Digital ID Coach

DRM and managing my own damn rights

coach — Fri, 04 May 2012 14:14:20 +0000

Today, 4 May, is a Day Against DRM, digital rights management. DRM is a technology imposed on published materials to keep you locked into one specified device or one particular use. The idea is to make something scarce, limited, and controlled by the industry. This means I can only “use” something like a book or DVD or music under their rules.

The problem is that my life isn’t arranged or prioritized under rules that promote an over-reaching industry. If I buy a book on my phone but later find that I want to read it on a tablet, I don’t personally want to buy a second copy for that purpose. I want to device-shift, or time-shift (view when I wish), or browser-shift, or use the content I purchase in ways that enrich my life without becoming a criminal in the process.

As author Cory Doctorow points out,

Your browser “converts” all sorts of graphic formats — GIF, JPEG, PNG, etc — without ever calling your attention to it. You need to take some rather extraordinary steps to find out which format of the graphics on your screen right now are using. Unless you’re a web developer, you probably don’t even know what the different formats are, nor what their technical differences are. And you don’t need to.

Here’s a list of DRM-free resources at the Defective by Design site. Happy Day Against DRM!

IIW14: VRM/Intention Economy – Where does it start?

coach — Thu, 03 May 2012 17:31:15 +0000

There are many offshoots from this question:

with individuals (convenience, trust, ID protection) – Life context, poor people, people who work in office buildings, etc. Family CIOs.
by geography
by vertical sector (public and private, also membership) – Nordstrom, Trader Joe’s, customer service orgs, high-value items. Non-profit orgs, memberships, going “beyond donate” and engage, support.
legal/technical/facilitators
incentives (asprin or candy? Currencies – new things – personal RFPs, vs. savings – “data wombles”), Nudge (book) and regulations (blue button, green button related to energy industry)
Savings and “new things”

Question: major financial incentives (other than VC investments)? The term VRM represents new tools and procedures. Needs to be a win for customers and vendors or it won’t work. New class of service providers, some call 4th party &/or personal cloud, that interacts with vendor cloud (3rd parties) that can facilitate purchase, flow of information, customer service, etc.

Handful of advantages of personal channel:

trusted communications channel
bi-directional data sharing (controlled by user)
intent-casting
channel never breaks unless on purpose–continuous customer connection

Another example of parties, using car rental industry:

customer
Avis, Hertz, etc.
Kayak, Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz
AutoSlash, RentalMagic (agents for customers)

It’s about the lifetime value of a customer — over years, they spend a great deal (both sides). Relationship vs transactional.

TheSpace.org – remarkable (24,000 albums, plus singles) record collection for fun, for culture. They’re treating visitors as personal data store-points, ethically responsible leadership. Pilot project, will evaluate in 6 months, business plan still to be created.

Still need trusted intermediaries, to create conditions in which users have trust that someone will act in your interest. It’s not about a person setting their permissions, it’s about new kinds of relationships.

Fair trade for personal data.

Relationships, not transactions.

Better results, lower costs.

Reducing the cost of being Nordstroms (et al.).

What’s Right | what’s pragmatic – different for orgs, different for individuals.

IIW14: Customer Commons and Collaborating on Things

coach — Wed, 02 May 2012 22:31:07 +0000

Session called to explore the notion that we’re forming a customer and company ecosystem, and information shared about Customer Commons.

PDEC‘s consensus definition: Interoperability is not about swapping massive amounts of data semantically unchanged from one provider to another, but to easily get authorized by a user to grab specific pieces of information on their behalf, from points of sources (often not PDE sources), process it and perform actions as desired by the user; e.g., providing input to get other services.

Joy Anderson’s Structure Labs: relationships and assets and financing… Kaliya can organize a workshop if there’s interest.

