After TEDxBrussels in 2011 I was invited to present at TEDx Constitution Drive. Enjoy!
Identity Woman
I've co-founded a company! The Leola Group
Thursday evening following Internet Identity Workshop #18 in May I co-Founded and became Co-CEO of the Leola Group with my partner William Dyson.
So how did this all happen? Through a series of interesting coincidences in the 10 days (yes just 10 days) William got XDI to work for building working consumer facing applications. He showed the music meta-data application on Thursday evening and wowed many with the working name Nymble registry. The XDI [eXtneible Resource Identifier Data Interchange] standard has been under development at OASIS for over 10 years. Getting it to actually work and having the opportunity to begin to build applications that really put people at the center of their own data lives is a big step forward both for the Leola Group and the Personal Data community at large.
[Read more…] about I've co-founded a company! The Leola Group
Open Letter to Google+ Profile Support
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
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.
Starting on the OASIS IDtrust member steering committee
I started a new “job” last week, serving on the OASIS Identity and Trusted Infrastructure (IDtrust) Member Section, member steering committee. I was elected to a 2 year term on this 5 member board. This was my candidate statement and remains as my profile. On my first call as a member of the committee I was part of approving 8K of money including sponsoring the upcoming Interent Identity Workshop.
I shared with my fellow board members
- Peter Alterman – National Institute of Health
- Bruce Rich – IBM
- John Sabo – CA Technologies – Chair
- Anil Saldhana – Red Hat
in my introductory call that I was keen to link this work with other work that is related and ongoing at other standards efforts like the W3C where I have been participating in the Federated Social Web work. There is also independent efforts like OpenID and OAuth happening within IETF. One of our next tasks at Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium is to outline the core standards relevant to personal data. We are not going to invent anything new – rather help what is be found and adopted and adapted.
Why Does participation in an International Standards body matter?
If “code is law,” then standards are like the Senate. – Bruce Sterling, commenting on the April 2011 Augmented Reality Standards gathering
[Read more…] about Starting on the OASIS IDtrust member steering committee
Mononym officially "not" accepted. I'm Kaliya. Google get a clue.
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.
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.
1 month anniversary of Goggle Gag
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?
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+
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
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
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
IIW & Identity Community Bumps in the Road
This is cross posted on the IIW blog .
When we first started meeting (the early “seedling” meetings of community) at other people’s conferences, there were Microsoft people, Liberty Alliance/SAML people, Shibboleth implementers, user-centric folks (OpenID, LID, sxip, i-names/xri), big idea folks (Doc Searls), etc. We met for a couple of hours at a time and knew there was common ground, but knew we needed more time to really understand each other: to have more of a shared language and develop enough strength in the relationships in the community to work together. We figured we needed to have more time to meet together, so we convened the Internet Identity Workshop. That first event was amazing and quite formative – kicking off the conversation that would lead to OpenIDv2 via Yadis. Kim Cameron presented his 7 laws of identity that have become foundational to community thinking and introduced the idea of information cards and selectors; much work is now happening around this.
Soon afterward Brett McDowell the ED at Liberty Alliance approached me and Phil about having an Internet Identity Workshop (IIW) next to (the days following and in the same location) an upcoming Liberty Alliance meeting. We thought this was a great idea to create more space for people to meet about user-centric identity technologies and issues. When Microsoft got wind of this, boy did I get an earful – they felt that the neutrality of IIW would be totally compromised if it came to be that closely associated with Liberty Alliance (remember Liberty Alliance was originally formed by Sun and others in response to Microsoft Passport).
IIW had provided a forum for anyone working on user-centric identity technologies to come together without anyone making an “agenda” for the meeting or creating a “technology road map.” Literally anyone who came could put a subject on the agenda on the day of the event. All parties did want to increase dialogue and cross-pollination among the groups, and we found a way through by jointly (IIW and Liberty Alliance) producing what we named the Identity Open Space (we also said we would be open to co-producing with others who asked – we did two with Digital Identity World). It was in Vancouver Canada and Kim Cameron along with several Microsoft folks along with many in the user-centric community attended and because it was the two days after a Liberty Alliance meeting many Liberty people were also there, and it was a good event that moved the industry forward.
Right in the middle of getting this worked out – I on a personal level had a very intense experience being caught in the middle – a giant trade association on one side and Microsoft on the other. We (me, Phil, Doc, Kim, Brett) managed to navigate this as a community and do the right thing and we became stronger as a community for having done so.
We continued to have IIW’s every 6 months and in 2006 it was clear we were going beyond just IIW and needed a community home/container to connect community efforts and provide common services (blogs, wikis, bank account for doing common work like holding events). We held a series of conversations and decided to create a community organization, drawing on an existing one, Identity Commons – the community liked the purpose and principles approach for bringing people together. As a codition of brand transfer to a our nonprofit organization we worked on our version of purpose and principles. There were some delays in actually getting the organization legally formed and the brand transfered, but in 2007 we were an official organization: a network of organizations, initiatives, and projects all working on different aspects of a people-centric identity layer of the web. There are several places you can read about community history and background around Identity Commons. I wrote “What the heck is Identity Commons?”.
Next fall we are hosting our 9th event. Many things have move forward significantly in the community – OpenIDv2, OAuth, Venn of Identity paper, OSIS Interop, Concordia use-cases, Information Card evolution including Augmented Browsing with Action Cards, Portable Contacts, Open Social, OpenID/OAuth hybrid, Activity Streams, Distributed Social Networking, Discovery particularly XRD. So what has made IIW work so well in fostering the kind of collaboration and innovation that has emerged from it?
- We have kept the space free: no one has the ability to buy time at the conference.
- All ideas are welcome: there is no committee controlling the agenda, so politics about what is “on the agenda” or “not” just doesn’t happen.
- It is a working workshop to solve real problems, move technical projects forward and discuss interoperability among them.
- We put attention towards creating the space for relationships between people to form naturally over time and thus enabled trust to grow.
Identity Panel & Lunch at SXSW
I am really excited to be heading to Austin tomorrow for SXSW Interactive. After attending for 2 years in a row I didn’t attend last year and watched as all the tweets went by – wishing I was there.
I am facilitating a panel on Sunday morning 11:30 – it should be a lively one. OpenID, Oauth, Data Portability and the Enterprise.
It will be moderated by me, Identity Woman and include these find panelists, Bob Blakely The Burton Group, Danny Kolke Etelos, Inc., Joseph Smarr Chief Platform Architect, Plaxo Inc
The debate over identity, data and authentication is gaining ground in the social networking world. The more difficult discussion regarding enterprises and Web 2.0 has yet to start. Businesses realize that they must protect the data of their company, employees and customers. Join brave leaders from several Web Application companies that are beginning the discussion, “Are OpenID and OAuth good for the enterprise?”
Following there will be a Lunch for all those who want to continue the conversation – you can RSVP here.
There is a Project VRM Breakfast on Saturday morning (we figured that at least that morning people would be able/willing to get up early).
Monday for lunch I am inviting women interested in learning more about She’s Geeky to get together.
I will be tweeting away – and this is a good way to find me while I am there just DM me.
I will do some schedule browsing and post sessions related to identity tomorrow.
On Gaza
I don’t write about politics on my blog that much but have spoken up about some of my travels in the world and what I have seen.
I thought with all the twitter blips going by about “the ground invasion in gaza beginning I wanted to share what I wrote about in the summer of 2006 my own personal visit to Gaza in the summer of 2000.
This is the last 1/2 of a post a post called “Security theater and the “real” threats – inhuman conditions“.
Speaking of ‘they’ – who are they? I just watched a film from Netflicks – Death in Gaza. It was of two documentary film makers one of whom died while shooting the film. I spent the summer of 2000 in Jerusalem for 10 weeks I lived and worked there and did what I call “NGO tourism”. I worked at one of the worlds foremost human rights organizations – BTselem the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories and then also worked at the PCATI the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (while there I got my education in what torture is going on and how it affects people – really awful).
