41–50 of 101 posts
I don't support centralized internet ID systems for the same reasons I don't support a national identity card: it's a central point of control that will inevitably be used by the government against its citizens and corporations for profiling and targeting all of us.
As much as it may appeal to the tech mind to have things in nice little boxes this is a terrible and dangerous idea.
I am not sanguine on the idea, but the marketing for the idea is beyond terrible. The IDL is a leaky abstraction because the most salient features of drivers licenses are a) you have to apply to the government to get one, b) the government can take yours away with as much ease as they can do anything else, and c) if you lose your license, you will be denied the ability to use one or more critical goods/services (driv…
And d) you have to take a test to get one.
Obviously, just kidding.
I am not sanguine on the idea, but the marketing for the idea is beyond terrible. The IDL is a leaky abstraction because the most salient features of drivers licenses are a) you have to apply to the government to get one, b) the government can take yours away with as much ease as they can do anything else, and c) if you lose your license, you will be denied the ability to use one or more critical goods/services (driv…
Perhaps a more accurate metaphore would be "Internet Passport". Government's can't take it away and it has no real entitlements. However Jeff Atwood is from the USA which has a strangley low number of passport holders. Perhaps they are used to using a driving licence instead of passport as general ID.
It's not strangely low; Americans can travel to far more than the equivalent of the EU without one. (We can go to all 50 plus Canada and Mexico.)
Driver's License is the wrong metaphor for OpenID. If you had an Internet Driver's License, it would be your email address. You always have that with you at all times. OpenID is more like a Von's Club card. An inconvenient scrap of plastic that would just take up space in my wallet so it gets left at home. Every time I go into a Vons, I have to ask the cashier for a new one and it pisses me off that little bit, just…
You really have to be behind the times to still be advocating OpenID. Technology is made up of alternatives, and one wins. No matter how much you love something, if it's dead, it's dead, now move on. Every hyped technological product has a a short window in which to dominate, and if it does not, it will remain confined to a nice. That's the case with OpenID. It's over, the battle is lost. Same goes for RSS, DRMed mus…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That, and the concept of the driver's license as the definitive ID document is quasi exclusively and strongly connoted as a funny US peculiarity.
I'm in the UK and my driver's license is the only form of "official" ID I normally carry. Much to my delight, we canceled the silly project to issue government ID cards.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps a more accurate metaphore would be "Internet Passport". Government's can't take it away and it has no real entitlements. However Jeff Atwood is from the USA which has a strangley low number of passport holders. Perhaps they are used to using a driving licence instead of passport as general ID.
> However Jeff Atwood is from the USA which has a strangley low number of passport holders. It's not strangely low; Americans can travel to far more than the equivalent of the EU without one. (We can go to all 50 plus Canada and Mexico.)
:(
Edit: Since June 2009.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps a more accurate metaphore would be "Internet Passport". Government's can't take it away and it has no real entitlements. However Jeff Atwood is from the USA which has a strangley low number of passport holders. Perhaps they are used to using a driving licence instead of passport as general ID.
> However Jeff Atwood is from the USA which has a strangley low number of passport holders. It's not strangely low; Americans can travel to far more than the equivalent of the EU without one. (We can go to all 50 plus Canada and Mexico.)