Re: WebID questions -- was: [dane] Call for Adoption: "Using Secure DNS to Associate Certificates with Domain Names For S/MIME"

On 9/27/12 8:11 AM, Henry Story wrote:
> On 27 Sep 2012, at 13:10, Ben Laurie <benl@google.com> wrote:
>
>> On 27 September 2012 12:01, Henry Story <henry.story@bblfish.net> wrote:
>>> I forgot to reply to this comment:
>>>
>>> On 27 Sep 2012, at 12:13, Ben Laurie <benl@google.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> There is no need to restrict people to using 2 or 3. There is I believe a
>>>> limit on how many identities people wish to have.
>>>
>>> The W3C does not seem to agree -
>>> http://www.w3.org/2011/tracking-protection/drafts/tracking-dnt.html claims
>>> that some people do not want to be correlated across sites.
>>>
>>>
>>> Yes. We are not saying the MUST be  correlated across sites, and we are not
>>> removing the freedom of people who wish not to be correlated.
>>>
>>> When I go to a web site I don't have to click the login button. f I click
>>> the login button and it asks me for a certificate I don't have to choose one
>>> with a WebID - or choose one at all for that matter.
>>>
>>> The browser UI people could add a field in the certificate login selection
>>> box for an origin-bound-certificate perhaps. I am not sure how they should
>>> present this, nor what the advantages or disadvanteges of doing that would
>>> be,  and it is outside the scope of the discussion here.
>>>
>>> But if I want to login with an identity I have on the web, and I want this
>>> to be correlated, then I don't see why that freedom should not be available
>>> to me.
>>>
>>> I am just saying that practically most people will not want to have 10000
>>> identities. Certainly if we restrict ourselves to identities that they want
>>> to use for correlation, it seems unlikely that people can cope with more
>>> than a handful or find it useful.
>> I find a standard that is not interested in helping people who want to
>> log in _and_ have privacy to not be very interesting.
> That is stated so generally it is difficult to make much of it.  You seem to want Origin-bound-certificates it seems as described here:
>
>   http://tools.ietf.org/agenda/81/slides/tls-1.pdf
>
> ( though the criticism of TLS certificates on slide 3 is wrong as I have already explained in
>   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webid/2012Sep/0093.html )
>
> I pointed out in my reply above that perhaps origin bound certificates could be tied  into a user experience with normal browsers and normal certificates. I don't see why there should  be a standard that solves both problems, or why they could not work together.
>
> Now this still leaves you with the option of thinking that the problem you really care about - secure login to one site - is the one and only truly honest problem that an engineer needs to solve who is concerned about privacy. Let me spend a little time disabusing you of that understandably simple and appealing idea.  Consider:
>   
> 1. What kind of privacy do you get if you log into one site (say with Origin-bound certificates ) and it offers everything to you: your social networks, your films, your news, your search, etc... Is that really privacy?
>
> 2. What incentive do you have when you go to a different site, and you log in there completely fresh? Let us imagine that that is the only thing you CAN do when you login to a new site: perhaps linked data and WebID have been made illegal in this world. So you arrive at this new site, and the number of people you can interact with is inevitably less than on mega-co's servers. You may find that cool. But where do you think the rest of humanity is going to end up on? And what does that do to your privacy when they tweet more and more where they saw you, what you told them, and in any case all the communication you send them has to go through megaco's servers.
>
> So consider why and how you came to think that "login and privacy" were the only thing to merit your attention. Also consider why you think that login and identity don't equal privacy. Say you have a freedom box and I have mine, and I go to your server and authenticate and post a picture. The only two people who can see the picture are you and me. Where is there a privacy gap there?
>
> I believe you are serious in your desire for privacy. And I respect that. But I think by not taking into account the network effect, by not noticing the many folded nature of reality, you end up working against your own values, and discarding solutions that could help you achieve your aims. So I do urge you to consider WebID as another tool to help create a more just and less asymetric space for us to live in, where we can all enjoy greater privacy and security.
>
> Henry Story

+1

Kingsley
>
>>>
>>>> The rest is up to browser vendors to improve the User Experience.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Social Web Architect
>>> http://bblfish.net/
>>>
> Social Web Architect
> http://bblfish.net/
>
>
>
>


-- 

Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	
Founder & CEO
OpenLink Software
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Received on Thursday, 27 September 2012 13:38:54 UTC