My fellow international interns and I would spend our weekends traveling about going through the Westbank and up to Nazareth, and Haifa over to Televiv down to Hebron. [[you can read what I wrote about Hebron here]]
One time we got to go to Gaza for 2 days. One of the interviewers for B’Tselem was traveling there so the two of us got to go with him. We got hooked up with two guys who worked in an NGO in Gaza and went on a tour for a day… from one end to the other … inside the camps and everything. It was amazingly powerful. Just like in the movie I saw the little kids the ones who are 5 and 6 happily playing away not really knowing there life circumstances yet. Then the older boys would glare glints of anger in there eyes. They are 10-13 years old knowing what they don’t have. The get that it is not normal to have open sewers in the streets. It is not normal to have 10 people living in one room. It is not normal to be growing bunnies up stairs that you kill to have food or a donkey living in your living room. Why do they know this…there are satalite dishes…basically everyone has a TV and can see what life is like in Isreal, and America and the rest of the normal arab world. When you think about that maybe some of this makes a bit more sense. It is not normal to feel like going to school you could get killed (as they young girl in Death in Gaza talks about). It is not normal to have your school playmates killed by gunfire (like the little boys have happen to them in the movie). Or bulldozers coming to plow your house down in the middle of the night (like threatens to happen in the movie ) How can you feel peaceful in this kind of environment?
I know after witnessing what I did that day I was shaken. I really felt my soul had been shaken up like my body was still and it was moving. It was eerily like the feeling I had after exiting the memorial museum at Hiroshima. The thing was…what I had witnessed that day was happening to real people ‘now’ not a historical event from 60 years ago. The depth of suffering is quite intense and the failure to connect with people as people and to really resolve the conflict continues to cause suffering. More bombs and planes and threats of nuclear weapons going off doesn’t make the situation better. It makes it worse. Send in armies of compassionate empathetic listeners. Make public peoples family stories and histories. Find some way through. There are some amazing stories of reconciliation that have happened in Israel/Palestine. They prove it is possible. I do have hope but not if everyone just sees an enemy instead of people, families and societies with real human and community needs.
I was sorting through my stuff over the weekend and found something from B’Tselem. They still send me the reports the write. It was a 11×17 fold over about the wall situation in Jerusalem. Just really disruptive to normal peoples lives. The whole of the Westbank is oriented around the trade flows through main cities. The most main one being East Jerusalem. The fact that they want to cut the Palestinians off from their main economic hub is just mean. People don’t like people who do mean things. Why is this so hard to understand!
It makes me very sad to hear there is a war happening. There has been a war on the Palestinian people for a long time.
Some elements that are not obvious to people is the depth of connection to land and history that is present along with the really bad living conditions.
* In the refugee camps villagers who fled their villages together – still live together 50 years later – they have a sense of identity as people of a place (a place that only the oldest people alive still remember) but that the young people feel they belong to too.
* The number of people and the conditions of living are very hard to imagine – they have the density of New York – but all in cement block houses that have tiny rooms 9×9. 1200 people a km.
* They don’t have electricity in the winter because the wiring is so ad-hoc that it is to dangerous to run in the winter.
* They don’t have sewage systems – other then the ones that run in the street.
* When the Israelis had a presence in Gaza they had their own roads – the good ones – that Palestinians could not drive on. (I was driving around with palestinians so we were on the “bad” roads).
* They have families of 10 living in one room houses.
* They have families that have a donkey’s living with them in their one room too.
These are extreme living conditions and the reason they voted for Hamas has to do with the fact that the islamic organization the religious arm of the political organization actually helps poor (as they are called to by their religious texts) impoverished people by feeding them. If you lived in these kinds of conditions wouldn’t you vote for the group that on the ground in practical reality actually helped you a bit.
There are some other interesting things to know about the Palestinian people… How do I know all this – yes I visited the territories but I wrote my senior thesis 40 pages on “The Lost Opportunity for Sustainable Development in Palestine” – 10 of them specifically about demography.
* They have HIGH levels of basic education Palestinians have the highest levels literacy in the arab world.
* They have a lot of higher educational institutions.
* They have the highest level of educational attainment of women in the arab world (normally educated women cut back on the number of children they have).
* Even though the women are relatively very educated – they are very committed to having children and lots of them
Women living in Palestine have a total fertility rate (TFR) of 5.6 children—significantly higher than women in other countries that have similar levels of education and access to health services. (Women in Gaza have 6.6 births, on average, while women in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) have an average of 5.2 births.) they are clear they are fighting a long term demographic “race” with Israel. More palestinians means more votes and more bodies to resist the injustice they have suffered.
