Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Own Your Identity

marco.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 57 posts

Re: Own Your Identity

#21

Post by wmf »

sixtofour wrote: post #10
zobzu wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

unfortunately having a domain is not enough you have to be on twitter maybe youll have to be on g+ sometime soon too then you dont own it anymore additionally, ive always worried about the fact that the dns registar generally own your dns and just let you use it for a fee.

Yes, for some reason we say we "own" our domains, but I always seem to have to renew my lease.

At least you have some rights under UDRP, but you have no rights on Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr, as has been repeatedly demonstrated.

Re: Own Your Identity

#22

Post by starnix17 »

VengefulCynic wrote: post #15
starnix17 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also worth noting, he's no longer using Tumblr for Marco.org: http://www.marco.org/secondcrack

And, as discussed in his podcast - Build and Analyze http://5by5.tv/buildanalyze/18 (ep. 18), this has nothing to do with Marco developing a sudden aversion to Tumblr and everything to do with his desire to be able to roll his own CMS as he has been doing since far before that CMS turned into Tumblr.

Ah, correct, this makes more sense now.

Re: Own Your Identity

#23

Post by a3_nm »

russnewcomer wrote: post #7

It's not just individuals that need to own their identity. I work with small businesses and have helped numerous clients move from @aol.com or @hotmail.com addresses to their own domains. And it's not just businesses, either. I have worked in third-world countries and seen governments print "countryforeignerregistration@yahoo.com" on official documents. The only reason I don't own my identity online is that I've been…

This is a pretty good excuse, actually. DNS means that your identity is still in the hands of someone else.

The only identity that you can really own is an asymmetric encryption key, but it won't allow people to find you.

Re: Own Your Identity

#24

Post by nikcub »

'owning it' doesn't mean your own domain. you are only leasing that domain name until you either no longer pay for it or the government in control feels you no longer deserve access to it.

Re: Own Your Identity

#25

Post by mapgrep »

nikcub wrote: post #24

'owning it' doesn't mean your own domain. you are only leasing that domain name until you either no longer pay for it or the government in control feels you no longer deserve access to it.

While you hit on a genuine problem, there are far fewer legal barriers to Google, Facebook, Twitter or Microsoft terminating your account than for US ICE to seize your .com and .org; ICE needs a warrant for seizure and more to retain indefinitely. Further, you can always get a non U.S. domain, e.g. .ch (Swiss) as used by Wikileaks.

Re: Own Your Identity

#26

Post by edanm »

nikcub wrote: post #24

'owning it' doesn't mean your own domain. you are only leasing that domain name until you either no longer pay for it or the government in control feels you no longer deserve access to it.

That's a little sensationalist, don't you think? What are the chances "the government" takes away your domain name? It's happened to an incredibly small percentage of domain-owners, I would guess.

Re: Own Your Identity

#27

Post by kiba »

nikcub wrote: post #24

'owning it' doesn't mean your own domain. you are only leasing that domain name until you either no longer pay for it or the government in control feels you no longer deserve access to it.

That is why you use namecoin, the p2p domain name system. Unfortunately, it lacks adoption.

Re: Own Your Identity

#28

Post by naner »

Fargren wrote: post #4

Going on a tangent, but hotmail is really good nowadays. My non-serious-mail-from-friends account is on hotmail, and it's as good as gmail, a bit better in some stuff and a bit worse in others.

Going on a tangent, but hotmail is really good nowadays.

I hope you're joking. Live Mail (which subsumed Hotmail) is atrocious, the interface sucks. Live Mail also doesn't do a good job of catching spam.

The only thing worse I've used interface-wise is Yahoo! Mail.

Re: Own Your Identity

#29

Post by wmf »

zobzu wrote: post #8
russnewcomer wrote: post #7

It's not just individuals that need to own their identity. I work with small businesses and have helped numerous clients move from @aol.com or @hotmail.com addresses to their own domains. And it's not just businesses, either. I have worked in third-world countries and seen governments print "countryforeignerregistration@yahoo.com" on official documents. The only reason I don't own my identity online is that I've been…

unfortunately having a domain is not enough you have to be on twitter maybe youll have to be on g+ sometime soon too then you dont own it anymore additionally, ive always worried about the fact that the dns registar generally own your dns and just let you use it for a fee.

You have a point there. I went through all the trouble of owning my identity (I don't even use Gmail) and then someone told me that he can't read my blog unless I pipe it into Twitter, because he only reads Twitter now. Am I a free man or a crackpot? I'm not even sure any more.

Re: Own Your Identity

#30

Post by spodek »

Take his arguments farther and you reach Eben Moglen's (co-creator of free software licenses) goal of the FreedomBox, which would enable all to own all their data currently in the cloud.

The project is getting started. It's bold and far-reaching, but so was a free encyclopedia anyone could edit. This page http://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox gives more background and the videos it links to are inspirational.

If you agree with owning your identity, you may like what you read.

Post reply on HN