Scott C. Lemon blogged recently that he is “close to a product release, and… anxious to begin to experiment with the new Microsoft SDK and Kim's work.” This should be interesting since Scott has been a creative force for years. Many have told me he was the mind behind all that was good about Novell's Digital Me.
He goes on to talk about how claim-based identity is a “two-way model”:
“I really like this terminology about “claims based identity” since that is all identity is, IMHO! This fits completely with the Axioms that I have (slowly) been working on, and it supports that – “Identity only exists in language.” (On a side note, it hit me this weekend that all words represent an “occurring” … not a “thing”. It is how something occurs to me that I name … although we often do not think of it this way.)
“Anyhow … I like the “claims based identity” since this is a nice “two-way” model … I can make claims about my identity, and others can make claims about my identity. In both cases, it is up to the recipient of the claim to do what ever verification that they feel is appropriate.”
That's right. It is an ‘N-way model.
“Another important apsect of this is that a “claim” is in no way “true” … it is merely a claim. This relates to the topics of reputation, etc. which are not something that a “person has”, but instead are something that a “person is given”. I am given a reputation by others … they are the ones that say that I am a particular way. My actions merely occur in a particular way to others …”
He's got it. Funny, because Paul Trevithick at SocialPhysics has been talking about this very point recently, as he works at sharpening our vocabulary. I think it is absolutely key to see digital reputation as being formally separate from digital identity – in just the way Scott proposes.
He goes on:
“Anyhow … I'm following things on a background thread and am about to reprioritize. I want to get the new identity code working within our GoBinder product. Our new version – GoBinder 2006 – is going to hit the market this fall.
“Kim … thanks for the great work! I'm looking forward to leveraging your work!”
Wow. This should be interesting. No pressure, of course.
Scott leaves us with this quote from my blog – making me doubly curious about what Scott has in mind:
“Once you get your head around expressing identities as sets of claims, you can easily imagine expressing a user's location as one of those claims. In the identity metasystem, the relying party could indicate in its policy that it requires several sets of identity claims– one indicating who the user is, and another indicating where the user is. The claims might come from different authorities (e.g. an enterprise and a trusted location provider). These would be implemented as two Security Token Services (claims transformers). Both sets of claims, taken together, would identify the user from the point of view of the relying party.”
[tags: Digital Identity, Identity, Scott C. Lemon, Identity Claims]
