Day: January 2, 2005

For those, like me, interested in what happens with the British Identity Card debate, here is a piece from the Guardian which gives some more insight into what is going on. If anyone thought this scheme wouldn't turn political, here is a recent press release from Privacy International – which sounds like it means business:

The watchdog civil liberties organisation Privacy International today accused the UK Shadow Cabinet of perpetrating “an offence against democracy of historic proportions” by agreeing to vote with the government on the controversial Identity Cards Bill.

Privacy International’s Director, Simon Davies, warned: “The Tories have taken one their biggest political gambles for many years. If public opinion turns against the ID scheme as dramatically as it did in Australia they will inevitably fall to third place in the forthcoming elections”.

Privacy International has for fifteen years been the key opponent of identity card schemes, and has been instrumental in overturning card proposals in several countries.

The Tories now stand alone in their support of the government’s proposals. The Liberal Democrats, the UK Independence Party, Plaid Cymru, the Green Party and others political parties have declared their opposition to the scheme.

“The Tory Cabinet decision will result in a fatal split in the party,” Mr Davies predicted. “The decision will cause a crucial divide between the authoritarians and the libertarians. The liberal minded members with conscience will ultimately oppose the decision.”

Mr Davies, who is also Chairman of the non-partisan NO2ID coalition, and who directed the huge 1987 campaign against the Australian national identity card, predicted that public outrage would fill the political void created by the ill-judged decision of the Opposition.

“If this debate cannot be engaged in the Parliament, it will take place on the streets”, he warned.

Privacy International’s background and analysis of the scheme is here.

Someone in the Wild West Gillmore Gaggle – the dust was thick but I'm pretty sure it was Bryan Field-Elliot – suggested I might just be “teasing” folks by releasing the Laws slowly rather than in one big conflagration. He intimated I might even know where I am going with this.

And so I guess I have to admit that I've been working on these ideas for a… er… while now. But I wanted to give my authorators (Doc's new word for the blog readers and writers and casters who author us) a chance to deal with them in detail – and help me figure out how to communicate the things that have been pounding away inside my head. And to see what I am missing, both in terms of explanation and at a more profound level. Finally, there is the fact that I have this darn day job that consumes a fair bit of my time…

But I can accept that enough is enough. So I promise. The remaining two laws this week.

I've been meaning to point people to a couple of other Gillmor Gang interviews.

First, there is the recent discussion with Ray Ozzie – founder of Lotus Notes. If you know him you'll want to hear this. If you don't, check it out for sure – Ray is so clear, perceptive and thoughtful. He is his own analyst.

He says Notes was built on the concept that the nature of the organization was changing. Previously it had been vertically oriented. When Notes came out, organizations were becoming more internally meshed. People within organizations were suddenly collaborating with each other. Today – in the era of Groove – businesses are becoming externally meshed. Individuals are dealing with people from lots of organizations – not to mention friends and family. Software moving forward has to be based on this evolving mesh.

Corollaries:

• The key here is that going forward, IT departments will not be able to simply dictate the software which individuals use – because the software must span companies, each of which will have different IT departments.
• Building things based on ubiquitous standards (COM, J2EE) doesn't take into account the amazing speed at which things slip into history – we always need to look forward 5 years.
• When looking forward, watch the underlying phenomena – the explosion of wireless options; being able to assume that everyone has a PC and access to the net; and terrabyte desktop storage – which has arrived before we even have any idea of what it can be used for…

He also comments sagely on the complexity of current identity-based systems, and wonders what he missed by underestimating the power of anonymous technology. I couldn't agree more – that complexity must go or we all fail.

For those who missed it, the Gang has also interviewed Phil Windley – who does a great survey of identity management issues. I'm not sure I agree with him on the relation between Metadirectory and other technologies, but I'll try to find out more about his thinking and then drill into this.

Dave Kearns’ take on the Fifth Law

In other words, to be successful an identity system must be ubiquitous, pervasive, federated and distributed. This, once again, calls to mind the personal identity system which I've advocated for so long. Perhaps it's time to push more forcefully for a conference or meeting which could explore this topic more fully.

Craig Burton was another presence in the Special Wild West Edition of Gillmor Gaggle. In fact, for those who don't know him, the podcast is a good opportunity to hear some of his haunting, incredibly dense and on-target comments. He also weighed in on the Fifth law with some eerie thinking:

Kim Cameron posts his fifth law of identity this evening. It's a tall order:

The Law of Pluralism:

A universal identity system MUST channel and enable the interworking of multiple identity technologies run by multiple identity providers.

It is this which will allow an identity ecology to emerge, evolve and self-organize.

Dave Winer's RSS is so powerful because it vehicles any content. We need to see that identity itself will have several – perhaps many – contents, and yet these can be expressed in a metasystem.

The law of pluralism is contrary to the laws of customer control. Let's be clear, the law of pluralism requires operating system independence–by definition. This means the Microsoft Identity Archtiect is calling for a system that is not necissarily Windows centric by design. This–of course–is the only way such a system can really work–but consider the implications.

A cross platfrom identity metasystem sun-spot hot and–with the other laws being discussed here–changes everything.

Marc Canter, the Guru of Multimedia who really gets the importance of identity (and always gets the last word) dedicated his very last word of last year to the issue of identity (of course he had been present at the Special Wild West Conflagration of the Gillmor Gaggle). I won't butt in:

It was painfully obvious during the recording of today's Gillmor gang that creating a meta-identity standard will be 2% technology and 98% politics.

It's already 2005 around most of the world by the time I post this – so but as usual (as Steve Gillmor says) “I get the last word in.”

So I just wanna say to Dave Winer, Kim Cameron, Craig Burton, Phil Windley, Drumkmond Reed – Papa Doc Searls and Mr. Steve “Dan's his brother” Gillmor – that we CAN do this.

We can put Microsoft's past behind them – and use them to help us build the mega meta momma backplane we talked about.

I really like Kim and he seems sincere and we can't blame him for his employer's past transgressions. Just like we can't blame Scoble either. Neither of them worked at Micreosoft during “those days” – but they work there now – and it's incumbant upon us to work with them – to help them change – from within.

As I said yesterday I'd like to nominate Dick Hardt and his Sxip Networks technology to lead this effort forward. Sxip can be a ‘mini-backplane’ of sorts – that can then plug into Kim's mega meta momma backplane he's talking about. I really think it's possible that 2005 can be the year that this all comes together.

By meeting the requirements of the 7 Laws of Identity (can't wait to hear the final two – Kim) and by balancing the needs of a centralized DNS with the pluralism that is required for uptake – we can help bring the era of ‘Social Computing’ to fruition (thanks Kim for that one…..)

Sxip Networks was designed for the type of KISS developers need to support digital identity that can become pervasive. Sxip is beholden to nobody but us. And I am not neholden to Sxip. I recieve no money from Dick and company. I just dig the shit out of what they're doing.

So it's a Ho Ho Ho and a three cheers mate (sorry Simon you didn't make it) and here's to a brand new year – and a brand new round of efforts at singing (in tune) “Kum Bah Yah” – my lord.

By the way, for those who haven't experienced it yet, Marc really can sing.