Re: Open Identity

[Kurt Cagle <kurt@kurtcagle.net>]

It's a very valid distinction, and one that makes things interesting from
the intersection standpoints of other groups. For instance, last I heard
there was an OASIS-TC that were attempting to create a consistant ACL
mechanism for OASIS processes (targeting mainly ebXML). I think this
actuallly raises the issue about the degree to which HumanML should
subscribe to the notion that authentication falls under its charter.
Identity is not a process -- it's a state that can be quantified in terms of
some specific charter (the discussion we had earlier about the need to
include the author as part of authorization). Identification, however, is a
process, and is in fact a process on multiple levels:

1) Identification via ownership of a key. This level of identification is
largely synomous with authentication -- if you have the key (or a necessary
and sufficient part of the key) then you are assumed to be the person who
you claim to be.

2) Identification via characteristics. This level of identification creates
a best fit criterion that establishes a level of confidence that the person
is who they claim. This would essentially cover the whole domain of
biometrics.

3) Identification via profiling/association. This does not attempt to
establish a specific individual uniquely, but instead attempts to determine
whether they conform to a set of individuals likely to perform some action
(profiling of terrorists, for instance or profiling of potential customers
for marketing purposes).

Each of these have their own notion of identity. What we're doing with
HumanML seems to be somewhere between (2) and (3), which could conceivably
even be joined together - what differentiates them is not the operation but
the result; either "Is this the person in the Wanted Dead or Alive picture?"
or "Does this person look have characteristics that match a likely
Terrorist?").

-- Kurt