* They have a very young population (in 2005 – 18% was below the age of 5, 45% was below the age of 15) this means that is lots of young men of marriageable age and seeking work.
So you put all this together
1. a population that watches TV from around the world on satellite dishes,
2. that lives in abject poverty
3. That is highly educated and mostly in the arts (political science, economics, english, comparative literature etc…)
4. Young men without an economic opportunities compounded by the fact that without this they can’t marry and thus can’t have sex. THEY ARE FRUSTRATED.
They know – they see every day on TV what they don’t have. We live in a globalized world and it is not just about ‘us’ those in North America and Europe knowing about the rest of the world – the rest of the world has the same tools too. They see the gap – with their own eyes and it makes them angry.
I don’t want to be all down on this post. This went by on twitter a few days ago It is about a contributor/admin on WikiHow (the wiki for how too manuals) and it made me cry – it is why I love the internet and the power it has to connect people and give people meaningful ways to contribute and help one another.
Many of you know that the dedicated wikiHowian and new admin, VC, lives in Gaza. (Actually VC is only a new admin on the English wikiHow. He has been an admin on Arabic wikiHow for a while.) And everyone knows that there is currently a war in Gaza right now. Even before the recent fighting started, VC suffered from sporadic internet access caused by electrical outages. So I felt lucky to get this email reply when I asked how he was surviving the war:
Quote:
It is terrible indeed, however, it is kind people like yourself and other wikiHow editors that keep me going on, sane and to some extent even happy that I have friends who really care about me without even really ever seeing me. Thank you very much for asking and checking on me. I’m safe and sound and so is my family and my friends. The circumstances however are hard on the children, but with some tenderness, love and patience, they’ll get through it (or so I hope). The area where I live in Gaza is considered relatively safe as it is the center of the city.
It is in rough and extremely hazardous situations like these that we usually need something to hold on to … to believe in. wikiHow and its community has been that and more to me. It was and still is what I turn to so as to find comfort and peace of mind. The wikiHow community members are so supportive and kind. When I set at the computer and start doing anything related to wikiHow, it is currently my only escape outlet where I can, for some sweet moments, forget about the war, the harsh circumstances and the suffering all around me. And when I see a message by one of the editors, whether discussing some wikiHow related matter or simply saying “hi, how are you”, it makes me feel … alive, not cutoff of the world outside … having what I call a “universal family” that cares and comforts me.
For all of that Jack, I’d like to thank you for founding this wonderful family, making it possible for me and many others to feel at home no matter what.
You know your conference is to cheap when…
You know your conference is to cheap when other conferences offer you $200 discounts to register EARLY and yours only costs $200.
In case you missed it the Internet Identity Workshop has an announcement up and registration is open. Phil and I implore you to PLEASE register early so we know how many of you are coming.
We subtly softened our language about “user-centric identity” to take into account that there is some concern that this might be going to far in one direction and it may be that the parameters of the relationship in the middle is where the focus needs to be.
The Internet Identity Workshop focuses on what has been called user-centric identity. Basically asking the question how can people manage their own identity across the range of websites, services, companies and organizations that they belong to, purchase from and participate with. IIW is a working meeting for a range of groups focused on the technical, social and legal issues arising with the emergence identity, relationship and social layer of the web.
I think this year Identity as a service will make a strong appearance. Companies like Symplified are doing interesting things that have application in the enterprise market first but could have usefulness on the consumer side maybe sooner then we think.
More from the announcement:
As a community we have been exploring these kinds of questions:
- How are social networking sites and social media tools applying user-centric identity? (this is the question I am interested in knowing more about. How is it working now that you can actually implement some of this stuff – it is not just big ideas any more)
- What are the open standards to make it work? (identity and semantic)
- What are technical implementations of those standards?
- How do different standards and technical implementations interoperate?
- What are the new social norms and legal constructs needed to make it work?
- What tools are needed to make it usably secure for end-users?
- What are the businesses cases / models that drive all this?
Our event is highly participatory anyone who wants to present can do so. The agenda is made all together on Tuesday morning. We do this unconference style – for those who have not yet been you can read what community leaders have said about the effectiveness of the format.
