations 3) Inter-Federation Federations
Four-Party Model, Centralized Token Issuance, Distributed Enrollment, Individual Contract Wrappers, Open Trust Framework Listing

Field Guide to Internet Trust Models: Centralized Token Issuance, Distributed Enrollment

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A special case peer-to-peer network. Participants want to establish trusted identities that can be used securely for ongoing, high-value communication among organizations. A trusted, central provider issues identity tokens which are then enrolled independently by each service provider. Service providers are not required to cooperate or accept one another’s enrollments.

Examples: The most common examples are RSA SecurID and SWIFT 3SKey. Hardware tokens are issued by a trusted provider, which are then used to authenticate individual identities.

Each service will require the user to enroll separately, but once the user has registered they can use the token for future interactions.

When the requester wants to use a service, they’re authenticated using the token.

When to use: Strong Authentication across a range of business entities who may have different enrollment requirements.

Advantages: Can provide a high level of identity assurance to institutions spread across legal and national boundaries.

Disadvantages: Can be expensive and complex to implement. Depends upon the existence of a trusted third party who can issue and ensure the security of hardware tokens. Hardware tokens can be lost.

Ability to scale: Can scale to large networks.

 

 

The full papers is downloadable [Field-Guide-Internet-TrustID] Here is a link to introduction of the paper and a at the bottom of that post is a link to all the other models with descriptions.  Below are links to all the different models.

Sole source, Pairwise Federation,  Peer-to-Peer,
Three-Party Model 1) “Bring your Own” Portable Identity 2) “Winner Take All” Three Party Model:
Federations 1) Mesh Federations 2) Technical Federations 3) Inter-Federation Federations
Four-Party Model, Centralized Token Issuance, Distributed Enrollment, Individual Contract Wrappers, Open Trust Framework Listing

Field Guide to Internet Trust Models: Peer-to-Peer Trust and Identity

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Peer-to-Peer Identity

When no central identity provider or governance agreement is present, participants assert their own identities and each individual decides who they trust and who they do not. Each participant is a peer with equal standing and each can communicate with anyone else in the network.

Examples: The most familiar peer-to-peer network is probably e-mail. An internet host can join the e-mail network with little more effort than updating its DNS entry and installing some software. Once a host has joined the network, individual e-mail addresses are easily created with no requirement for approval by any central authority. This flexibility and ease of account creation helped spur the growth of the internet, but also allows spam marketers to create false emails.

The best known secure peer-to-peer identity networks on the Internet have been implemented using public key cryptography, which allows participants to trust messages sent over insecure channels like email. Products like PGP and it’s open source counterpart gpg are the most common implementations of public key messaging tools.

When To Use: No central identity provider is available but network participants can exchange credentials.

Advantages: No dependence on a central identity provider. No formal agreement needed to join the network. Participants can assert any identity that they want. Secure peer-to-peer technologies can provide a high degree of confidence once identities have been exchanged. Peer-to-peer models are very flexible, and can support a wide range of trust policies.

Disadvantages: No governing agreement or requirement to implement any policies. Secure deployment requires a high degree of technical sophistication and active management. Individually verifying each participant can be labor intensive. Tracking identities that have been revoked can be complex and error prone.

Ability to Scale: If security requirements are low, peer-to-peer networks can grow very large because new members can join easily. Higher levels of security can be complex to deploy and operate, and can impose a practical limit on the size of the network.

The full papers is downloadable [Field-Guide-Internet-TrustID] Here is a link to introduction of the paper and a at the bottom of that post is a link to all the other models with descriptions.  Below are links to all the different models.

Sole source, Pairwise Federation,  Peer-to-Peer,
Three-Party Model 1) “Bring your Own” Portable Identity 2) “Winner Take All” Three Party Model:
Federations 1) Mesh Federations 2) Technical Federations 3) Inter-Federation Federations
Four-Party Model, Centralized Token Issuance, Distributed Enrollment, Individual Contract Wrappers, Open Trust Framework Listing

