Industry Players

Identity issues: Identity.Foundation vs. Decentralized.id

Kaliya Young · February 17, 2018 ·

So the the Decentralized Identity Foundation has an “identity challenge” with a project pretending to be it – with a very similar domain name and trying to do a token sale. I have a theory that almost all legitimate projects with real people and real work going on behind them also have fake projects shadowing them. Anyways.
Here is the REAL Decentralized Identity Foundation Website: http://identity.foundation. Its got working groups and code and a blog on medium. Its got a whole bunch of real people and projects behind it.
They are working on supporting the emergence of an open standard called DID.
Microsoft just made an announcement about their support and product integration of these emerging open standards.

So the FAKE site is Decentralized.id

It looks really polished and the first page says
YOUR ID: DECENTRALIZED
The DID Foundation, Decentraling your ID over the Blockchain. Sounds good right. Protecting Your ID, Providing Trust, Crypto-Positive. It says one should Join The Foundation – if you do you get DID Tokens!
Then creating a supply 20,000,000,000 of them. They are selling them for .ooo1 USD. They accept BTC, ETH and BCH.
So I checked out their real “address” is at a hot desking space in London.

Decentralized ID is owned by Mr. Sheikh Abdullah Naveed. HE also has a hardware consultancy Torquesol UK Ltd. He has some other companies too – Tapfer Technologies Ltd and Fry-Wi Ltd
_____
This whole situation highlights the need to have identity verification for organizations too. The good thing is that this is something that the British Columbia Government is working on with a project called Verifiable Organizations Network

Deconstructing Blockchain and Identity Projects: Velix.ID

Kaliya Young · February 17, 2018 ·

This is going to be the first in what will end up being a long and ongoing series of posts that deconstruct various “blockchain and identity” projects. I was inspired to get started after getting a min into the video explaining this identity system and at least thinking ‘screaming’ in my head NO! NO! NO! that is a horrible horrible design you can’t do that with people and their ID information in the block chain. So then the next question is WHY and that is why I’m going to start writing about specific systems and really going into the details. There is just some things that you CAN NOT DO with people’s identity information.
So here we go… Velix.ID Video:
We share our identity information everywhere – check

Examples include, ordering pizza, getting laundry done, shopping online OR filling in KYC forms – ok check but really are this all equivalent?

Accessing these many services scatters our ID everywhere – Yup when we do businesses with companies they have information about us.
We loose control of how our information is shared and used – Yep it is in their databases and could end up being sold or traded two third parties (other businesses we don’t transact with)
We loose time with all that form filling. – Ok. Time that could be better used playing video games – ahh ok but some people actually take care of people and have physical hobbies who wrote this script and who are you appealing to when that is the thing you think people are needing more time for?
With Velix you can access these services instantly while you retain control fo your data and your privacy – Ok and how do you do this for realz?
So how does Velix work – do tell?
A user can create a profile and update all their information on it – ahh ok – where is the profile?
All of the data will be associated with an 8 digital alphanumeric ID – WAIT STOP – all my information is associated with one 8 digit number? So if I share my number with one business and then go to a different business and share my 8 digit number with them – the businesses can use this information to know that I patronize both of them? My information can be correlated together. This is not a good design choice and is not privacy protecting.
And this data is stored on the user’s own device, never with Velix. – ah ok and what if I loose my device?
This Velix ID can be shared by the user to access any member services with any business instantly and securely – Wait, how?
If any business has already verified information of a Velix ID user other businesses don’t have to repeat it. The new business on the Velix.ID can simply request the verified identity from the business organization that has already verified it through Velix.ID blockchain – So this raises lots of alarms, getting verified ID information from one business that I do business with requires I reveal who I do business with and has verified things about me and for them to go to the trouble to releasing the information.
To facilitate these transactions and identities Velix.ID has developed its own native utility token called VLX. During the transaction the business requesting the identity pays VLX and a tiny bite is taken by Velix.ID and a tiny bite is offered to the user for their generous act of giving consent for the transaction to occur and the rest goes to the verified identity provider. – mmm ok but we still have all these challenges of linking and connecting things together.
This process saves time and money both for consumers and businesses. And keeps the users identity information secure and private – i’m not really clear how. Individual’s identity information is still shared with businesses I do business with.
The next time you face boring and unsafe personal identity verification use your Velix.ID instead. A frictionless experience of identity sharing – mmm…only if the relying party is in this system and accepts these types of identity.