IIW14: Experian’s Data Wallet

coach — Wed, 02 May 2012 19:06:36 +0000

Experian has credit data on 220 million users in the US, including every debt that you have incurred, liens, bankruptcies, etc. Credit data can’t be used for marketing, per US law, but it appears they’re finding a way around this? They know with good accuracy (information gathered from cookies, data tracking, also they have data scientists) a lot about us, including if we have a cat or dog, lots of detail. Our speaker Anatoly is talking about offering a data wallet to access this data by consumers.

MyID.com says what info is tracking people and lets them opt out. They want to make this a free consumer-facing business with advertisement income. Also see Google Ad preferences. They’re trying to make it so you can use your Amazon info at Barnes and Noble, for example. They plan on offering an API to pull everything into your own datastore. Data isn’t “held” by Experian but is reached from sources and passed to customers.

Tremendous “creepy” factor addressed by Experian’s brand as trusted party. We’re in an education phase, they’re trying to position themselves as helping. However, research in UK shows that people are in depressed or in denial about how much and how deep the data collecting processes are. Suggestion that the first big player will be shot down (shoot the messenger), Experian is perceived as part of the problem and not the solution. Experian is looking to get 100 million users on this product. Possible direct-pay model as opposed to advertising. Wow.

Status is both strategic and conceptual. Experian is very committed to this.

Comparison with Privowny.com – they have done some interesting work but Experian is looking to be more holistic.

They intend to ouse a single persona for all data collected about a person, with capability to edit (similar to “don’t use this info”), trying to keep it low friction to use. Three cases for “privacy:” 1. they don’t care, 2. they care a little, and 3. they care a lot (10-20%). People in this room suggested that most young people don’t care, so we referred them to danah boyd for a better understanding of how much they care and insights into their practices.

Kaliya referred us to ENISA Study on Monetizing Privacy.

Question about competition: Anatoly wasn’t aware of other companies doing this level of work. William suggested that it was less about competition than about viability of the community. That’s the problem to resolve first.

IIW14: Data, Carvoyant, and Getting to VRM

coach — Tue, 01 May 2012 19:47:44 +0000

Carvoyant is a new VRM-wannabe that deals with transactions having to do with automobiles. There’s a data port on your car that uses standardized codes–they provide a device to diagnose, inform, offer referrals to customers.

Here’s the whiteboard:

IIW14: VRM update

coach — Tue, 01 May 2012 18:59:59 +0000

Doc Searls started out by listing many parts of this area on the whiteboard about VRM. As a principle, VRM makes us independent of organizations and better able to engage.

Tech APIs Code FOSS projects Freedom Box	Business 4th Parties Personal Data stores/ lockers/vaults/clouds/ networks	Organizations Poroject VRM + research Customer Commons PDEC
Related Identity	Other Trust frameworks Intent-casting (pRFPs) VRM+CRM GRM Music (industry)	Legal Terms of Engagement Personally-asserted prefs & policies Information Sharing

We want to be able to work with CRM, not against.

Concerns: We’re losing more control, ability to manage our own data. We need better communications to be pro-active to be in control. Wondering how it will be commercially viable. VRM is a more efficient market to solve problems.

From solutions side, potentially inverting the info structure is very powerful–info from person to market (accuracy, intent, etc.). Actual known intent is a more powerful than guessing.

Everything that creeps us out is from bad guesswork. Enormous opportunity and a lot of money left on the table due to present market efficiencies. Newly trained quants being sucked up by miserable guesswork.

How does someone verify that another is who they are? Verified identity, trust and reputation, personal data stores to verify. There are many options.

It’s not just about business, not just about my wallet. It’s about relationships and conversations left on the table too. I want it easier to control my part of the world.

Example of a pharmaceutical company filled with doctors but company is run by marketing department. Or a large well-respected auto manufacturer that’s run by their IT department (who limits everything).

What are big catalyzing factors that will help this? We’re one invention away, the necessity that mothers invention. We’re all doing groundwork, necessary but not sufficient. Big orgs will cope, but it’s not their job.

