{"id":548,"date":"2006-08-25T12:33:52","date_gmt":"2006-08-25T20:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=548"},"modified":"2006-08-25T12:36:47","modified_gmt":"2006-08-25T20:36:47","slug":"aggregation-through-a-single-identifier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/?p=548","title":{"rendered":"Aggregation through a single identifier"},"content":{"rendered":"

Through the miracle of pingbacks I just came across Terrell Russell's blog, This Old Network<\/a>.   Poking around, I was led to his cool proposal for MicroIDs<\/a>, which I like and will discuss later.  I also found many interesting pieces, including today's<\/a> interesting reflection related to issues addressed in my fourth law of identity:<\/p>\n

First, our friend the search engine\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Search data recently released from AOL allows anyone with some intrepid follow-up skills and some social engineering to quickly narrow in on unique individuals – individuals who never considered their independent searches were being aggregated by their ISP. A recent<\/a> flurry<\/a> of activity<\/a> designed<\/a> to protect<\/a> us from the search engines signals a slumbering uneasiness with this situation. Something dark has been uncovered and in the short term there is much handwaving and interest. However, as time passes, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll fall back into our \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcnormal\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 ways and continue to put our most personal information-seeking into that gloriously simple bare single box<\/a>. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just too convenient\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, you say. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done nothing wrong.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

And here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where the discussion changes. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not about Google. Or MSN. Or Yahoo. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about one person. Or one subpeona. The fact that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all being aggregated is the problem<\/a>. The fact that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a potential for negligence, court-order or simple employee curiosity has profound implications for a great number of people. That is what makes this discussion so important.<\/p>\n

Note that the reason employees could inappropriately access sensitive information was because it was sitting in databases they could get to – not because it was present on a card in someone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wallet. <\/p>\n

Centralized databases worry me way more than any other aspect of this technology.<\/p>\n

– Kim Cameron<\/a><\/div>\n

We need to understand that our daily breadcrumbs – our attention – our personal interests in where we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going and what we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re looking for and what we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re buying, are all being sucked up and stored with a unique identifier. We need to realize we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re broadcasting our attention and that it has great value to those who would suck it up. Inform yourself and make a conscious decision about where you spend your time and what you look for. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not alone while you surf. AOL has shown us the light.<\/p>\n

And onto IM\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Most users think they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re anonymous behind their instant messenger accounts. They think their words aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t being recorded. You think your friend on the other end of the IM doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have her auto-logging turned on? And that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not fully searchable later? Severe paranoia and tin-foil hats notwithstanding, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re being very naive.<\/p>\n

And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just your friends. How about when the person on the other end reports you?<\/p>\n

Earlier this week the UK government-funded Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre announced a partnership with Microsoft Messenger.<\/a> Messenger will be putting a button on the toolbar to allow any user to \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcreport abuse\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 to the authorities. This is a dangerous precedent. How is this any different than the Terrorist Information and Prevention System (TIPS) program proposed by the US back in 2002<\/a>?<\/p>\n

How much money will be tied up in the next 12 months because of this trigger being too easy to pull? How many prank reports will eat through the government funding? How will danah boyd<\/a> react to the feeding frenzy this will create once the first one is \u00e2\u20ac\u02dccaught\u00e2\u20ac\u2122?<\/p>\n

Be aware of what you project. Be aware that this is a global medium. Be aware that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s being broadcast and recorded. This Internet thing will be around for a while.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This should give those who think that maybe we should just back off identity issues<\/a> and let things take “their natural course”, reason for pause.  I certainly hope that the “panic button” referred to above is limited to use within communities whose members consent to it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our daily breadcrumbs – our attention – our personal interests in where we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going and what we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re looking for and buying, are all being sucked up and stored with a unique identifier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,2,3,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}