Anonymity and multiple identities

I think I disagree on Step 2:

> Step 2: "Webfinger" - Webfinger is the official way to publish your
> public profile information on the web. It takes a user name and a
> domain name as its parameters, and returns information like full name,
> avatar picture in different sizes, home location, possibly some public
> keys that the user has on the device(s) she often connects from, and
> other contact information. It also links to any other information
> sources about the user, like a foaf profile or an activity stream, and
> possibly non-web contact methods like email addresses and jabber ID's.
> Webfinger makes "users at hosts" into something the web as such can
> understand in a unique and well-defined way.

1. Anonymity:
Wikileak, the Arabian spring, China, etc., etc. must make us conclude: 
The point of departure must be anonymity, that is, the identity of an 
individual has no bits except an identifier that may re-used by the 
individual. It is the individual who decides how anonymous (i.e. which 
information about herself should be disclosed by an identity) she likes 
to be. But, another individual must also be able to specify the degree 
of anonymity he will accept from others under different conditions.

2. Multiple identities:
It is trivial that we all have multiple identities (at work, at the 
café, in the family, in the party, in the club, with your lawyer, etc., 
etc.). It must be possible to have multiple identities and subidentities.

3. Traffic-identity
Identity is not defined by a node with associated information, solely. 
Identity is also defined by who communicate with whom about what. 
Therefore, the individual must be able to control who have (direct) 
access to which information exchange you have participated in. Anonymity 
also implies control of your information exchange.

1., 2. and 3. may be combined: You may have an anonymous subidentity at 
the "federated leak-webpage", while your family subidenty is not 
anonymous for your family, etc. However, when you are devorcing, you 
don't want your husband to have access to a lot of new information about 
you, e.g. what you are communicating with your lawyer about.

I know this is controversial from the point of view of goverments and 
content providers who have an interest in being able to survey every 
citizen as much as they like. Drug dealers is a good example of this 
being reasonable. However, it is more important, that we ensure that 
those who protest against state-terrorism (e.g. Saudi-Arabia, Bahrain, 
White Russia, etc. etc.) may conceal their identity on the net. Perhaps 
three principles is the inverse of TCPM and DRM: Not that TCPM and DRM 
should be impossible, but TCPM and DRM should never exclude the 
possibility of being anonymous and having multiple identites (which was 
what Microsoft tried to effectuate with their TCPM project).

I hope this is not too much out of touch with the group's intentions. 
But, in my opinion, the three points must be addressed and discussed. At 
least a future social network protocol must make 1-3 feasible.  We 
already have too many big companies, like Apple, Google, Facebook, etc., 
who know much too much about us. They may swear that they would never 
ever misuse it, but they may change their minds whenever they like, say 
in 10 years.

I have a Facebook profile (in Danish), but I give no information about 
myself except my name, mobile phone, and my mail-address (as well as 
some of my social relations). This is of course a good identification of 
me. Nevertheless, denying to give information about me is clearly odd on 
facebook. For instance, I have received several greetings on my 
'birthday' though it is Jan 1 1913. What provokes me is that it is 
Facebook, and not me, that determines what is convenient public 
information about me.

I think point 2 to should be rephrased:

> Step 2: "Webfinger" and "WebID" - WebID is the official way have an
> identity on the web. Webfinger takes user credentials as its
> parameters, and may return information like full name, avatar picture
> in different sizes, home location, possibly some public keys that the
> user has on the device(s) she often connects from, and other contact
> information. But, since a WebID may be anonymous, the user control
> which information is to be returned. If the user approves this, the
> webfinger may also link a WebID to any other information sources about
> the user, like a foaf profile or an activity stream, and possibly
> non-web contact methods like email addresses and jabber ID's. WebID
> makes a "user" into an agent which the web as such can understand in a
> unique and well-defined way. Any user may have multiple WebIDs, which
> may be linked as the user like.


Best

Flemming Bjerke

Received on Friday, 6 July 2012 07:49:06 UTC