Re: Digital Press Passes and Decentralized Public Key Infrastructures

Hi Adam,
I believe the folks at Muckrock Foundation have considered this (in
connection with a project named 'PressPass' as it happens), as a kind of
ORCid for journalists. But think there may be some long-term resource
issues (ongoing maintenance costs). Happy to connect you off thread though
with that team if of interest.

Cheers,
Connie

On Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 5:23 PM Adam Sobieski <adamsobieski@hotmail.com>
wrote:

> 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
>
>
>