The question as to what should represent people online has has generated some mighty fine posts and comments recently. Here is a short list of people strongly supporting some form of pseudonymity or even anonymity: - Caterina Fake: Anonymity and Pseudonyms in Social Software - Andy Weissman: Everybody wants to be special here (in praise of pseudonymity) - Jyri Engeström: untitled G+ post - Chris Pool / moot: 4chan Creator Doubles Down on Web Anonymity with Canvas (via The Atlantic) - Jillian ...

The question as to what should represent people online has has generated some mighty fine posts and comments recently. Here is a short list of people strongly supporting some form of pseudonymity or even anonymity: - Caterina Fake: Anonymity and Pseudonyms in Social Software - Andy Weissman: Everybody wants to be special here (in praise of pseudonymity) - Jyri Engeström: untitled G+ post - Chris Pool / moot: 4chan Creator Doubles Down on Web Anonymity with Canvas (via The Atlantic) - Jillian ...

China is going through a crack down on social media and is apparently now requiring verified real identities online. This is very clearly an attempt to silence criticism and suppress unrest by making it easy to track down who said what online. I am strongly in support of pseudonyms which is one of several reasons why I prefer Twitter to Facebook. It is also why recently proposed bills to outlaw online impersonation are potentially problematic. But what about going the opposite direction? What...

China is going through a crack down on social media and is apparently now requiring verified real identities online. This is very clearly an attempt to silence criticism and suppress unrest by making it easy to track down who said what online. I am strongly in support of pseudonyms which is one of several reasons why I prefer Twitter to Facebook. It is also why recently proposed bills to outlaw online impersonation are potentially problematic. But what about going the opposite direction? What...

Last night Susan and I watched “Catfish,” a movie from last year about a case of a fabricated online identity. The movie starts with a young man who is engaged in an online correspondence with what he believes to be a young girl who appears to be a painting prodigy. He also chats with the girl’s mother and carries on several increasingly steamy exchanges with her older sister. [Spoiler Alert!] Eventually, a variety of inconsistencies surface and he becomes suspicious. Together with his brothe...

Last night Susan and I watched “Catfish,” a movie from last year about a case of a fabricated online identity. The movie starts with a young man who is engaged in an online correspondence with what he believes to be a young girl who appears to be a painting prodigy. He also chats with the girl’s mother and carries on several increasingly steamy exchanges with her older sister. [Spoiler Alert!] Eventually, a variety of inconsistencies surface and he becomes suspicious. Together with his brothe...

So given the previous parts of this series (1, 2, 3), what might an alternative solution to the global namespace for people look like? First, we should have some criteria for how the system operates. Here are the ones that come to mind:Secure decentralized operation that’s not controlled by a single entityHuman readable/memorable namesGlobally uniqueUntil yesterday I was blissfully unaware that there has been a bunch of work on this starting with an assertion by Zooko (talk about a unique nam...

So given the previous parts of this series (1, 2, 3), what might an alternative solution to the global namespace for people look like? First, we should have some criteria for how the system operates. Here are the ones that come to mind:Secure decentralized operation that’s not controlled by a single entityHuman readable/memorable namesGlobally uniqueUntil yesterday I was blissfully unaware that there has been a bunch of work on this starting with an assertion by Zooko (talk about a unique nam...

I have been thinking a lot recently about the global namespace for people. My thoughts on this are far from settled and there are a lot of them, so I have decided to break this up into a bunch of different posts. When I was growing up near Nuremberg, Germany, I often had my last name “Wenger” misspelled as “Wegner” because the latter was a common last name in my region whereas the former is not. It turns out that “Wenger” is a name that comes from the Alps and is a lot more common there, espe...

I have been thinking a lot recently about the global namespace for people. My thoughts on this are far from settled and there are a lot of them, so I have decided to break this up into a bunch of different posts. When I was growing up near Nuremberg, Germany, I often had my last name “Wenger” misspelled as “Wegner” because the latter was a common last name in my region whereas the former is not. It turns out that “Wenger” is a name that comes from the Alps and is a lot more common there, espe...

