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Subject: Fwd: Re: [ABA-IDM-TASK-FORCE] Report from UN Meeting on Legal IssuesRelating to Identity Management


XACML folks-- At the end (bottom) of this thread is a link to a new UNCITRAL report on international legal issues around identity and access management.

The other entries are comments on the report that then veers into a discussion of blockchain's possible relevance to IAM, including a few other links for those inclined to dig deeper.

Regards,


Martin



-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Re: [ABA-IDM-TASK-FORCE] Report from UN Meeting on Legal IssuesRelating to Identity Management
Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2016 12:45:08 -0700
From: Tom Jones <rp_tomj@HOTMAIL.COM>
Reply-To: Tom Jones <rp_tomj@HOTMAIL.COM>
To: BL-FIDM@MAIL.AMERICANBAR.ORG


There actually is one very good privacy use of chaining, which was first used commercially decades ago for time stamping by BellCore if I remember correctly.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_timestamping

When a user gives permission to use an attribute to a relying party, and that party gives the access to another party, the block chain would be the perfect way for the second party to prove that they have a chain of permissions back to the user.

 

thx ..tom

 

From: Stephen Wilson
Sent: Tuesday, June 7, 2016 4:36 AM
To: BL-FIDM@MAIL.AMERICANBAR.ORG
Subject: Re: [ABA-IDM-TASK-FORCE] Report from UN Meeting on Legal IssuesRelating to Identity Management

 

 

Adrian,

 

The binding of a mark to a digital artefact is adequately achieved by regular digital signature.  

 

What I do understand is this. Nothing apart from Bitcoin is actually "on" a blockchain. To record anything else of value in the ledger requires a broker to bind that thing to ledger entries, and another broker to bind the user to their private key(s).  In the Bitcoin blockchain there is no need to bind users to keys because all there is is Bitcoin.  But the reality is different in every other use case. 

 

When you layer a broker, intermediary or trusted third party onto blockchain, the benefits of the consenus algorithm are lost. Nakamoto himself said so in the second line of the abstract to the Bitcoin white paper. 

 

Non Bitcoin use cases plainly have to *start* with trust.  Blockchain doesn't produce trust, nor does it change in any important the way how trust is mediated. 

 

So back to the entry point for my input to this debate, namely where I said not to refer to blockchain books for insights.  Many of us on this list have been examining trust for over twenty years.  If we haven't cracked the nut by now, why should a new crypto currency algorithm (an anonymous currency at that - think about it) shed new light on the problem? 

 

If I may, I've said all along there is no problem.  Trust is not someting that matters at the level of technology protocols.  What matters is mechanisms for knowing and showing pertinent attributes of transacting entitiess. 

 

Cheers,

 

Steve.

 

 

Stephen Wilson
Managing Director
Lockstep Group
E: swilson@lockstep.com.au
M: +61 (0)414 488 851
W: http://lockstep.com.au
T: @steve_lockstep

 

Lockstep Consulting provides independent specialist advice and analysis
on digital identity and privacy. Lockstep Technologies develops unique
new smart ID solutions that enhance privacy and prevent identity theft.

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: "adrian mccullagh" <ajmccullagh57@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, 7 June, 2016 2:51pm
To: "Stephen Wilson" <swilson@LOCKSTEP.COM.AU>, "BL-FIDM@MAIL.AMERICANBAR.ORG" <BL-FIDM@MAIL.AMERICANBAR.ORG>
Subject: RE: [ABA-IDM-TASK-FORCE] Report from UN Meeting on Legal IssuesRelating to Identity Management

Hi Stephen,

 

With respect  the greatest Stephen, I actually think you do not understand blockchain and how it is put together.

 

The fundamental aspect is not the consensus protocol whether it is proof of stake or proof of work.  Even though the consensus protocol is an important element for bitcoin it is not necessarily an element of a private blockchain.

 

The real benefit of the blockchain is the ability to emulate in the digital environment the characteristic of what occurs in the paper based environment.  With paper or any physical structure once a mark or some information has been embedded onto a document, it is very hard if not evidentially impossible to alter the mark or physical information  without leaving a trace on the physical material.  For more detailed explanation see my papar in the University of New South Wales Law Review : “Electronic Signatures - Understand the Past to Develop the Future”.

 

Since digital information is simply a represenation of 1s and 0s it has always been possible to alter a document without leaving a trace.  See for instance the case of Scarfo v. US,  2002 Fed court case dealing with some evidence presented by the FBI.  In particular see the affidavit of special agent Murchison PhD.  It has always been in the digital environment a requirement to have some secondary document such as a transaction log to establish changes.

