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The issue with digital identity is that people don’t have a single, unified identity. Identity, like many things, is a social construct, not part of some natural order. As a dual national, I'm acutely aware that when and how I assert an identity credential, or characteristic, depends on context. Therefore, digital systems that help us assert these identities must be responsive to people’s contextual needs and under their control. Otherwise, we’re just building more surveillance tools.

teilten dies erneut

Als Antwort auf Daniel Appelquist

a lot of confusion arises when there's no shared understanding of identity in a particular context, or even the context itself is unclear. We see this in #ActivityPub development, where a plethora of different mental models and perspectives are complicating severely the standardization process.

An example is this #SocialHub post and onwards pondering "What is Nomadic identity?" ..

socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/…

Als Antwort auf just small circles 🕊

@smallcircles gotta say: I'm still not convinced nomadic identity is a good thing on a trust & safety basis. It feels like something that will almost certainly be used by abusers for harm. But I've also been staying away from discussion because I don't have the energy for it.
Als Antwort auf Emelia 👸🏻

@thisismissem
I can well imagine that. I gather that in order to get further on a healthy evolutionary trajectory for the fediverse, thoughts must be given to further improving the commons-based 'specification development process'.

If everything is free-range text, perceptions and opinions representing often narrow interests, then each get-together will lead to suboptimal outcomes. Each person leaves a discussion with own expectations of what was agreed upon, and what will happen next.

Als Antwort auf just small circles 🕊

Im still enraptured by the metaphysical insights from the Thomist Principle, Quidquid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipitur.

lonergan.org/2009/10/16/applyi…

Peoples mental models are wildly different, it takes an awful lot of skill and insight to align perspectives and definitions.

Our curiosity towards #chaordic governance is appreciating autonomy gains from things such as Fediverse but recognising tradeoffs.

Its infinitely harder than narrow protocol design.

@thisismissem @torgo

Dieser Beitrag wurde bearbeitet. (3 Wochen her)

just small circles 🕊 hat dies geteilt.

Als Antwort auf Indieterminacy

> appreciating autonomy gains from things such as #Fediverse but recognising tradeoffs.

👆 This! Especially the "recognising" part is important in our grassroots environment. It implies having a good overview of all that is going on and being cocreated.

De facto with #ActivityPub protocol flexibility, under-specified areas, and its ad-hoc chaotic on-the-wire protocol-decay inducing evolution we get the opposite of narrow protocol design. A Big Ball of Mud.

Dieser Beitrag wurde bearbeitet. (3 Wochen her)
Als Antwort auf just small circles 🕊

Als Antwort auf Mike Macgirvin 🖥️

@mikedev

> Nomadic identity is nothing more than a full backup of your social profile, friends, settings, and content that is always kept up-to-date on one or more alternate instances.

Now this is a clear definition, thank you! Fully aware of the problem and any good solution is a great idea :)

Where I was confused was the "identity" in the name, considered identity and data to be separate concepts. Moving all your content is more like a "Mobile home" facility. A name fit for 'end-users' too.

Als Antwort auf just small circles 🕊

Or 'nomadic homes' as the name. Or 'roaming profiles' perhaps.
Dieser Beitrag wurde bearbeitet. (2 Wochen her)
Als Antwort auf just small circles 🕊

I did explain how this was connected to identity towards the end. You kind of need nomadic identity to have nomadic homes.
Als Antwort auf Mike Macgirvin 🖥️

@mikedev

Confusion that arises with me is in how I conceptually perceive the notion of self-sovereign identity. Namely as your identity in some digital representation, that is decoupled from the data you own and where it resides. Where SSI allows one to have nomadic homes just as well.

Maybe that is not the case in how the standards are developed and 'something extra' i.e. nomadic identity is required.

Either that or it may be better named to avoid the confusion with other uses of "identity".

Als Antwort auf just small circles 🕊

@mikedev

FYI I updated the related #SocialHub topic with your responses, in order to keep a record there..

socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/…

Als Antwort auf just small circles 🕊

I guess the circular reference wasn't a good idea. Let's re-phrase that. You need a "portable identity" to implement nomadic homes. A "portable identity" is one that has doesn't reference a DNS server and/or account. Because these aren't really an "identity", but rather a "location". Your portable identity is something that identifies you, not the machine and account you happen to be posting from.
Als Antwort auf Mike Macgirvin 🖥️

@mikedev ah, I see. The location independence is what I also associated with my notion of SSI conceptually, and then there are a plethora of ways to technically achieve it. Witness all the competing standards.

Do you think "portable identity" covers the load better?

I wondered earlier if this particular mechanism of portable identity was needed to overcome design choices in the protocol that tied identity to domain names? Which we must now live with and work around to keep backwards compat.

Als Antwort auf just small circles 🕊

@mikedev

"Portable identity" would be a very good name. The protocol then has a "Portability" non-functional requirement which breaks down into separate mechanisms for portable identity and portable data. Where one depends on the other.