Identity management is dead?

You know there’s an awful lot of chat (Kim Cameron, Dave Kearns, Eric Norlin) going on about identity, meta-directory systems, etc., sparked by HP’s announcement on change of focus concerning their identity management product. Burton Group has been contacted by HP customers who report that HP is no longer going to seek new customers for its Identity Center product. There are even claims that ‘a meta-directory is ‘dead’.

It is the meta-directory that carries the function of identity management in an enterprise, and identity management will NEVER be dead. Take the UK health authorities that linking up their health records, what about the linking of DNA databases at the European level, etc.., to name just a couple of examples that come to mind.

It is just that identity management once a problem solely for the enterprise -and identity management products have been developed and geared towards this goal- has now today become everyone’s problem. You and me, your children, your neighbours, school teachers, it impact each one of us. As such identity management, what it is, what it needs to provide, has during the most recent years (last 5 years) has changed significantly. Those hardened directory engineers amongst us have become confused because of this, because we have not really got it yet, what has happened? The management of our Identity (not identity management) has grown its own set of legs and is running without us. We can have several identities, physical and virtual. Everything linked to our identity has the potential to impact our reputation. It is not that identity management is dead, it is just that it has changed, it is more than just meta-directories, although they still play a significant role behind the scenes.

Additional privacy controls in Facebook

First SPAM your friend, and now Facebook said on Tuesday it is introducing new privacy controls that give users of the fast-growing social-network site the ability to preserve social distinctions between friends, family and co-workers online. But only 25 percent of existing users have bothered to take control of their privacy using Facebook’s existing personal information settings, the company said in a statement. Read more…

Online harmonisation in this world?

So it seems that Pakistan is blocking ‘blasphemous’ videos causing chaos due to routing miscalculations and error on the worldwide network. It seems that Pakistan’s attempts to block YouTube from their own population disrupted YouTube access around the world. This problem was gradually repaired (though still points to serious infrastructural issues). Read more in Lauren’s post

Then there is China that sensors Google’s search engine. The difference between the two, is that the first felt strongly about video content that shouldn’t be viewed locally that subsequently disrupted access for many YouTube users worldwide, whereas the second is a political decision for a country, that impacts only that country.

It is a challenge, globalisation, free speech and this conflict with our differing cultures, perceptions, opinions, etc. I guess the future will bring a harmonisation… at least online, I guess we can always dream…..

Bill to provide protection from sexual predators on the Internet

Sorry been a bit quiet lately, been busy finishing the book. Came across this article today, interesting.Read more..

New York’s attorney general and state legislative leaders presented a bill on Tuesday aimed at protecting people from sexual predators on the Internet, as Facebook, MySpace and Yahoo backed the effort.

Online data mining

Mark Curphew in his blog made an interesting post on the dangers posed by online data-mining. The message is that there are people that with just a small amount of information can piece together quite a lot about you by mining. They Google your name combined with anything else they know about you to amass a whole load more information on you.

I wrote something in this area in my first article (Identity Linkage and Privacy) published for the first time in April 2007. Unstructured information that is posted online, may not have a direct link to you (your identity) however a ‘dormant identity link’ can link this data to your identity. i.e. the aggregate of information can link to your identity, but each of these pieces of information by themselves are meaningless.

I suppose the question is ‘why would anyone want to do this’?. Particularly in the case of Mark, seems like the guy had too much time on his hands. In fact one of the most publicized areas is for the purpose of ‘online grooming’ of children by paedophiles. All of this subject area and more is covered in the book I expect to publish -once I decide who to publish with- in the next month or so. So watch this space 🙂

MySpace and child safety pact

I found this on boston.com. I wonder how effective these measures will be? How will strengthened software prohibit underage users unless they are forced to use their own name, i.e. identify themselves and authenticate to prove they are who they say they are? Will this not impact the lure of what many MySpace users like about it? Interesting… read more here…

Under the agreement, MySpace has endorsed a host of measures to shield children from inappropriate material and sexual predators who use the site.

MySpace has also agreed to strengthen software prohibiting underage users, create a high school section for users under 18, and respond within 72 hours to complaints about inappropriate content. The networking site already takes some steps to protect children, including not allowing registered sex offenders to maintain profiles.

Meet Kai

I got pretty excited when I came across this posting. Taking a look at Customer 2.0, or at least that is what they are doing at Microsoft.

“Have you met Kai? Kai is the name that we (the MS IT EA Team) are thinking of giving to Customer 2.0. She is young and lively and one of the most demanding customers we’ve had to deal with on the web. Know why? Because she expects us all to grow up……..

Kai is calling to you to make her internet experience Fun, Social, and Engaging. If she uses your services today, that does not mean she will use them tomorrow. She is brand loyal, but your site will hold her attention primarily if it holds the attention of her community. Her group. Welcome to the fad.No more expecting Kai to live with badly designed sites. She learned about programming in high school (or middle school) and is unafraid of making her own mashups. That said, she doesn’t need to. You will provide something beautiful to her. She is outright offended when she sees a site or service that she feels is not professional or trustworthy. She’d never hand her friends over to something klunky.

A few demographics will bring this into focus. Kai may live in a western country… or not. She is as likely to be speaking Mandarin Chinese or Hindi as she is to be speaking Spanish or English. “