Reading the White Paper on their website
A few lines stood out and raise red flags.
In the Abstract: The primary reason why a disruption in the identity-verification (IDV) space has not het happened is the lack of a tested/proven trust-framework on which all institutions, globally can rely on for sharing costs and liability of identity verification. Velix.ID aims at bridging this gap by building a universal, obscure, transparent, decentralized, time efficient, and cost-efficient ecosystem for identity verification.
So there won’t be ONE global framework for everyone to get all their identity verified. Just won’t the world is to big and there are to many different types of identities, types of transactions and needs of people.

All identity holders on the Velix.ID ecosystem possess a unique identity number to which all fo their data will be associated!!! red flags all over the place all my stuff about me associate with one number this IS the issue we have now. That identity numbers that are universal and point at me. They create massive correlation issues – you guys need to read the Laws of Identity and understand one of those key concepts – the Law of Directed Identifiers.
Level 2 Advanced PII – the platform will be capable to store nonstandard and industry specific data for an Identity on the Blockchain – WAIT HOW? NO PII should ever be store anywhere on a block chain.
In the Appendix: They want to issue Velix.ID cards to people, with their 8 digit number. They say this will let you check-in to airports and hotels – but ONLY if these institutions accept the Velix.ID as an identity provider.
How can this be a universal ID system if there aren’t even a Billion Numbers in the 8 digit name space. Is that the main giveaway that this is just a total scam?
So there is also plan to have an NFC reader that would would be able to manage access control to physical spaces. – Ok…but really? Cause this problem is mostly solved for employees and students.

Facebook's Problem = FSW Opportunity

Kaliya Young · November 14, 2012 · 1 Comment

ReadWriteWeb’s social Blog has an articule up referencing a conversation the author had with Mark Cuban about Facebook’s business model and integrity challenges.
Apparently Facebook is now going to charge brands a huge amount to reach the base of fans they have accumulated on facebook.

I’ve heard anecdotally about a huge brand that was complaining recently because it has spent four years building a following of millions of people, promoting its Facebook presence (and, by implication, Facebook itself) on expensive television ads – and now Facebook has flipped a switch and, overnight, their reach dropped by 40%.
So now they’re done. They’ve been burned, and, like Cuban, they’re looking elsewhere.

A few weeks back I as in a tweeted to a woman complaining how Facebook was shaping which of her friend’s updates she saw and even asking her to pay money to have her updates go to more of her friends. I said that when we had a federated social web she wouldn’t have this problem we would choose which of our friends we would follow and get updates from.
I attended my 3rd out of three federated social web summits ~~last week~~ eek it feels like last week it was 2 weeks ago just after IIW 15. Evan Prodromo pulled together an amazing group of folks working on key aspects of the challenge.
Phil Wolff and I presented about the emerging Personal Cloud offerings coming out of our community of companies (the Personal Data Ecosystem Startup Circle)
Tantek shared POSSE – Publish On your Own Site Syndicate Everywhere.
Even gave an update on where OStatus the stack of protocols that gives you twitter and facebook like functionality across services.
We learned about many other projects. too (you can see them on the wiki here).
I’m glad that folks like Mark Cuban are waking up to the fact there is an issue with Facebook and they should be looking elsewere. Facebook is to social what AOL and Compuserve were to e-mail. It will be disrupted by the Open Standards based infrastructure must of it based on Open Source code. People will have their own personal node on the network – a personal cloud where they will connect to others and to organizations they want to share with, connect with and do business with.
It would be great to see some big investments in core open infrastructure that can then be leveraged to make money afterwards. This is what Doc Searls is always saying you make money because of it not with it. We need the web to continue extending to being the type that Nobody Owns, Everyone can Use it and Anyone improve it. Open Standards are the key to this. I argue they are more important then open source code alone (look at diaspora open source but rolled its own way of doing things…and didn’t interoperate with other projects/efforts doing similar things)
If you were to ask me what would get us to the future fastest though it is open source implementations of those open standards are invaluable and what “investors” like Mark Cuban and others who are now seeing the danger of one company “owning” the social profiles and identities of a billion people should consider funding now with no strings attached.
I was asked by an investor group that I gave a day long briefing to about the the emerging Personal Data Ecosystem. I said I would give Evan Prodromo 12 million dollars no strings attached (as in you are not seeking a return on the money with more money) the deliverable for that money would be a working federated social web in 1 year. On that web one can build a huge variety of businesses and services in new ways not possible on today’s web (or at least not possible without creepy stalking and trackers and paying middle men like facebook to talk to your “fans”). That web itself…shouldn’t be “owned” it needs to be created though.

