[OpenID] owning one's own identity

Wed Sep 9 23:56:13 UTC 2009

Don't mind publically commenting as it seems everyone is open to comments at this early stage ...

Firstly, I saw this coming from the initial days of OpenID & from what I can see all of these "Open Trust Framework" companies are US corporates (i just checked the "About Us" of each) and "the government" on the openid.net blog means "the US government".

I don't mind too much so long as we recognize that although clearly there needs to be some level of OP verification what we need is for this to reach out with a more global perspective - especially if it is to be termed something as grandiose as the "Open Trust Framework". There really needs to be at least one (i'd like to see a few) of the big players (another discussion is what "big" means) from various countries of the world involved here. This really shouldn't be an afterthought - it should be part of this framework. If it is too early because it's a demo then might i suggest "Open Trust Framework" is not the correct terminology.

The work being done is extremely exciting but to be able to get local buy-in to this stuff they would really need a local reference. If this is a U.S. OpenID initiative then might be worth making this more obvious.

Nevertheless it is exciting stuff from a technology perspective and i look forward to seeing it progress.

steven
http://livz.org

From: Chris Messina 
Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2009 10:55 PM
To: Peter Williams 
Cc: general at openid.net 
Subject: Re: [OpenID] owning one's own identity

This is a concern of mine, long term. 

Initially, the OpenID providers are to be certified under the Open Trust Framework — but anyone can become certified once the framework is complete and certifiers are set up... how that might work for individuals owning their own identity is still TBD (depending on demand, I suppose).

The challenge is finding the balance between cost, convenience, interest, scale, and user experience. We still have much work to do in order to determine how the government should best take advantage of technologies like OpenID, but this initial pilot should help us figure out how this should look — and what citizens want from the experience.

As someone who owns/hosts his own OpenID, of course I want to be able to use that identity in government transactions — having to meet certain security requirements doesn't seem like an altogether bad idea — as a cost of doing it myself.

In any case, having public comments about this would be great — as we're clearly just getting started in this initiative.

Chris

On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 5:46 PM, Peter Williams <pwilliams at rapattoni.com> wrote:

  In other words, by embracing OpenID (and InfoCard), the government is helping to further establish the value of owning one’s own identity, and of having convenient, consistent, and privacy-protecting mechanisms in place to enhance and enable participation. [http://openid.net/2009/09/09/open-identity-for-the-government/]

  From what one can tell from reports about the current profile, the government is doing the exact opposite of “helping to further establish the value of owning one’s own identity”. It is specifically requiring that your identity is managed (and legally owned) by certain (large) players. If PayPal decides today to revoke access to my PayPal account, I cannot access my .gov resources with the same identity I used yesterday – as the identity signals are the property of - and under the exclusive control of -  PayPal, not me.

  We seem to be heading back to the days when AT&T has total power of whether you could or could not keep your phone number, if you switched carrier.

  Why repeat the error?

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