Faith and the IDESG

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Since becoming involved in the IDESG, I have become concerned that we do not have people of religious faith – with that as their primary “identity” within the context of participating in the organization. Let me be clear about what I mean, we have many people of many faiths involved and I am not disrespecting their involvement. We also don’t have people who’s day job is working for faith institutions (that they would take time out from to “volunteer” on this effort to explicitly bring in a faith perspective). Someone from say the National Council of Churches would not be a bad thing to have given that one of groups of people who today have consistently sue against “identity systems” are Christians objecting to ID systems put into public schools to track children students. With this proactive faith stance involved the systems we are seeking to innovate reduces the risk of rejection via law suite. I also think the views of those from Jewish, Muslim Sikh, Budhist, Hindu and other faiths should be proactively sought out.
Another Tweet from the Tampa meeting….
Tampa15
 
 

We must understand the past to not repeat it

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Please see the prior post and the post before about how we got to discussing this.
We can not forget that the Holocaust was enabled by the IBM corporation and its Hollerith machine.  How did this happen? What were these systems? How did they work? and particularly how did the private sector corporation IBM end up working a democratically elected government to do very horrible things to vast portions of its citizenry? These are questions we can not ignore.
In 2006 Stefan Brands gave a talk that made a huge impression on me he warned us and audience of very well meaning technologists that we had to be very careful because we could incrementally create a system that could lead to enabling a police state. It was shocking at the time but after a while the point he was making sunk in and stuck with me. He shared this quote (this slide is from a presentation he gave around the same time)
Stefan
It is the likability that is the challenge.
We have to have the right and freedom NOT to be required to use our “real name” and birthdate for everything.
This is the defacto linkable identifier that the government is trying to push out over everything so they can link everything they do together.
Stephan proposes another Fair Information Principle.
Stefan6
I will share more of Stephan’s slides because I think they are prescient for today.
Stephan’s slides talk about User-Centrism technology and ideas in digital identity – ideas that have virtually no space or “air time” in the NSTIC discussions because everything has been broken down (and I believe intentionally so) into “security” “standards” “privacy” “trust frameworks” silos that divide up the topic/subject in ways that inhibit really tackling user-centrism or how to build a working system that lives up to the IDEALS that were outlined in the NSTIC document.
I have tried and tried and tried again to speak up in the year and a half before the IDESG and the 2 years since its existence to make space for considering how we actually live up to ideals in the document.  Instead we are stuck in a looping process of non-consensus process (if we had consensus I wouldn’t be UN-consensusing on the issues I continue to raise).  The IDESG are not taking user-centrism seriously, we are not looking at how people are really going to have their rights protected – how people will use and experience these large enterprise federations.
Yes everyone that is what we are really talking about…Trust Framework is just a code word for Enterprise Federation.
I went to the TSCP conference a big defence/aerospace federation (who was given NSTIC grants to work on Trust Framework Development Guidance) where this lovely lady Iana from Deloitte who worked on the early versions of NSTIC and potential governance outlines for IDESG – she said very very clearly “Trust Frameworks ARE Enterprise Federations” and it was like – ahhh a breath of fresh clear honest air – talking about what we are really talking about.
So back to the Stephan Brands re-fresher slides on user-centric ID so we don’t forget what it is.
 
Stefan5
 

Stefan2
 
 
 
 
 
 
Stefan3
 
Stefan2
 
Look at these, take them seriously.
 

Dear IDESG, I’m sorry. I didn't call you Nazi's.