 

The blockchain is not, as has been stated incorrectly in my view, imuttable but is tamper evident technology.  The term imuttable basically means that the information in the document whether digital or otherwise cannot be chnaged.  That is just not correct.  The issue is whether the changes can ALWAYS be identified.   Is there evidence of the change.  This certainly occurs in the physical environment.   The benefit of the blockchain is that it does not rely on any secondary evidence to establish that a change has occurred.  The blockchain can actually emulate the paper-based environment which is its greatest strength.   If a change does occur to any prior block then the chain will metaphorically speaking be broken which will lead to all parties involve to investigate which block is affected and when did the change occur, due to the timestamping of the prior block and the succeeding block.

 

As our mutual firend Charlie Morre has been recently been explaining on other forums the blockchain comprises now new underlying technology, which I agree, but where I differ from Charlie is that the combination of hash algorithms, digital signature mechanisms and merkle trees together with timestamping is unique.  This combination is new as such a combination had not previously been described in the way Nakamoto described it in his/her seminal paper.

 

So from an Id Management perspective, what needs to be determined is once an Id has been placed in the blockchain is that what organisations want, as each relevant Id should become fixed in the blockchain, unless an unauthorised change occurs which will become self evident from the chain itself an thus lead to all parties onto a train of investigation as to what the unauthorised change was and when.

 

Kind Regards

Dr. Adrian McCullagh
Ph.D. LL.B. (Hons) B.App. Sc. (Computing)

ODMOB Lawyers
Email: ajmccullagh57@gmail.com
Email: amccullagh@live.com
MOB: +61 401 646 486
SKYPE: admac57

The contents of this email are confidential between the sender and the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient then no rights are granted to you because of this error and you are requested to promptly inform the sender of the error and to promptly destroy all copies of the email in your power, possession or control. The sender reserves all rights concerning this email including any privilege, copyright and confidentiality associated with this email. Even though an email signature block has been appended to this email, and despite the Electronic Transactions Act (Qld) or the Electronic Transactions Act (Cth), the signature block does not exhibit the senders intention to be bound by an offer previously sent by the intended recipient, unless the email specifically states otherwise.

 

From: Stephen Wilson
Sent: Tuesday, 7 June 2016 1:38 PM
To: BL-FIDM@MAIL.AMERICANBAR.ORG
Subject: Re: [ABA-IDM-TASK-FORCE] Report from UN Meeting on Legal IssuesRelating to Identity Management

 

 

I would not be guided by the blockchain books on the question of trust.  

 

Most of what I read about blockchain is flat out wrong.  Don Tapscott's book in particular embodies many misunderstandings of what blockchain actually does.  

 

The blockchain was expressly designed so anyone at all can join the network and start moving Bitcoin; the integrity of the blockchain in fact demands that millions of people join in, unencumbered by registration or credentialling. Trust is utterly moot in that world. It has to be, or the system won't scale up sufficiently. 

 

The blockchain futurists make an unwarranted leap from the trust-less blockchain algorithm to posit that some new meta-layer of trust obtains.  Trust does not in fact "[derive] from the network and even from objects on the network". Remember that blockchain does one thing only: it produces consensus on the order of ledger entries without needing an umpire.  That's all.  To find "trust" in that mechanism, no matter how magical it might appear, is simply fantastical. 

 

See also https://www.constellationr.com/content/blockchain-almost-everything-you-read-about-it-wrong

 

Cheers, 

 

Steve Wilson.

 

 

 

Lockstep Group
E: swilson@lockstep.com.au
M: +61 (0)414 488 851
W: http://lockstep.com.au
T: @steve_lockstep

 

 

 

Lockstep Consulting provides independent specialist advice and analysis
on digital identity and privacy. Lockstep Technologies develops unique
new smart ID solutions that enhance privacy and prevent identity theft.

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: "Ken Moyle" <kenmo@K6PARTNERS.COM>
Sent: Tuesday, 7 June, 2016 7:47am
To: BL-FIDM@MAIL.AMERICANBAR.ORG
Subject: Re: [ABA-IDM-TASK-FORCE] Report from UN Meeting on Legal Issues Relating to Identity Management

Martin, we'd start with defining trust in the limited business context, which is the expectation that the other party will behave according to the four principles of integrity: honesty, consideration, accountability, and transparency. See 

Don Tapscott and David Ticoll, The Naked Corporation (New York: Free Press, 2003).

In his new book, Blockchain Revolution (Penguin, 2016), Tapscott views the impact of Blockchain by contrasting trust in a pre-Blockchain world--where trust in transactions derived from individuals, intermediaries , or other organizations acting with integrity-- with the emerging Blockchain world, where "trust derives from the network and even from objects on the network." 

So the underlying concepts of contract formation and reliance are unchanged. It is the concept of a trusted third party that is due for a makeover.

The Microsoft effort is based on the troublesome notion that many people in the world are stateless, unbanked, or both. Yet they are still people, and they are increasingly likely to rely more heavily on online services than their traditional counterparts. Does it continue to make sense for private banks and government entities (or for that matter, social networks) to control the identification and credentialing of individuals, even if the technological means exist to give that control to the data subjects themselves?

Ken Moyle



-------- Original message --------
From: Martin Smith <martin@bfcmclean.com>
Date: 6/6/2016 1:54 PM (GMT-08:00)
To: Ken Moyle <kenmo@k6partners.com>, BL-FIDM@MAIL.AMERICANBAR.ORG
Subject: Re: [ABA-IDM-TASK-FORCE] Report from UN Meeting on Legal Issues Relating to Identity Management

Ken-- Can you recommend a good source for understanding the MS/Blockstack/ConsenSys concept you mentioned?

Not sure if this is related to your point, but I do think it would be good to minimize the idea of "trust", as distinct from the idea of  enforceable "recourse".  My impression is that the info-tech community grabbed and persisted the fuzzy concept of "trust" without understanding that it doesn't go far without enforceable commitments and assignment of liability.

So, another possibly related suggestion: the UNCITRAL report notes different applications of (or use-cases of) identity capabilities, distinguishing between commercial and government requirements and priorities, for example. A distinction I have thought relevant is between those use-cases that only involve financial risk, vs other risks. (I think of these a "civil" vs "criminal", but that's just a naive non-attorney conceptualization.)  Financial risk can be mitigated by commitment of a financial bond to guarantee performance in a transaction. (Or any other mechanism that reliably makes the cost of cheating higher than the reward, or even quantifies the risk so it can be managed.) Note that the financial use case also allows for users to be truly anonymous.

Controlling non-financial risks (e.g., insider fraud using genuine credentials, espionage, etc.) requires something that may help the authorities lay hands on a physical person (via a binding between a credential and the subscriber to which it was issued.) 

I can see that blockchain tech could support the financial use-case by being an automatic and auditable enforcer of the release of the bond-- a smart contract application. I don't (yet) see how it applies to the "criminal" use-case, but I'm not very familiar with the tech.

Regards,

Martin

PS--One really good point in the UNCITRAL report was its observation that recourse against sovereigns (vs. private parties) is limited. 

 

 

 

On 6/6/2016 1:53 PM, Ken Moyle wrote:

Tom, thanks for this. In response to your follow-on message below – and relating directly to Tony’s earlier question about blockchain code solutions—I wonder if we’re not about to get leap-frogged entirely on this issue.

The NSTIC model of interoperable private credentialing authorities is likely to give way to a much more technically agile means of asserting and controlling one’s own individual identity online. For example, Microsoft is collaborating with Blockstack Labs and ConsenSys on an open source, self-sovereign, blockchain-based identity system that allows people, products, apps, and services to interoperate across blockchains, cloud providers, and organizations.  Blockchain technology offers a mechanism for not only maintaining privacy (as we know from the Bitcoin blockchain), but also paradoxically allowing for the public recording of identity attributes necessary to secure an online transaction.

To get our legal minds around the possibilities, we would have to cast aside some of our rigid assumptions about identity as a state- or corporate-owned concept, and approach it as a means of participating in an increasingly “trustless” ecosystem that could very well offer all the advantages we seek without the downside privacy and liability risks that have been holding us back.

 

 

Ken Moyle
Managing Member | K6 Legal PLLC
T: +1.860.980.0056   |   M:+1.425.269.8866
www.K6Partners.com   
|   LinkedIn   |   Twitter

 

 

 

From: Federated ID Management Task Force [mailto:BL-FIDM@MAIL.AMERICANBAR.ORG] On Behalf Of Smedinghoff, Tom
Sent: Monday, June 6, 2016 7:02 AM
To: BL-FIDM@MAIL.AMERICANBAR.ORG
Subject: Re: [ABA-IDM-TASK-FORCE] Report from UN Meeting on Legal Issues Relating to Identity Management

 

Jeff and Martin –

 

I agree that privacy is a difficult issue, and one that is driven to a large extent by different cultural approaches to the topic. Given UNCITRAL’s prior reluctance to address privacy issues, as well as the fact that many jurisdictions and other groups are addressing privacy issues, I do not expect UNCITRAL to try to address privacy in the IdM context. Most likely, it will defer to applicable law (as the eIDAS regulation does expressly and the Virginia law does implicitly),

