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@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz · 7 months ago

Just over a year ago, I proposed that the same government departments that issue ID documents like birth certificates and passports, could provide a digital equivalent. In the form of a domain using the name on their birth certificate (eg myname.id.nz). Costing only a one-off issuing fee;

https://disintermedia.substack.com/p/a-free-online-birth-certificate

As I acknowledged in the piece, that would only address use cases where people want to attach their online activities to their real world identity. What about pseudonymous ID?

(2/?)

Ryan Bolger

@rmbolger@mastodon.social replied · 7 months ago

@strypey Isn’t there an in between option that DDNS providers (afraid.org, DuckDNS, etc) could fill? For those who don’t want to pay for their own domain but want something more unique than the default bsky domain?

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · 7 months ago

@rmbolger
> Isn’t there an in between option that DDNS providers (afraid.org, DuckDNS, etc) could fill?

Intriguing suggestion, but I suspect this is both more difficult to use, and more fragile. A domain name can at least be moved between registrars. I haven't tried to use DDNS (given I'm an aging geek this speaks volumes), so I don't know how persistent identifiers are across DDNS providers.

Ryan Bolger

@rmbolger@mastodon.social replied · 7 months ago

@strypey I mean, if you want a portable namespace, you have to own it. There’s no getting around that. But I’m sure there are plenty of people who have been running their own little web presence for years on a DDNS provider’s subdomain. Tying a social identity to that same namespace would be a piece of cake. Even easier if the provider implements explicit support for _atproto TXT records. Many already have some level of API support for ACME cert TXT records.

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · 7 months ago

@rmbolger
> if you want a portable namespace, you have to own it

... so DNS is not the way to do it, as it's currently administrated, because domain names can only be leased. If we're going to use them for persistent personal identity, we need to fix that.

> a piece of cake

... and ...

> if the provider implements explicit support for _atproto TXT records. Many already have some level of API support for ACME cert TXT records

... do not belong in the same paragraph ; )

Andy Linton :tinoflag: ✅

@artnacrea@mastodon.ie replied · 7 months ago

@strypey Compared with the cost of owning/renting the hardware needed to access the internet (phone, tablet, laptop, server etc) plus the cost of broadband and/or mobile connection the cost of a domain name seems relatively modest. And the alternatives mean that some sort of big tech "owns" you in some way.

I suspect the tech hurdles are more significant.

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · 7 months ago

https://disintermedia.substack.com/p/a-free-online-birth-certificate

As I acknowledged in the piece, that would only address use cases where people want to attach their online activities to their real world identity. What about pseudonymous ID?

(2/?)

mike805

@mike805@noc.social replied · 7 months ago

@strypey The government could probably issue everyone a Yuibkey for a lot less than the current cost of fraud.

The problem is once everyone had such a device, it would be required everywhere, and would create even more of a surveillance society. This sort of universal ID has been proposed over and over, and always failed on those grounds.

Plus the spies and politicians need the ID system to not be totally airtight, since they depend on getting around it!

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz replied · 7 months ago

Maybe my thinking is still too centralised here. Rather than trying to establish a central ID guarantor ("One ring to Rule them all"), we could make use of something like "rel me" to cross-link our identities on different services;

https://indieweb.org/rel-me

In such a way that searching for an email (or AP or Matrix) address on an unrelated platform, would return any account on that platform with a "rel me" link to the address I searched.

It'd need good UX design though.

(3/3)

#FediverseIdeas

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