Posted 9:06 AM (3) comments

It's OK, we're co-related

In responding to my "violent agreement" post, Kim Cameron goes a long way towards beginning to define the parameters for correlating data and transactions. I'd urge all of you to jump into the discussion.

But - and it's a huge but - we need to be very careful of the terminology we use.

Kim starts: "Let’s postulate that only the parties to a transaction have the right to correlate the data in the transaction, and further, that they only have the right to correlate it with other transactions involving the same parties."

Which would mean, as I read it, that I couldn't correlate my transactions booking a plane trip, hotel and rental car since different parties were involved in all three transactions!

But he goes on to say: "...the individual would have the right to correlate data across all the parties with whom she interacts."

So which is it - do the parties have the right to create correlations among all partners, or not? Remember that, at least according to US law, a corporation is treated as "an individual."

In the end, it isn't the correlation that's problematic, but the use to which it's put. So let's tie up the usage in a legally binding way, and not worry so much about the tools and technology.

In many ways the internet makes anti-social and unethical behavior easier. That doesn't mean (as some would have it) that we need to ban internet access or technological tools. It does mean we need to better educate people about acceptable behavior and step up our policing tools to better enable us to nab the bad guys (while not inconveniencing the good guys).

Labels: context, digital identity, VRM

Posted 3:57 PM (0) comments

Cardspace context UPDATE

Good post today ("No User Context Decisions in your Enterprise?") from Pam Dingle summarizing her panel at Brainshare (which I'm now sorry I missed). Cardspace and other user-centric ID schemes have a definite place in the enterprise, if only for the context-switching that Pamela outlines.

UPDATE: A video of the session ( with Pam Dingle, Patrick Harding, Kim Cameron and Dale Olds) has now been posted at the Bandit Project site.

We'll be exploring this same topic at the European Identity Conference when I host a panel of Dale olds (Bandit Project), Johannes Ernst (OpenID) and Robin Wilton (Liberty Alliance) called "Putting Context in Identity: User-Centric Context." It's an area that will heat up in the near future...

Labels: cardspace, context, EIC, enterprise, openid, user centric