Re: Digital Press Passes and Decentralized Public Key Infrastructures

Adam,

Thanks for surfacing the press-pass use case, which doesn’t often come up but certainly deserves attention given the fragile/fractured state of modern journalism.

Brick House<https://www.coindesk.com/maria-bustillos-on-tokenizing-journalism-the-death-of-civil-and-rise-of-brick-house> might be worth a double-click (been following along after a failed investment in Civil...live and learn).

Also timely given the recent work in VC-Edu<https://w3c-ccg.github.io/vc-ed/>. For those unaware, I highly recommend this recent post/proposal: The Future of Open Badges is Verifiable<https://link.medium.com/i1Ohgt8e2hb>

Awesome work from @kayaelle<https://twitter.com/kayaelle> + @ottonomy<https://twitter.com/ottonomy> and all those who have poured years into the #OpenBadges and #OpenRecognition communities!


Taylor Kendal | @taykendesign<https://twitter.com/taykendesign>
www.learningeconomy.io<http://www.learningeconomy.io>

The metaverse is here, it’s just not evenly distributed...or sufficiently decentralized.

________________________________
From: Adam Sobieski <adamsobieski@hotmail.com>
Sent: Monday, July 19, 2021 8:45 PM
To: Michael Herman (Trusted Digital Web); public-credibility@w3.org; public-credentials@w3.org
Subject: RE: Digital Press Passes and Decentralized Public Key Infrastructures

Michael,

Thank you. I will take a closer look at decentralized badges and the technologies which make them possible. It could be that the same technologies can support “digital press pass” scenarios.

As envisioned, one technical difference between “educational badge” and “digital press pass” scenarios is that, with “digital press passes”, a credentialing organization or authority could revoke an organization’s or individual’s “digital press pass”, e.g., if the organization or individual misinforms or disinforms. As envisioned, each credentialing organization or authority would have their own policies, express codes of conduct, and procedures, to which those seeking “digital press passes” would agree to abide by. These policies, codes of conduct, and procedures would be a part of the ethos and the brands of the credentialing organizations or authorities.

As envisioned, self-organizing, self-monitoring, and self-policing made possible by technologies under discussion would create the value of “digital press passes” for use by interoperating systems.


Best regards,
Adam

From: Michael Herman (Trusted Digital Web)<mailto:mwherman@parallelspace.net>
Sent: Monday, July 19, 2021 7:32 PM
To: Michael Herman (Trusted Digital Web)<mailto:mwherman@parallelspace.net>; Adam Sobieski<mailto:adamsobieski@hotmail.com>; public-credibility@w3.org<mailto:public-credibility@w3.org>; public-credentials@w3.org<mailto:public-credentials@w3.org>
Subject: RE: Digital Press Passes and Decentralized Public Key Infrastructures

Check out: https://www.google.com/search?q=decentralized+badges

From: Michael Herman (Trusted Digital Web) <mwherman@parallelspace.net>
Sent: July 19, 2021 5:24 PM
To: Adam Sobieski <adamsobieski@hotmail.com>; public-credibility@w3.org; public-credentials@w3.org
Subject: RE: Digital Press Passes and Decentralized Public Key Infrastructures

Adam, I think what you’re asking isn’t too different from a number of the Badges platforms that are out there. [Others on this list are more familiar with specific implementations.]

For example, I have a number of (not-decentralized) Edx course credentials in my Linkedin profile that act like you describe.  Check out the Licenses and Certification section of https://www.linkedin.com/in/mwherman/.  Click on the See credential links.

Michael

From: Adam Sobieski <adamsobieski@hotmail.com<mailto:adamsobieski@hotmail.com>>
Sent: July 19, 2021 3:23 PM
To: public-credibility@w3.org<mailto:public-credibility@w3.org>; public-credentials@w3.org<mailto:public-credentials@w3.org>
Subject: Digital Press Passes and Decentralized Public Key Infrastructures

Credible Web Community Group,
Credentials Community Group,

I would like to broach the topic of “digital press passes” towards a more credible web.

As envisioned, “digital press passes” could be provided to organizations and individuals utilizing decentralized public key infrastructure.

Webpages could include URLs to their “digital press passes” in link elements (<link rel="press-pass" href="…" />). This information could also be encoded in documents in a manner interoperable with Web schema. News content could be digitally signed by one or more “digital press passes”.

Upsides include: (1) end-users and services could configure which certificate authorities that they desired to recognize, (2) end-users could visually see, in their Web browsers, whether displayed content was from a source with a valid “digital press pass”, (3) news aggregation sites could distinguish content digitally signed by “digital press passes”, (4) social media websites could visually adorn and prioritize shared content which is digitally signed by “digital press passes”, (5) entry for new news organizations and recognition as such by existing services would be simplified, e.g., a new newspaper organization, the new news organization would need to obtain a “digital press pass” from a certificate authority.

Downsides include: impact on citizen journalism, where users other than journalists desire to publish or distribute news content.

Have these ideas been considered before? Any thoughts on these ideas?


Best regards,
Adam Sobieski

P.S.: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikifact