One observation to be going on with: I’m not sure that other people’s assertions about you are inherently more trustworthy than your own. After all, it may well be in someone else’s interest to lie about you, just as it is sometimes in your own interest to lie about yourself. (”It wasn’t me who broke that window – it was Adriana…”).

Examples like driving licences and bank credentials are useful because they clarify that the reason the credentials are useful is because there’s a trade-off of one set of interests against another. I want a driving licence in order to be able to get around; the DVLA and police want my driving licence to be accurate so they can enforce the law; a third party might assume that my driving licence is a reliable credential because the law enforcers have a strong interest in making it so (and the means to punish me if I lie about myself).

In web 2.0 terms, I think a truly seminal moment was represented by this post, now over three years old: http://www.idealgovernment.com/index.php/blog/multiple_identifiers_are_inevitable/

It points the way to a future where the internet is used to gather ‘low-trust’ evidence in support of an assertion, on a scale which is practically impossible to subvert, and which makes it as reliable as a smaller number of high-trust credentials (such as we have at the moment).

This approach assumes that the third parties either have some interest in ensuring that data about you is accurate, or at least that they are neutral as to its accuracy but have an interest in maintaining its integrity.

BigAdmin Feature Article: Sun Java System Directory Server 6.0 as an LDAP Naming Service: Part 1 — Installation and Configuration
(tags: ldap solaris sysadmin tutorial sun howto directory)

Bringing identity home : Media Influencer
Reall…