jaffamonkey

This site may contain explicit descriptions of or advocate one or more of the following: adultery, murder, morbid violence, bad grammar, deviant sexual conduct in violent contexts, or the consumption of alcohol and illegal drugs.

Then again, it may not.

Who knows?

We havent moved that far from primates. City boys out after a hard days graft juggling mythical numbers, out on the lash, and to impress the females. Primate equivalent - gorillas strutting round making loud grunting noises, after a hard days preening and defending territory, trying to look twice their size, and out to impress the females. Of course we are all like this to some degree, which is why though we have accelerating quickly in all things cyber, we still retain traits of our ancestors that sometimes stop us thinking beyond primal instinct. I have a presence on the web, therefore it is logical I am in threat to some danger, be it an annoying script-kiddy virus, or the family of a king from Ghana promising to swell my bank account by $25 million. In such situations, it is also historically human, to make a pre-emptive strike, before the” big menace” is upon us.

Identity, and how your identity should be managed on the www has been subject of recent discussions such as recent “Identity 2.0″ at mashup* on 24th April. I have known for a long while that I cannot be bothered to fill in information forms, not on paper and not online, so something like myopenid appeals. One thing that I regard as a categorically mandatory right, is my freedom to disclose as much or as little information I give. If a site demands too much, then I am immediately suspicion of motivation. For a web transaction, then of course I spill my guts with all information needed, otherwise I do not get what I am ordering. Beyond a web transaction, or any situation where it is better that your name and details are accurate, there is very little need for identity, beyond a name, email and password.

Maybe that will change, but for now that is the phase we are in. At mashup*, most of the speakers subject matter was related to internet identity in terms of information presented (whether true or false). But what was highlighted, was basically what’s the point? It is unrealistic to introduce policing to ensure all details for users are honest and correct. As is shown to be true time and time again, is that policing is never the answer to mass control measure. I always preferred the idea of voluntary measures such as content labels or myopenid. web 2.0 was very much a community philosophy, in architecture and applications. Information was volunteered, shared, syndicated. Because of the increased involvement of the user, the self-regulating web community can identify and collectively act upon those intent on using the web as a screen to con and manipulate. Is Web identity really a feature to help the user? Or simply to give the users the illusion something competent was going on behind their browser.

You can never be yourself in a web community, we all accentuate our positives, and only give away choice negatives, as you would do in a job interview. As with any community, the driviing force is acceptance. The web provides a little step forward to using technology and communications to interract with more personality than you actually posess, and to extend your social circle.

Web Identity meant little too me, and I generally do not have paranoia about unseen forces at work. As an individual, my information, is pretty inconsequential to any company. I have some black marks in my history like most people I assume. But if I am one against thousands, or millions, that adds up to a lot of information and statistics. Again, I am not sure if I am that bothered, if I am part of an unofficial marketing survey - big deal. People protect the idea of identity, when really it’s about privacy - very different things. You are never anonymous on the web, forget your anonymous proxies, 128-bit encrypion, and 256 password string - You fact you say “my name is Lisa” is no different that “I am IP 213……”. And utilities companies, banks, insurance companies, doctors, police already a lot of your information, some extremely personal.

What the “Identity 2.0″ event made me realise, is that sometimes I am seeing from both sides. That was an industry event, not for your common user. And what I saw was technology people making decisions on levels of privacy of these common users. Modern practice is to have several web identities, and not one of them necessarily your own. The only time you really have to identify yourself completely, is to initiate a web transaction (unless you are using stolen details). Now social networking activity has increased on the web, so has a kind of data and communications democracy. By implementing catchall indentities, we play right into the powermongers hands. Dont listen to the paranoia stories, just apply common sense to web browsing.

When a user logs onto the Internet, a unique IP address is assigned to manage the computer’s identity. Each website the user visits can see and log the user’s IP address. Hostile governments and data thieves can easily monitor this interaction to correlate activity and pinpoint a user’s identity.

There are relevant solutions to identity in other contexts, such as website identity (surely an easier way to provide more security for the user). Or the Torpark service, who offer increased secure web surfing options. The move forwardshould be to put put on user responsibility - you cannot trust privacy solely to a thrid-party, some responsibility should lay with the individual - as in real life.