Re: Open Identity

[Kurt Cagle <kurt@kurtcagle.net>]

Actually, I'm not so sure I agree. I'm still thinking about this. We have
developed a quasi-national card in the social security number but it has a
number of limitations, not least of which being that there aren't enough
numbers in it. Instead, what we have are a number of business solutions, all
of which have some major problems. Which is worse -- having a single
national repository of information for a person that can be controlled to a
significant degree by a government official or having several dozen
different dossiers on you with differing (and sometimes wildly inaccurate)
information that is controlled by companies that can make decisions based
upon criteria that you have no control over.

A few years ago I think I would have opted for the latter solution, but I
have to admit that I'm beginning to wonder about the wisdom of that. For all
that I'm not a fan of the current administration, I trust the government to
at least nominally have some stake in my well being -- they are accountable
to me in certain ways. Businesses are far less accountable to individuals,
especially well heeled businesses. Would you rather have Microsoft passport,
with BillG or ScottM able to control your access based upon your buying
patterns, or would you rather have this information in the hands of the
government instead, where you can generally be sure that the person
overseeing that service can be dismissed for malfeasance?

(Finally, note that you can make the argument that one can put you in jail,
while the other can't. However, as the recent UCITA debacle with the Russian
programmer and Adobe showed, a company with sufficient clout can in fact
jail someone they consider a potential business rival).

Identity is a major commodity, because it is the key to us. It has been a
commodity that has basically been given away for free by the government to
business because business has bought the government, but that equation is
likely to change as the power of the business community wanes with the
economy.

I'm sorry for the rant, especially its political tone, but I think this is
an important issue for us to consider -- an identity standard has many
political ramifications, not least of which being that it minimizes the
ability of companies to make identity a commodity.

-- Kurt


----- Original Message -----
From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>
To: "Kurt Cagle" <kurt@kurtcagle.net>; "Ranjeeth Kumar Thunga"
<rkthunga@humanmarkup.org>; <humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 2:27 PM
Subject: RE: Open Identity


> I think there is sufficient identification possible given
> extant means.  A national identity card is overkill and
> not that difficult to bypass.  I think it is the wrong
> answer.
>
> len
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kurt Cagle [mailto:kurt@kurtcagle.net]
> Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 4:00 PM
> To: Kurt Cagle; Bullard, Claude L (Len); Ranjeeth Kumar Thunga;
> humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: Re: Open Identity
>
>
> By the way, pertinant to this discussion:
>
>
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/01/09/27/010927hnnatlid.xml?0927thp
> m
>
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