The new Google is Creepier then ever.

Kaliya Young · January 25, 2012 · Leave a Comment

The Washington Post has an article today that talks about what google is doing as of today:
Google’s no-opt-out privacy changes and the end of the anonymous Internet

Google announced Tuesday its plans to integrate data from all its services with your profile for logged-in Google+ users.

She makes this assertion in the early part of the article.

The Internet, nowadays, is overwhelmingly dominated by fora in which you hang out as your actual self. Facebook. Twitter. And now, Google.

While I understand her assertion that the net is “dominated” by these fora. There are two assumptions one is that the people in those places are being ‘Their actual selves” when the research shows that people are being thoughtful and careful about how they present in different places and what aspects of themselves they share where (see danah boyd’s research about young people and networked publics). I think in one way she is right the people like her – who went to college and have mainstream white collar jobs are on these fora with their real names but most people who actually do interesting hobbies or have religious lives that they don’t share publically or across all contexts of their lives either are not sharing about these on those fora or they are keeping them contextually separate using different names and handles.

This weekend at She’s Geeky I am going to ask a lot of questions of the women coming about how they do manage their identities and what they want and need out of digital systems to feel safe using them.

Tie actions online to our real identities, and suddenly online activity has real-world consequences.

This is very true and unless we build tools that give people both persona management and context management we are going to be creating a really creepy world. See my TEDx Talk on Participatory Totalitarianism.

Open Letter to Google+ Profile Support

Kaliya Young · September 19, 2011 · 10 Comments

On Sep 19, 2011, at 11:25 AM, Google Profiles Support wrote:
Hi,
Thank you for contacting us with regard to our review of the name you are trying to use in your Google Profile. After review of your appeal, we have determined that the name you want to use violates our Community Standards.

I am curious what community developed the standards? If there really is a community behind them, where can one engage in dialogue about them and have one’s needs addressed.

Please avoid the use of any unusual characters. For example, numbers,symbols, or obscure punctuation might not be allowed.

(.)’s for last names are permitted for mononym people. I am making this choice.
If you search my name “Kaliya” in Google, I am 1/2 of the links, the other 1/2 are for the Hindu mythical figure that happens to share my name.
It is my name. I claim name sovereignty.

Most users choose to use their first and last names in the common name field in order to avoid any future name violation issues.

I am not “most users”. I am unique individual with my own name.
How can a name be in violation? What is a “name violation issue” anyways? Who says?
I feel violated by this experience because I do not want to use my (soon to be ex-) husband’s (who I’ve been separated from for 3 years) last name, Hamlin, as the headline on MY profile. I am fine listing it in the “other name” field – it is an “other name” to me.
I do not want to use my old last name, Young, last used in 2004 before my professional career began. I am also fine listing this the “other name” field as some who knew me before this date will be able to find me this way. Again, it is not appropriate for the headline on my profile.
I was fine using my professional handle/title “Identity Woman” as my last name for the headline of my profile but this was rejected by your acceptable name algorithms for having a space in it and being words not commonly in last names.
I actually do often list “Identity Woman” as my last name when I attend conferences so it is on my badge prominently on my badge because my current last name (my ex-husband’s name) isn’t relevant. My Identity Woman professional handle IS relevant to the context, being at a professional conference so I choose to use it as my last name.
I decided when I began using Google+ that I would present and put forward information relevant to and related to my work persona Identity Woman and I am sticking with this persona in this context. My Gmail address is after all identitywoman@gmail.com.
Last week I went back to what I had before we began this name silliness back and forth a symbol in my last name field on my Google profile for the last 4 years. I have gone ahead and listed other names as “Hamlin, Young, Identity Woman”. You are refusing this option. This seems like the best compromise position all around. A win-win.
So I am not really sure where to go with this. Is there a human being I can talk to? How do I actually move through this process. Continuing to interact with faceless, first name only people in e-mail and via ever changing rejection notes on my profile is not working for me.

