Category: Identity

[Dave Birch] Now that I’ve discovered that an avatar in Second Life emits more CO2 than a Brazilian, I’m feeling guilty about the antics of Greasy Makarov.  I need to perform some fatuous, irrelevant action to salve my conscience.  No, wait.  I need a way to salve the conscience of the digital identity world. Aha! Got it.  The story that RFID allows Wal-Mart to reduce any unnecessary truck deliveries and even trips of customers to their stores by keeping their stocks up to date.  Excellent.  Apparently twenty four million customers visit Wal-Mart everyday and if RFID tagging can remove only 100,000 unnecessary trips by keeping the stocks up to date, then a lot less carbon would be emitted. It’s a win-win-win.

Technorati Tags: identity, location, privacy

Continue reading “How can I get a green angle into digital identity?”

[Dave Birch] The identity of stuff, as much as the identity of people, is part of the digital identity landscape. One of the important technology threads, then, is the connection between the real and virtual identities of stuff. We’ve tended to think about RFID as the principal path, which it is, but there’s life in the old optical barcode yet. Microsoft, for example, has been working on a 2D coloured barcode (using colours means you can store more data than in black and white) which is now going to appear on DVD and video game cases later this year, thanks to a licensing deal with the ISAN International Agency. The Geneva-based organization assigns International Standards Audiovisual Numbers (ISANs) to movies and other works, and keeps a database about each title. Once ISAN-IA starts issuing the barcodes, then the publishers will be able to link products to web sites through that database. ISAN-IA and Microsoft imagine a day when consumers could use digital cameras to “scan” barcodes on DVD cases, in advertisements and on billboards, then be transported to a web page to watch trailers or buy products. As it happens, I’ve had this software on my Mac for a couple of years. It’s called Delicious Library: it allows your Mac to read the barcodes on books and things (using any old Firewire camera) and then go off to the web and look them up. Look: I’ve just scanned the barcode on the book on my desk and this is what comes up.

Technorati Tags: identity

Continue reading “Optical connection”

[Dave Birch] Someone mentioned something about security today.  The context was along the lines of "we don’t need to worry about that particular risk, because the system will be secure".  I reminded them that a U.S. government contractor whose top-secret security clearance enabled (my emphasis) him to sabotage Navy 6th Fleet computers was recently sent to jail.  Richard F. Sylvestre of Boylston, Mass., pleaded guilty to damaging protected computers.  "If we can’t trust people with top-security clearance, where are we?" U.S. District Judge Rebecca B. Smith said.  Well, perhaps some sort of identity card would solve the problem, wouldn’t it?  After all, no-one would be able to tamper with the National Identity Register because it would be a top security computer system. Oh, wait a minute…

Technorati Tags: government, identity, management, privacy, security

Continue reading “Failsafe”

[Dave Birch] The identity of stuff, as much as the identity of people, is part of the digital identity landscape. One of the important technology threads, then, is the connection between the real and virtual identities of stuff. We’ve tended to think about RFID as the principal path, which it is, but there’s life in the old optical barcode yet. Microsoft, for example, has been working on a 2D coloured barcode (using colours means you can store more data than in black and white) which is now going to appear on DVD and video game cases later this year, thanks to a licensing deal with the ISAN International Agency. The Geneva-based organization assigns International Standards Audiovisual Numbers (ISANs) to movies and other works, and keeps a database about each title. Once ISAN-IA starts issuing the barcodes, then the publishers will be able to link products to web sites through that database. ISAN-IA and Microsoft imagine a day when consumers could use digital cameras to “scan” barcodes on DVD cases, in advertisements and on billboards, then be transported to a web page to watch trailers or buy products. As it happens, I’ve had this software on my Mac for a couple of years. It’s called Delicious Library: it allows your Mac to read the barcodes on books and things (using any old Firewire camera) and then go off to the web and look them up. Look: I’ve just scanned the barcode on the book on my desk and this is what comes up…

Technorati Tags: identity, management

Continue reading “Optical connection”

[Dave Birch] Surely a guiding principle of an identity management system should be that it only uses identity when it is absolutely necessary to the transaction at hand — a rather obvious way to cut down on identity abuse and misuse is to stop using identity.  The overwhelming majority of day-to-day transactions do not require identity at all: they are about entitlement.  There are two rather obvious examples of this, that ought to be some kind of litmus test for identity schemes: proof of age and retail payment.
The grocer, the butcher, a cabinet maker and several other members of the town’s Mennonite community are planning to move to Arkansas over a Missouri requirement that all drivers be photographed if they want a license.
The Mennonites — a plain-living sect whose members are similar to the Amish, but usually more worldly — say the 2004 law conflicts with the Biblical prohibition against the making of “graven images.”The grocer, the butcher, a cabinet maker and several other members of the town’s Mennonite community are planning to move to Arkansas over a Missouri requirement that all drivers be photographed if they want a license.
The Mennonites — a plain-living sect whose members are similar to the Amish, but usually more worldly — say the 2004 law conflicts with the Biblical prohibition against the making of “graven images.”

Technorati Tags: credit cards, identity, security

Continue reading “Where you don’t need identity, don’t use it”

[Dave Birch] I was at a conference today and one of the speakers was Nick Sex of Alpheus — yes, it’s his real name.  It must cause havoc with their spam filter, but anyway.  It set me thinking about how odd names are as identifiers, and how he had a much better name than me.  Luckily, if I do decide to change my name to Dave Sex, I can do it using a service such as Fast Deed Poll, which allows me to change my name quickly and easily.  As the web site says, "you can obtain a official change of name Deed Poll Document from us INSTANTLY just for £3.50".  Now that’s service.

Technorati Tags: identity, names

Continue reading “Names are confusing in the UK”