If you are NEW please come to Monday’s introductory session starting at 1pm. If you have attended before it is worth coming to get the latest updates on where things are.
Yes it is CHEAP – $200 if you are an independant, and $350 if you come from a corporateion. You get all your meals paid for (healthy food – some say the best ever conference food).
If you want to come and you can’t afford it – talk to us – we want you there if you want to be there.
If you are an Identity blogger and have been to IIW PLEASE blog about this one coming up. We also have a blog sidebar logo you an put up.
border=”0″ hspace=”3″ vspace=”3″ align=”left” title=”IIW2008 Registration banner”alt=”IIW2008 Registration banner” />
Identity Books Arrive
So I had two book shipments arrive today – i thought I would share them in case any of you out there also are reading or hope to read these books soon. Let me know.
From AMAZON today came
Identity and Control: How Social Formations Emerge, Second Edition by Harrison C. White.
This one was recommended by the Value Networks mailing list that I am on. It dives into the construction of sociocultural context. Chapter one is titled Identities and Control. Should be good.
I am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter (author of Godel, Escher, Bach) This one was recomended to my by Scott David at lunch when I met him in Seattle recently. A mutual friend introduced us five months ago in e-mail. He is a lawyer based in Seattle and participating in the ID-Legal group . The book asks the question “What do we mean when we say “I”?
I got three books that I hope will be useful in gaining some more skills/tools for communicating about identity topics.
Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with PICTURES by Dan Roam
Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery by Garr Reynolds (I saw him present at SlideShare recently.
and
Indexed (the space betwen short, nerdy and oddly attractive) by Jessica Hagy (her blog) – think Hugh MacLeod but with diagrams on index cards rather then cartoons on the back of business cards.
Books I bought in Boston and shipped home arrived 🙂
Buckminster Fuller:Staring with the Universe is the catalogue from the Whitney Museum exhibit about him. This gets to our identity as beings on spaceship earth in the universe.
Uniforms: Why we are what we where by Paul Fussel
Ok these’s don’t exactly have to do with identity but they are fun – and besides “you are what you eat” right?
Slow Food: why our Food should be Good, Clean and Fair by Carlo Petrini – it is a translation of his manifesto originally in italian – this weekend happens to be Slow Food Nation
On Guerrilla Gardening: A Handbook for Gardening Without Boundaries by Richard Reynolds.
Last week Cody’s Books was closing in Berkeley. The bank of the company that owned the store recalled the loans. The store closed about 6 weeks ago and sat there with all the books inside. Then 2 weeks ago they sold all those remaining books at 40% off.
I got four Identity related books
Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption, Updated and Expanded Edition (2007) by Whitfield Diffie and Susan Landau.
Less Safe, Less Free: Why Americans are Loosing the War on Terror by David Cole and Jules Lobel
Who’s Watching You? The Chilling Truth about the State Surveillance, and Personal Freedom by Mick Farren and John Gibb
and
cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity and Identity on the Internet by Lisa Nakamura. (cybertypes is her updated word for stereotypes that appear on in the context of cyberspace).
IC and Data Portability
Here are some question asked in a recent conversation on the dataportability.org lists about IC along with my responses.
Maybe the Identity commons should be trying to set boundaries as being purely about identity?
An “open identity layer” that touches so much and there needs to be a “common space” to nash through the vastness of the problem – to deal with the technical, social and legal issues around people sharing their information in community and business contexts. We have this ultra extensible form and broad purpose to enable this to happen – there is “no committee in charge” no “one” or “company” or “group” is deciding what we “do” – we are a loose conglomeration that shares vision and values. Working independently but connectedly and commited to collaboration. It It is an ‘unconventional’ model that that is working to supposed and connect diverse conversations and technical efforts together.
Can we instead resolve that we promise to incorporate any decisions made by Identity commons as being part of our blueprint?
There are no “decisions made by Identity Commons” read our principles – we are a cluster of working groups that work independently.
Your blueprint (as a side note why there is still ‘one blueprint’ and not ‘blueprints’ plural at the very least or preferably ‘reference implementations’ in the plural form is still a mystery to me) will likely draw on tech stuff groups in IC have been working on for a while. Why not be a part of the ‘commons’ that they are a part of?
My perception of IDCommons is that it’s about Identity, and in your words, interoperable user-centric identity.