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The complaint was that I called my fellow IDESG colleagues Nazi’s. He was unsatisfied with my original statement about the tweet on our public management council mailing list. Some how this led to the Ombudsman taking on the issue and after I spoke with him in Tampa it was followed by a drawn out 5 week “investigation” by the Ombudsman before he issued a recommendation.
Then turns out after all was said and done there was never actually a formal complaint. There was the ombudsman taking action on his own. (its funny how organizations can use Ombudsman to not actually protect people with in institutions but use them as institutional forces to  push  people out who speak up and ask too many questions)
During the time I was being investigated I experienced intensive trolling about the matter on twitter itself. The trolling was done by someone obviously familiar with the situation who was upset. There were only 5 people familiar with them matter as it was ongoing through this investigation.During my own IIW conference the troll topped off the week by making implicit rape threats. This was very very disruptive and upsetting to me so much so I don’t even remember that  IIW.
Here is the tweet that I authored while pondering theories of organizational dynamics in Tampa and without any intent to cause an association in the mind of a reader with IDESG, NSTIC, nor any person or persons in particular note that I did not reference anyone with a @____ or add any signifying hashtags e.g., #idesg or #nstic in this tweeted comment. So unless you were reading everything you would never know I said it.
Tampa11
I own that the tweet was provocative but it was It was not my intent to cause harm to anybody or to the IDESG organization and wider identity community.
We can’t put documents up for community and public input and say “its 40 page document nobody has time to read” and laugh as if it is funny that the process is so bad that there is no ability for the body of the organization let alone the public to have insight. That is how not good things begin to happen no one is looking. I was trying to make a point that the meeting was being badly badly run and that poor process can lead to really bad outcomes.
I am very sorry if the tweet had an emotionally negative impact on people on the management council. I fully acknowledge that referencing anything relative to the Nazi era is triggering. It touches on our collective shame and surfaces vulnerability it is very hard to look at.
I also believe that we have to actually be prepared to do so. If we don’t examine the past we can’t be sure we will not repeat it. [Please click to see my my next post for this to be further expounded upon]
I didn’t choose to say anything along these lines because I was in the middle of a process with the Ombudsman I thought that would be honored and let to run its course.
I also didn’t feel one should feed internet trolls – one was being very aggressive and pestering me for an apology.
I think that we all need to keep in mind our roles as Directors of the IDESG when we interact with the public and with each other.
This includes hiding behind pseudonyms and aggressively trolling to get back at someone you are upset with. Which also happened – either deal with the issue in a formal process or take them out on twitter but do’t do both.
The whole process left my and my attorney puzzled. My attorney wrote a letter to the Management Council/Board of Directors with a whole bunch of questions and now that this is posted we look forward to their answers to those questions.
No one from he IDESG including the ombudsman ever responded or was concerned by the aggressive trolling and implicit rape threats on twitter by someone intimately familiar with the ongoing ombudsman process.
Abusive behavior towards women isn’t just a physical thing it is a psychological as well. I have felt unsafe in the Identity community since this incident. I am now setting it aside though and stepping forth in my full power.

Facebook so called "real names" and Drag Queens

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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:
MyNameIs
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.
 
 
 
 

We "won" the NymWars? did we?

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Short answer No – I’m headed to the protest today at Facebook.
A post about the experience will be up here by tomorrow. I’ll be tweeting from my account there which is of course @identitywoman
 
______
Post from Sept 2014
Mid-July,  friend called me up out of the blue and said “we won!”
“We won what” I asked.
“Google just officially changed its policy on Real Names”
He said I had  to write a post about it. I agreed but also felt disheartened.
We won but we didn’t it took 3 years before they changed.
They also created a climate online where it was OK and legitimate for service providers to insist on real names.
For those of you not tracking the story – I along with many thousands of people had our Google+ accounts suspended – this posts is an annotated version of all of those.
This was the Google Announcement:
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Resources for HopeX Talk.

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I accepted an invitation from Aestetix to present with him at HopeX (10).
It was a follow-on talk to his Hope 9 presentation that was on #nymwars.
He is on the volunteer staff of the HopeX conference and was on the press team that helped handle all the press that came for the Ellsberg – Snowden conversation that happened mid-day Saturday.  It was amazing and it went over an hour – so our talk that was already at 11pm (yes) was scheduled to start at midnight.
Here are the slides for it – I modified them enough that they make sense if you just read them.  My hope is that we explain NSTIC, how it works and the opportunity to get involved to actively shape the protocols and policies maintained.

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BC Government Innovation in eID + Citizen Engagement.

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I wrote an article for Re:ID about the BC Government’s Citizen Engagement process that they did for their eID system.
CoverHere is the PDF: reid_spring_14-BC
BC’S CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT:A MODEL FOR FUTURE PROGRAMS 
Because of my decade long advocacy for the rights and dignity of our digital selves, I have become widely known as “Identity Woman.” The Government of British Columbia invited me to participate as an industry specialist/expert in its citizen consultation regarding the province’s Services Card. I want to share the story of BC’s unique approach, as I hope that more jurisdictions and the effort I am most involved with of late, the U.S. government’s National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, will choose to follow it.
The Canadian Province of British Columbia engaged the public about key issues and questions the BC Services Card raised. The well-designed process included a panel of randomly selected citizens. They met face- to-face, first to learn about the program, then to deliberate key issues and finally make implementation recommendations to government.
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Kaliya's the shit. Be there or be square.Enlighten yourself through her