Question: what will it take? Several things, but it gets down to the fact that it answers needs that we currently have in our data flow lives. Example: buying a car (a guy who just goes and gets one for a fee, buyer doesn’t have to deal with dealership. Kantara Info Sharing’s car buying user story illustrates what it might look like.)

It’s also about trust: giving a real phone number generated 50 calls re: health insurance. Same thing for moving. Intent is a big deal, and we’re being subbordinated by the needs of others. Most people have no knowledge or concern (yet) about creating personalized contracts and relationships. Also where do networks begin and end? Should be possible to use affiliated parties to fulfill interactions without ever revealing our identity. We want to do the whole spectrum of relationships, not just transactions.

If there’s a way to leverage personal identity, other aspects of this conversation forward, that would benefit everyone. Structural tools: opening up a channel (with user control) and intent-casting, other party’s reputation is affected, brings a bi-directional equality to the market. Where is control, ownership and leverage, and when does it start (young student playing sports)?

On Identity and Justice

coach — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 19:32:08 +0000

Bryan Stevenson offers a wonderfully rich perspective on attitudes in the United States. He points to some very real consequences that are the result of a general lack of social conversation, understanding and appropriate action by our society. These consequences were fueled by intolerance and fear.

Coaching moment: What does this video have to do with digital identities? Everything. Bryan talks eloquently about the humanity in our lives. In the digital world, humanity is largely stripped away and reduced to points on a line, or organized according to a specific (not necessarily appropriate) framework, or a gathering of bits that someone can make assumptions about.

We all know that we’re more than the sum of our parts: we may have purchased a thing, or been involved in an event, or may know a particular person, but that thing, event or person does not define our whole life. We need tools to help us explore and express our individual needs, wishes, and priorities online as well as off. When we are only subject to the rules of others, we can not be ourselves.

I Shared What (the blog)

coach — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 22:40:14 +0000

The blog at I Shared What?!? has ceased updating (for now) but the posts are still around. Since I authored many of the posts there, I’ve copied those posts to this blog for reference. Other posts were written or co-written by Joe Andrieu (the man behind I Shared What?!? and Show Me First–an app for displaying the information you’d share if you used Facebook’s tools to log into a third-party site), and can be found on Joe’s blog. A list of posts with local links follows.

Introducing I Shared What?!? (co-written)

Trap My Contacts

Social Networking Silos

But I’m not on Facebook

The Greatest Surveillance in History

Kickin’ out the old (apps)

On Being Popular

Internet Driver’s License?!?

A Data Use Policy

The Facebook Empire

Permanent vs. Editable Records (co-written)

Open Data Partnership (co-written)

The Facebook Empire

coach — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 22:30:45 +0000

This article was originally posted at the I Shared What?!? blog on 9 March 2011.

Noting Facebook’s continued and expanded efforts to “drive external content in, own that content per its user guidelines, and continue exploiting users’ data,” Geoff Livingston has taken a stand: The Facebook Empire Ends Here. In a move that could be characterized as being “user driven,” Livingston says to his readers and commenters:

As an Internet user and reader of this blog, it’s time to make some commitments to you. These new [Facebook] commenting tools will not be implemented on this blog. Your comments will not appear in Facebook unless you want to post them there. Your privacy and information remains safe, per the site’s privacy guidelines. When you share a post here on Facebook, it is intentional, not because you gave a post a thumbs up.

He continues:

The attitude that this and many other blogs should be an extension of Facebook was just disturbing. Facebook wants all of the conversation and activity on the Internet to occur on its social network. If this is what readers want, they should feel welcome to share the link and have the conversation. Yet, owning all commentary on this site takes empire building one step too far.

Interestingly, he does use certain Facebook buttons to allow his users the option of carrying his points to the reader’s desired platform. His post has 15 Likes and 104 Shares on Facebook as of the time of this writing.