I used to think that (mobile) phone numbers might play an important role in identity as they are quite stable for people. For instance, I have had my current number since 1999. But now I am wondering whether phone numbers will become meaningless entirely. I receive very few calls that I did not ask for on my mobile - most calls instead are pre-arranged via email. For any pre-arranged call, I could eventually use some form of IP telephony that will be namespace based (e.g., I already often do ...

I used to think that (mobile) phone numbers might play an important role in identity as they are quite stable for people. For instance, I have had my current number since 1999. But now I am wondering whether phone numbers will become meaningless entirely. I receive very few calls that I did not ask for on my mobile - most calls instead are pre-arranged via email. For any pre-arranged call, I could eventually use some form of IP telephony that will be namespace based (e.g., I already often do ...

I ended yesterday’s post by saying that I would write about potential solutions to the global namespace problem for people (parts 1 and 2). So here we go with a post on what seems to be happening (to be followed by a final post on possible alternatives). The de facto solution for an increasing number of services appears to be delegating their namespace to Facebook or Twitter or both. Facebook originally did not have usernames but only real names. The problem with that approach was that the UR...

I ended yesterday’s post by saying that I would write about potential solutions to the global namespace problem for people (parts 1 and 2). So here we go with a post on what seems to be happening (to be followed by a final post on possible alternatives). The de facto solution for an increasing number of services appears to be delegating their namespace to Facebook or Twitter or both. Facebook originally did not have usernames but only real names. The problem with that approach was that the UR...

About 3 years ago, I wrote how phone numbers might be an important part of mobile identity. I started to change my mind on this last year. Now I am thinking that phone numbers may in fact much more rapidly be approaching the end of their useful life. Why? Because of my recent experience in London with a data only SIM card. Having tired of crazy international roaming charges, I picked up a 1 GB data onlyl SIM card from a vending machine at Heathrow for 20 pounds and popped it into my phone. I ...

About 3 years ago, I wrote how phone numbers might be an important part of mobile identity. I started to change my mind on this last year. Now I am thinking that phone numbers may in fact much more rapidly be approaching the end of their useful life. Why? Because of my recent experience in London with a data only SIM card. Having tired of crazy international roaming charges, I picked up a 1 GB data onlyl SIM card from a vending machine at Heathrow for 20 pounds and popped it into my phone. I ...

Companies across our portfolio are spending a lot of resources on suppressing various types of undesirable behavior ranging from comment spam to outright financial fraud. Much of this could be avoided through a probabilistic identity system. I have written about this idea before, but nobody has cracked the nut on it and the problem has only grown since. The solution to identity on the Internet is not to try for certainty and systems aiming for certainty will fail because they need to impose t...

Companies across our portfolio are spending a lot of resources on suppressing various types of undesirable behavior ranging from comment spam to outright financial fraud. Much of this could be avoided through a probabilistic identity system. I have written about this idea before, but nobody has cracked the nut on it and the problem has only grown since. The solution to identity on the Internet is not to try for certainty and systems aiming for certainty will fail because they need to impose t...

Yesterday, I started a short series of posts on the global namespace for consumer web services. My quick and highly unscientific survey of readers showed a surprisingly high usage of usernames based on real names. I suspect that to be highly skewed by the audience for my blog. An important historic alternative has been to pick a distinctive username that bears no relationship to one’s first name and/or last name. Such user “handles” go back at least as far as CB Radio, dial-up bulletin board ...

Yesterday, I started a short series of posts on the global namespace for consumer web services. My quick and highly unscientific survey of readers showed a surprisingly high usage of usernames based on real names. I suspect that to be highly skewed by the audience for my blog. An important historic alternative has been to pick a distinctive username that bears no relationship to one’s first name and/or last name. Such user “handles” go back at least as far as CB Radio, dial-up bulletin board ...