Most of the people who have been involved for the past several years got involved to help people have control of their ‘data’ – their identity the informatoin about them is part of what composes their identity. they didn’t get involved to ‘invent’ an identifier layer that didn’t “do” anything
I see DataPortability being about data sharing (in a technical sense)Identity is clearly a very important part of that but I don’t see much at all on IDCommons about data sharing. It’s as though DP has a wider scope of which IDCommons is a major part.
The exceptions to this view are
- Identity Schemas group
- Photo Group
- Data Sharing group
None of which seem to have much activity.
* OpenID has attribute exchange and Discovery in it – all about data sharing.
* Higgins & Bandit and the Pamela project ALL about infrastructure for card based tools that are all about data sharing for people.
* Project VRM all about how to create a new industry model to revolutionaize CRM and put individuals in charge of their data in radical new ways when relating to companies they do business with.
* I-brokers – their job is to stor data about people and have it be trusted.
* IRA – Identity Rights Agreements – all about how we create human understandable terms of service and norms in this area (it is a huge project and has interested folks but really needs a multi hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal work to ‘do it’).
* XRI and XDI two standards with roots in IC all about data sharing that can be applied to both peoples personal data and other forms of data that have nothing to do with people.
* OSIS is the Open Source Identity System and having its 3rd Interop event at RSA (The major security conference) in April with over 200 tests between relying parties, identity providers and (user-agents) card selectors. this group is ‘only’ a working group of IC (it does not have its own independent legal entity/or affiliation with another one as a project). People moving data around is what all this card stuff is about.
So. I am not sure where we have groups that are not in some way focused on this problem area.
DP is just the latest in a long line of initiatives that recognises the same underlying problem but none of the previous initiatives have captured mind share or really got traction.
Our goal is not to ‘capture [public] mind share’ (does the W3C, OASIS or IETF capture public mind share?) our goal is to facilitate the range of technical, social and legal initiatives that all need to happen to get and identity layer of the web – that shares people’s data in privacy protecing, conveninent and under their control. It is a huge problem – with many elements – having a loose community structure (with a slight bit of formalization) is actually working in some way to move this forward.
I think we’d be missing a lot if we scoped DP as a specialization of an “open identity layer”.
What do you think moving peoples personal information arournd – data portability is about. It is about building an ‘identity layer’ of the internet – for people and people’s DATA.
Chris has said a few times the scope of DP is to be narrow for now and focused on solving the data portability issue between mainstream social networks. This seems like something that fits into the purpose quite well.
Yes all data for all things needs to be moved around AND a good deal of data is created by people for people about people and the things the they do – hence the synergy.
Seems like semanitcs – when we wrote this purpose about two years ago this was the best we could do to describe this ‘vision’ it is VERY broad.
If DP wants to go beyond ‘people’ data that needs to move around GREAT – however much of that will be created by organizations and companies (that have identities).
Related Posts: What is Data Portability.org
What the Heck is Identity Commons?
Data Sharing Workshop and 2nd Summit
About a week ago I posted about the choice landscape we have for these events. No one seemed to have an opinion so we went with both and are having one event leaning more towards ‘the technical’ and another leaning more towards vendors with products and potential buyers.
The Data Sharing Workshop, April 18 – 19 at the SFSU, Downtown Campus.
The Data Sharing Summit, May 15, at the Computer History Museum. (immediately following the Internet Identity Workshop)
We received such a positive response to the Data Sharing Summit in September, 2007 and, given the ongoing emergence of different data sharing initiatives, such as dataportability.org, Social Networking Portability, the 1.0 release of the Higgins Framework, DiSO, MT activity feeds, etc. we decided that it was a good time to hold another summit.
Our purpose is to provide gathering spaces in which all parties can work together on the challenge of data sharing. We create the agenda the day it happens. It is about getting things done and figuring out the tough problems – there is no committee deciding who does or does not get to ‘present’ it is about breaking up and really diving in figuring out the solutions and building the consensus to get adoption.