You can review our name guidelines at http://www.google.com/support/+/bin/answer.py?answer=1228271
If you edit your name to comply with our policies in the future, please respond to this email so that we can re-review your profile.

I am not editing my profile. I want to talk with a human being to resolve this or alternatively we can a committee meeting with your team at Google.
This feels like I am being put on trial for my choice of name.
It feels dehumanizing and unjust. I expect better from a company like Google.
Regards,
-Kaliya

Sincerely,
Bennett
The Google Profiles Support Team

ps. What is your real name? I am curious to know more about you by looking you up on the internet and then maybe will have a better idea about how to persuade you to let my name be.

Potential Future: Google-Zon

Kaliya Young · September 12, 2011 · 1 Comment

With the nymwars unfolding (Nym = Pseudonym , Anonymous and other varities on this theme) this video of the Google-Zon story in the year 2014 seems more prescient then ever.
Please watch the video on the Original Site the way it was done is amazing.
EPIC in this video stands for the Electronic Personalized Information Construct
The computer writes a new story for every user (sound like the Filter Bubble?) everyone contributes and in exchange gets a cut of the revenue…
We stand for the exact oposite vision at the Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium where people have control over their own data and manage the rights to access it and shape things.

Mononym officially "not" accepted. I'm Kaliya. Google get a clue.

Kaliya Young · September 5, 2011 · 5 Comments

OK.
Let me be very frank.
Kaliya says to Google:
“Why should I have to justify my name to you?”
My name is Kaliya
Just me. That is what it was on my profile before you decided that i had to have letters in my last name.
Type me into Google nymrods, 5 of the posts on the fronte page are me…the other 5 are for a figure in Hindu mythology.
What is the top post for “me”? Its the “Identity Woman” blog, then my Fast Company blog post on NSTIC written as Identity Woman, then my flickr photos (Kaliya), linkedIn (Kaliya), Slideshar’s (Kaliya) and finally my unconference site (Kaliya).
I chose to have Identity Woman as my last name when you rejected my choice to go with the mononym “Kaliya *”. That is how people know me. It is how I want to be known.
I am NOT putting my soon to be ex-husband’s, have been separated amicably for 3 years, last name as “my name” as the top of my profile on Googoe+.
[TO BE CLEAR. My ex and I are on good terms and I really didn’t want to bring this up in public-public on my blog because it is not my practice to discuss personal matters on this blog and cause it is nobody’s business what my marital status is. I made the choice to share this very real personal life situation I face to make the point I am trying to make. On another note he is also very supportive of my work on these issues for freedom on the internet.]
I am totally fine listing this last name in the “other” field along with my maiden name. I am not particularly attached to either name. I have a an idea for a future last name and I might change it in several years in the mean time I don’t want to promote this “other” name that isn’t “mine” as the headline of my profile. Both Young and Hamlin are part of my legal name. They are my wallet names (as Skud has so aptly put it) and in some way they are my names but they are not “my” names.
When people who don’t know me that well call me “Ms. Hamlin” I object politely and say “please just call me Kaliya – Hamlin is not “my” name”. Everyone who I have made this request have honored it. If they didn’t I wouldn’t be their friend for very long. As Bob Blakeley from Gartner (formerly Burton Group) explains, names are social and if you don’t call people what they want to be called they won’t respond.
Google, My name is Kaliya.
If you don’t honor this request. I won’t be your friend any more. Just like Bob explained.

G-Male is a Good Listener, Maybe too good.

Kaliya Young · September 1, 2011 · 2 Comments

Ok, now we know what is wrong 🙂 Google is on the [autism] spectrum.