 

In particular, Paragraph 53 of the UNCITRAL Report seems to clearly signal that it will likely not address privacy –

 

“53. An important aspect of IdM relates to privacy and data protection. Policy approaches to that complex topic may vary significantly and several initiatives aim at reconciling them. In practice, existing legislation on IdM recognizes the existence of specific privacy law and defers to its application. Against that background, and in view of the fact that work on IdM systems and trust services should not extend to matters outside UNCITRAL’s mandate, it is doubtful that UNCITRAL could efficiently deal in detail with those matters at the present stage.”

 

Thanks,

 

Tom

 

From: Martin Smith [mailto:martin@bfcmclean.com]
Sent: Saturday, June 04, 2016 12:06 PM
To: Smedinghoff, Tom
Cc: j stollman; BL-FIDM@MAIL.AMERICANBAR.ORG
Subject: Re: [ABA-IDM-TASK-FORCE] Report from UN Meeting on Legal Issues Relating to Identity Management

 

Tom--

Excellent comment by Jeff S. I particularly liked seeing " . . . some countries (e.g., ) trust their governments more than business to do the right thing.   Others (including the US) favor business over government " as I think that explains a lot of differences in view when US and European folks discuss these things.

There may be some reasons for optimism about the prospects for providing identity services internationally, however.  I believe the technology can allow users and relying-party information services to select features that are acceptable to them based on their own local laws and risk preferences, as long as those choices are offered and made transparent. (Effective transparency is not a trivial problem, but . . .)  Technological flexibility and informed choice might substitute for tight harmonization of policies/regulations across jurisdictions. 

It would also allow a sort of "market" mechanism to work: if a user or RP could not participate in a transaction because of the profile of privacy/etc. features they established, then the costs to them of insisting on those features would become apparent and they might decide to relax their requirements.  I believe something like this happened a few years ago in the context of sharing of law-enforcement information between US States. One State passed a Sunshine law that would require their LE organizations to make info received from other States public. Other States reacted by declining to share the info with the Sunshine State. I believe I heard that the latter ended up changing their Sunshine law.  

Thanks for sending out the new Report, and congratulations!

Martin

 

 

On 6/4/2016 11:56 AM, j stollman wrote:

Tom,

 

One point that I believe needs to be explicited stated with regard to IdM generally with special consideration for privacy is the disparate regional views on trust.  I harken back to Larry Ponemon's study several years back comparing views about trust and privacy from a wide variety of countries (19).  People in countries such as Germany had strong biases to retain privacy.   In Latin America, concerns were much lower.  Similarly, some countries (e.g., ) trust their governments more than business to do the right thing.   Others (including the US) favor business over government.  The research points out the difficulties in formulating one-size-fits-all targets for the vexing problems of IdM and privacy.  I have attached a copy for everyone's consideration.

 

Jeff

 

 

---------------------------------

Jeff Stollman
stollman.j@gmail.com
1 202.683.8699

 

Truth never triumphs — its opponents just die out.

Science advances one funeral at a time..

                                    Max Planck

 

On Fri, Jun 3, 2016 at 7:38 PM, Tim Reiniger <tsreiniger@gmail.com> wrote:

Congratulations, Tom! This is a remarkable achievement.

 

Tim

Sent from my iPhone


On Jun 3, 2016, at 12:35 PM, Smedinghoff, Tom <Tom..Smedinghoff@LOCKELORD.COM> wrote:

On April 21-22, 2016 the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) held a colloquium in Vienna to discuss Legal Issues Relating to Identity Management and Trust Services.

 

The UNCITRAL Secretariat’s paper regarding the results of that colloquium has just been posted on the UNCITRAL website at http://www.uncitral.org/uncitral/en/commission/sessions/49th.html as document A/CN.9/891 - Legal Issues Related to Identity Management and Trust Services. It’s at the bottom of the list of documents submitted for the Commission meeting in New York on 27 June-15 July 2016. A copy is also attached.

 

The UNCITRAL Working Group IV is expected to begin a project to address the legal issues regarding identity management at its fall meeting in Vienna.

 

If anyone has any comments or input regarding this Report or the upcoming project please let me know.

 

Thanks,

 

Tom

 

 

Thomas J. Smedinghoff
Locke Lord LLP
111 S. Wacker Drive
Chicago, Illinois 60606
312-201-2021 Direct
312-545-1333 Mobile
Tom.Smedinghoff@lockelord.com
www.lockelord.com

 




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