Data Sharing Workshop Details
April 18-19, Friday-Saturday, SFSU Downtown Campus
We selected April 18th and 19th because it seemed like an ideal time to host this event, given that it falls in between RSA and Web 2.0 Expo. People who are the Bay Area from around the world will be able to participate in figuring out how to get data sharing to happen. Although the event will focus on technical aspects, it will also include social, legal and business issues related to data sharing. The space can accommodate up to 200 attendees.
This event is being co-presented by SFSU Institue for the Next Generation Internet
We decided to hold the event on Friday and Saturday to accommodate the needs of different attendees. If you are at a company that is focused on this work and you prefer not to work on weekends, you can attend Friday. Or if you are interested in the subject but are unable to attend due to work commitments, you can come on Saturday. Those who are highly dedicated can come to both days.
Data Sharing Summit 2 Details
May 15, Thursday, Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA
This event will immediately follow the Sixth Internet Identity Workshop at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View CA. There will be a combined focus on technical work and on opportunities for vendors with solutions in this space to share and connect with potential adopters of Data Sharing tools.
You may want to arrive on the afternoon of May 14th to participate in Internet Identity Workshop activities relevant to DSS (such as the OSIS Interop). May 15th will be a long intensive day, ending around 5 or 6, in time for dinner. Because it is important to close the event together as a group, please make plans to be there all day. The space can hold up to 400 people.
If you are super into the topic of Data Sharing we highly recommend that you come to the [http://iiw.idcommons.net Internet Identity Workshop] that precedes it.
The Problems, Offerings and Solutions that we put forward at the start of the first DSS is quite informative. Proposed topics and Outcomes are also lay the ground work for these next two events.
If you are interested in sponsoring please contact Laurie Rae at sponsorship@datasharingsummit.com
Feel free to contact me if you have questions.
Your 'dead' but you are not really dead.
According to MSNBC, thousands of U.S. citizens have wrongfully been declared dead, due to an average of 35 data input errors per day by the Social Security Administration (SSA). Many other agencies rely on the data provided by the SSA, such as the IRS. People who have been wrongfully declared dead face many problems, such as rejection of tax returns, cancellation of health insurance, and closure of bank accounts. The article states, ‘Input of an erroneous death entry can lead to benefit termination and result in financial hardship for a beneficiary.’ Apparently it is far easier to declare a person’s death than it is to correct the mistake. It continues, ‘Social Security says an erroneous death record can be removed only when it is presented with proof that the original record was entered in error. The original error must be documented, and the deletion must be approved by a supervisor after “pertinent facts supporting reinstatement” are available in the system.'”
In all, Social Security officials had to “resurrect” 23,366 people from January 2004 to September 2005. In other words, over a period of 21 months, Social Security was presented with irrefutable evidence that it had been “killing” more than 1,100 people a month, or more than 35 a day.
Garbage in, garbage out
The problem begins at the Social Security Administration, keeper of most of the records tabulating deaths in the United States. Like other government agencies, the IRS, with whom Todd has most recently tangled, relies upon Social Security’s database, said Dan Boone, a spokesman for the IRS.
When Social Security determines that an eligible current or future beneficiary has died, it closes the person’s entry in its Case Processing and Management System, or CPMS.
The system is only as good as the data it receives. Sometimes, that isn’t very good.
Todd, for example, was killed when someone in Florida died and her Social Security number was accidentally typed in. Since then, her tax returns have repeatedly been rejected, and her bank closed her credit card account.
“One time when I [was] ruled dead, they canceled my health insurance because it got that far,” she said.
Toni Anderson of Muncie, Ind., expired when someone in the government pushed the wrong button, making the records declare that it was she, not her husband, John, who died Nov. 8.
Social Security even sent this letter: “Dear Mr. Anderson, our condolences on the loss of Mrs. Anderson.”
Commentary:
This is just one of a huge set of issues that arise from massive government databases that are maintained by people (who make mistakes). It a reminder that the ‘massive government database in the sky that determines who is and is not ‘alive’ or ‘dead’ is or is not a person is not going really the answer to identity problems – increasing reliance on them could make things worse.
Daniel Solove makes this point that bureaucracies don’t take care of people’s information well because they are data systems full of abstractions.
Bob Blakley talks about the fact that
Privacy is not about keeping personal information secret. It’s about ensuring that people who handle personal information respect the dignity of the individuals to whom that information refers.
Killing people in government databases before they are dead is not dignified.