“The obstacles primarily exist in the realm of social interaction. The fundamental problem is akin to blindness, as the term social blindness suggests.”

They keep doing well meaning but awkward feeling things because well they know how to technically but it isn’t how human beings act or want to be treated.
[Read more…] about G-Male is a Good Listener, Maybe too good.

Learning to stand up for my Identity, began with O'Reilly | She bows in gratitude for the teaching.

Kaliya Young · September 1, 2011 · 1 Comment

The first time I had my “identity” erased was actually by O’Reilly. Ok, to be fair it was by his people.
I was invited to attend Foo Camp in 2006 and was then invited to speak at both Web 2.0 Expo and Emerging Telephony in 2007. So, I was asked to fill out my speaker information and list my “company affiliation” as Identity Woman. I didn’t really work for anyone (I really never have) and that was my “identity” after all. So I think they will get it and its all good.
I am really excited I was asked to speak and really like wow! its an O’Reilly Conference and Wow! and I want to see my name in the program – for the first time ever…in a program of a major conference….I open it up and well…I’m not Identity Woman. My identity was erased because “Identity Woman” didn’t meet their “style guidelines”.
[Read more…] about Learning to stand up for my Identity, began with O'Reilly | She bows in gratitude for the teaching.

1 month anniversary of Goggle Gag

Kaliya Young · August 30, 2011 · 3 Comments

Its been a month now.
I have filled out the “application form” 3 times. This was my first post about it: Google+ and my “real” name: Yes, I’m Identity Woman
The most recent rejection letter when I applied to be a mononym (which I was before this all started) was from “Anonymous Nick”…

Re: [#859600835] Google Profile Name Review

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?

Google+ says your name is "Toby" NOT "Kunta Kinte"

Kaliya Young · August 27, 2011 · 21 Comments

This post is about what is going on at a deeper level when Google+ says your name is “Toby” NOT “Kunta Kinte”. The punchline video is at the bottom feel free to scroll there and watch if you don’t want to read to much.

This whole line of thought to explain to those who don’t get what is going on with Google+ names policy arose yesterday after I watched the Bradley Horwitz – Tim O’Reilly interview (they start talking about the real names issue at about minute 24).

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+ Suspension saga continues

Kaliya Young · August 9, 2011 · 13 Comments

I get this e-mail from them. You know, I wish they would use their “real name” when they talked to me. Being stuck inside a bureaucratic system – Kafkaesque.
On Aug 9, 2011, at 10:40 AM, Google Profiles Support wrote:

On Aug 9, 2011, at 10:40 AM, Google Profiles Support wrote:
Hi,
Thank you for your appeal. It seems that we are unable to pull up your Google Profile with this Email. Please reply back with the Email and the Profile URL associated with your Google Profile, so that we may further continue the review of your name appeal.
Sincerely,
The Google Profiles Support Team

Dear Google,
[Read more…] about Google+ Suspension saga continues

Identity Woman Google+ Suspension Update

Kaliya Young · August 8, 2011 · 4 Comments

I checked in today …to see if I had been let out of Google+ prison. Was my profile free to speak with the rest of the prisoners or not?
Apparently not. Now I am being informed that “business accounts” will be available soon.

This is my personal handle on account that is related to the professional side of my life. I only use my google gmail account to subscribe to PROFESSIONAL NEWSLETTERS. So anyone seeing my g-mail address it’s “identitywoman@gmail.com” does so on a professional context.
[Read more…] about Identity Woman Google+ Suspension Update

