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The Future of Online Identity Is Decentralized

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Re: The Future of Online Identity Is Decentralized

#31
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does federation bring here? Aren't OpenID identities already collision free? I'd love to have SSO under my own control, and while it was theoretically possible with OpenID 2 things have gone backwards with OIDC with everyone supporting it but restricting login to just the big names (Google, Facebook, Apple). I put together a simple stateless OID2/OIDC identity provider: https://gitlab.com/rendaw/oidle but I have…

I had a classic OpenID server and every website I use to authentication against using it has gotten rid of OpenID support. Stackoverflow was the big one. I haven't tried OpenID Connect yet. https://battlepenguin.com/tech/the-decline-of-openid/

By the way I wanted to say I read that blog post a bunch of times while trying to put together that software! OpenStreetMap and GnuSocial may really be everything on the internet now.

I'd almost sign up for a website at this point just to get a chance to use my OID provider...

Re: The Future of Online Identity Is Decentralized

#32
This makes tracking slightly more difficult, but does it really make significant difference when you consider all the tools at tracking companies' disposal?

How does it prevent linking those identities with real identities by using tools like browser fingerprinting, tracking preferences and stylometry?

I don't really see a way to keep my commenting (and even browsing to some extent) user friendly and disconnected from my real persona, so I act accordingly.

However, I'd like to be proved wrong.

Re: The Future of Online Identity Is Decentralized

#33

In my ideal world, we have a framework for brick-and-mortar businesses to act as internet notary service providers. If you want a general-purpose open-id style account, you visit a notary, and provide them with a fee and proof of your identity. You tell the notary how much information they can share (in particular, whether they can release your name to the internet, or just the "we verified this account is held by a…

In my ideal world I never have to deal with notaries and there are no physical documents at all.

Re: The Future of Online Identity Is Decentralized

#34
post #18

In my ideal world, we have a framework for brick-and-mortar businesses to act as internet notary service providers. If you want a general-purpose open-id style account, you visit a notary, and provide them with a fee and proof of your identity. You tell the notary how much information they can share (in particular, whether they can release your name to the internet, or just the "we verified this account is held by a…

> You could have a notary vouch that you're a licensed driver, or have a college degree, visited a certain country, etc. Humans, generally, are very bad at caching document fraud. It wouldn't be a vouch for a licensed driver but instead it would be a vouch for "a bit of plastic that looked like a driving license to me". There is lots of sophisticated fraud and often automated solutions have a much higher rate of dete…

Maybe have the DMV be the notary for driver's licenses?

Re: The Future of Online Identity Is Decentralized

#35

In my ideal world, we have a framework for brick-and-mortar businesses to act as internet notary service providers. If you want a general-purpose open-id style account, you visit a notary, and provide them with a fee and proof of your identity. You tell the notary how much information they can share (in particular, whether they can release your name to the internet, or just the "we verified this account is held by a…

It's possible to enable this setup using verifiable credentials - an emerging W3C standard for creating and sharing "attestations" about a person.

https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model/

Re: The Future of Online Identity Is Decentralized

#36
We have this in The Netherlands but it hasn't picked up yet. It's promising though: https://privacybydesign.foundation/irma-explanation/

The system is attribute based and requires an 'authority' to give you the attribute. After that the attribute lives on your phone and you can give it out to organisations or businesses asking for....:

  - your name
  - whether you are >= 18
  - your address
  - etc.
What's great about it is:

  - you can give out minimal information
  - no 3rd party/intermediary required after you've received an attribute

Re: The Future of Online Identity Is Decentralized

#37
post #30

In my ideal world, we have a framework for brick-and-mortar businesses to act as internet notary service providers. If you want a general-purpose open-id style account, you visit a notary, and provide them with a fee and proof of your identity. You tell the notary how much information they can share (in particular, whether they can release your name to the internet, or just the "we verified this account is held by a…

Why would I ever trust a notary? As a person being notarized it sounds like I have to give that business more personal information about myself than I usually have to do to get an online identity, as suggested by your subpoena statement. As a service trying to verify accounts I now have to trust a third party. Maybe the notary has a business that sells fake IDs in the back that are then used in the notarizing process…

You've never provided any business with ID? How do you get into nightclubs?

The internet is important. When something is important enough, it is worth the risk. That's why people share secrets with their bank, lawyer, doctor, psychologist, etc.

We are squandering most of the potential of social media, because its design limits worthwhile conversation to hypotheticals. Since there's no reason to trust the honesty or motivations of anyone online, discussing actual data or life-experience is pointless.

Re: The Future of Online Identity Is Decentralized

#38
post #36

We have this in The Netherlands but it hasn't picked up yet. It's promising though: https://privacybydesign.foundation/irma-explanation/ The system is attribute based and requires an 'authority' to give you the attribute. After that the attribute lives on your phone and you can give it out to organisations or businesses asking for....: - your name - whether you are >= 18 - your address - etc. What's great about it is…

It's a failure because everyone in Netherlands is stoned and nothing gets done.

Source: I'm Icelandic but have a cousin in NL.

Re: The Future of Online Identity Is Decentralized

#39
post #35

In my ideal world, we have a framework for brick-and-mortar businesses to act as internet notary service providers. If you want a general-purpose open-id style account, you visit a notary, and provide them with a fee and proof of your identity. You tell the notary how much information they can share (in particular, whether they can release your name to the internet, or just the "we verified this account is held by a…

It's possible to enable this setup using verifiable credentials - an emerging W3C standard for creating and sharing "attestations" about a person. https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model/

Holy mackerel! Thank you :) I've been thinking about this issue for weeks. This standard looks very relevant!
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