Idea for a very open ID

Be receptive! Be open to each and every type of user input for authentication.

This very user-centric approach for identity resolution leverages the many open API’s now available for web services. Feel free to select your user name-of-choice!

• @Twitter user name
• Facebook.com/user name
• user name@gmail.com
• YouTube.com/user name
• user name.wordpress.com or user name.wordpress.org blog URL
• Flickr.com/user name
• user name@yahoo.com
• Open ID provider URL
• more?

In his identity resolution related post, developer Luis Farzati emphasizes that:

the objective is to allow the user to input whatever wanted [in order] to login… If it exists as a valid username out here, we’ll find it and suggest it!

Casual testing

Luis Farzati’s Smart Identity Resolver Widget is on Github. A demo is included. I tried it.

Vestiges of Dutch Colonialism in the New World

Saint Eustatius Harbor circa 1750

Despite my best efforts at over-dramatization, and some inclination toward satire, I could not bring myself to title this post without any regard for accuracy. I did spin some sensationalist gems that I can’t resist sharing. I discarded these candidate titles due to their obvious discrepancy with reality:

• Kingdom of the Netherlands: Autonomy or subjugation for vassal states Bonaire, Saba and Saint Eustatius?
• Landscape of imperialism in the twenty-first century: Historically significant changes in sovereignty in the Netherlands Antilles.

Or most misleading and untruthful of all:

• Turmoil revisits Dutch West Indies half a millennium after rout of Spanish Armada!

Birth of Nations

In fact, the Netherlands Antilles ceased to exist as of October 2010. Curacao and Saint Maarten are now autonomous nations, governing themselves. The three islands Bonaire, Saba, and Saint Eustatius became municipalities in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Residents now have the same benefits and rights as Dutch citizens.

While browsing the GeoNames site a few days ago, I first learned of the transformation of the Netherlands Antilles.  It motivated today’s post, whose primary topic is privacy considerations for social networking. Location sharing (and associated geodata) is part of the privacy issue.

I was evaluating an alternative micro-blogging platform, identi.ca. It is a status.net project. identi.ca is like that mainstay of micro-blogging, Twitter. The two platforms even have a certain measure of cross-compatibility. In terms of branding, good choices were made: identi.ca is a partner, or possibly a subsidiary, of laconi.ca. laconi.ca is the perfect name for a communication medium restricted to 140 characters or less!

identi.ca is conceptually similar to the highly anticipated Facebook alternative, Diaspora. Both Diaspora and identi.ca are open source projects. For the user, the relevant issue is that both assure a higher level of privacy. The design model for Facebook, and many other social networking applications, is that very little information will be retained on the client side. Most everything goes to a server-side repository. It is irrelevant whether user data resides in the cloud, or the Facebook data center. Neither is under the control of the user.

identi.ca and Diaspora are different in that they do not require users to relinquish all personal data. One way to do this is by running one’s social network on one’s own server, thus avoiding the concerns of information misappropriation, be it intentional or accidental. Running one’s own server does not sound very feasible for most people, and in fact, the shift to client side is probably more subtle e.g. greater reliance on the user’s browser.

Google Buzz provides an example of accidental over-sharing.  In the early days of Google Buzz, the full power of Open Social API was unleashed without forewarning users. This was accidental, and Google didn’t profit from the mishap. Google Buzz was irresponsible for not first offering opt-out to segregate some or all account contacts from participation.  The issue was promptly remedied. Unfortunately, despite the rapid redress and that there was no revenue stream associated with the disclosure of information (unlike the copious chronology charts of Facebook’s information peddling showcased in the Wall Street Journal), Google’s temporary disclosure of information about users to each other had a very negative impact on acceptance, usage and success of Google Buzz.

Identi.ca includes a location identification option using GeoNames data.  Tie-in to the Dutch West Indies follows:

Flag of Curacao

Three new countries came into being after the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles in October 2010… ISO assigned the code BQ to the three BES islands … Read More via GeoNames

Social Web Pathology Part 1

Share and Share A-like

Note: this is an updated version of my April 28th post on the theme of Social Web Pathology.

I’ve been pondering the theme of “Social Web 2.0 Pathology: Are We Connected Yet?”, and will introduce it with this mild example. Today’s post will then assess recent developments in our vanishing degrees of separation.

The date of this graphic was April 16, 2010 thus it does not contain the very consequence-laden “Like” button. Facebook announced the release of the Like button to the World Wide Web domains-at-large at the F8 conference on April 22.

There is a recent development, and it should encourage advocates of the individual’s right to privacy. U.S. Congressman Charles Schumer has an awareness of the potential for abuse via social networking, due to accelerated data sharing.  He seems to have focused his concerns around the announcement at F8 of Facebook’s Open Graph and Like button data collector. Media coverage by wire services such as Reuters – Schumer vs Facebook was prompt: Congressman Schumer explicitly stated his concern over negative impact on the consumer’s right to privacy. Shortly after, Schumer was joined by other lawmakers, who proposed a sweeping internet privacy bill on May 4, 2010, indicating grave concern over the potential risks due to information disclosure resulting from participation in social networks. Not surprisingly, Facebook was mentioned by name, as it has been on the leading edge of the social media innovation.

What abuses might result from the Like button, and by whom? The abusers could be hackers aka crackers. Their method of infiltration might include harvesting of newly accessible personal data (mostly due to recent trends in over-sharing) using social engineering techniques. Alternatively, the traditional exploits involving unauthorized elevation of privilege would remain viable. Such is now facilitated by easier password breaking due to a larger pool of availale data. This becomes more straightforward as we tie ourselves closer and tighter together, along with our most critical identifying information via Social Networking sites and applications.

The other source of abuse might be from Facebook itself, due to sharing of user’s personal information with third-parties. FB announced policy that users will no longer have an opt-out feature available, regarding disclosure of certain basic identifying data.

Maybe the need to prove to one and all that “I have the most friends”, a sort of Web 2.0 version of Thorstein Veblen’s concept of “status seeking” and “conspicuous consumption”, will be reined in (see Professor Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class, 1899). While the impulse is present in most of us, many resist the temptation. FB was well-designed, though, because it seems to have overwhelmed common sense for even the most reticent of us. Similar observations could be applied to the rise of Farmville. With 86 million players, this game that seems primarily motivated by guilt (Professor Howard Linn wrote a paper on the subject shortly before his death earlier this year) has spread like wildfire. We will hope that Congressional scrutiny will slow the onslaught of the Like button, and hold it in check until the consequences are more carefully considered.