Name Sovereignty Day & My.Nameis.me

Kaliya Young · August 7, 2011 · 3 Comments

On Identity and Centralization

Kaliya Young · April 22, 2010 · 4 Comments

I was asked for a quote today to comment on F8 developments and the continuing apparent “centralization” of identity on that platform. It is not new for me to say these things but perhaps more crystallized…..
The turning point of the web becoming more social was mentioned several times today.
The issue at hand is fundamentally about FREEDOM: the freedom to choose who hosts your identity online (with the freedom to set up and host your own), the freedom to choose your persona – how you present yourself, what your gender is, your age, your race, your sex, where you are in the world. A prime example of WHY these freedoms are vital is the story of James Chartrand – you can read for yourself her story of being a “him” online as a single mother seeking work as a copy editor. Having a male identity was the way she succeeded.
We did a whole session at She’s Geeky the women’s technology unconference about women, identity and privacy online. ALL the women in that session had between 3-5 personas for different aspects of life and purposes. Many of those personas were ‘ungendered’ or male. I have not talked to many people of color about their online lives and persona management but should. I imagine that like women they choose for some of their persona not to identify racially.
Your “friends” shouldn’t be locked into a particular commercial context. This is where the work on client-side applications for identity management and social coordination for individuals are key. The browser was never designed to do these kinds of functions and I don’t think trying to make it do them is wise.
We need open “friend” standards where people are autonomous, without their identity tied to a commercial silo – like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft, AOL, or any company. This is a vision of a web where I can “peer friend” my friends, and then no entity has power over our relationship. This requires people to be first-class objects on the web. Not easy to do, but essential for us to figure out.

The Age of Privacy is Over????

Kaliya Young · January 11, 2010 · 2 Comments

ReadWriteWeb has coverage of Zuckerberg’s talk with Arrington at the Crunchies. According to him, the age of Privacy is Over. This is the quote that is just STUNNING:

..we decided that these would be the social norms now and we just went for it.

When I first heard it in the interview in the video I did a major double take – “we decided” ?? seriously? The we in that sentence is Facebook and clearly with Zuckerburg is at the helm – He could have said “I decided” and he as the CEO of a social network has the power to “decide” the fate of the privately shared amongst friends in the context of this particular social network for millions of people (see my post about the privacy move violating the contract with users). It makes you wonder if this one platform has too much power and in this example makes the case for a distributed social network where people have their own autonomy to share their information on their own terms and not trust that the company running a platform will not expose their information.
It is clear that Zuckerberg and his team don’t get social norms and how they work – people create social norms with their usage and practices in social space (both online and off).
It is “possible” to change what is available publicly and there for making it normal by flipping a switch and making things that were private public for millions of people, but it is unethical and undermines the trust people have in the network.
I will agree there is an emerging norm that young men working building tools in Silicon Valley have a social norm of “being public about everything”, but they are not everyone. I am looking forward to seeing social tools developed by women and actual community organizers rather then just techno geeks.
I will have more to say on this later this week – I was quite busy Saturday – I ran the Community Leadership Summit, yesterday I flew to DC and today I am running the Open Government Directive Workshop. While I am here I hope to meet with folks about Identity in DC over the next 2 days.

Suicide Options for Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter

Kaliya Young · January 1, 2010 · Leave a Comment

I have another post up on ReadWriteWeb that went up just after Christmas covering people who are choosing to leave Facebook or considering doing so along with the tools to help them.
Fed Up with Facebook Privacy Issues? Here is how to End it All.
It highlights two different Web 2.0 suicide machines; one is an art project called Seppukoo.com .
The service creates a virtual memorial for you and posts you on a suicide wall & they give you points for how many friends you had and how many of them choose to follow you to the “after life”. The leader board is here. You can see the RIP page for one of the creators of the service – Gionatan Quintini here.
It received a cease and desist from Facebook and responded.
The response is not covered in the article (it wasn’t out when I wrote it). It has some great quotes that sound like language coming from the user-centric identity community.

5. My clients have the right to receive information, ideas, and photographs from those people whom are the legitimate proprietors of this data and can decide to share this data or to store it, with the prior consent of its respective owners. All of this is freedom of expression and the manifestation of thought and free circulation of ideas that is accepted and guaranteed in Europe and in the U.S.A.

6. Facebook cannot order the erasure of data that does not belong to it, acting against the free will of the owners of such data. This is not protection of privacy, but rather a violation of the free will of citizens that can decide freely and for themselves how to arrange their personal sphere.

We shall see how Facebook responds to this.

Web 2.0 Suicide Machine is more comprehensive – covering LinkedIn & Twitter as well.
Here is the previous Read Write Web post on the changes in what is and is not public.