In Context

I just got back from EclipseCon 2008. The other Higgins co-lead, Mary Ruddy, and I gave a tutorial on Higgins. And Mary gave a talk about the business side of open source. We met with Ian, Bjorn and Mike and discussed the recent release of Higgins 1.0 and how to drive adoption of Higgins and user-centric technologies like OpenID and I-Cards. Unfortunately, in flying back early I missed the keynote given this morning by Sam Ramji. Sam directs the Open Source Software Lab at Microsoft. A little birdie told me that one of the things he was going to highlight was the collaborative efforts that have between underway for years between Microsoft and Higgins and other open source projects in the user-centric ecology. I’m sure Mary will fill me in.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) this week released At a Crossroads: Personhood and Digital Identity in the Information Society, by Berkman Fellow Mary Rundle and co-authors Bob Blakley, Jeff Broberg, Anthony Nadalin, Dale Olds, Mary Ruddy, Marcelo Thompson Mello Guimarães, and me.

The paper describes user-centric “properties of identity” that can guide and inform the development of the emerging identity layer architecture. In the spirit of “code is law”, I believe that as technology architects we have an opportunity to embody principles that promote an open, high-trust society while respecting the the “privacy” human right. This paper helps illustrate those principles.

The idea of writing this paper was suggested by Tony at a Higgins meeting. Thereafter a few Higgins folks with the addition of Bob began the project. We approached my colleague Mary Rundle and asked if she’d take the lead organizing role. Mary in turn added Marcelo to the team. Kudos to Mary Rundle, who gracefully played the key organizing role, and without whom this paper never would have been completed. Thanks again Mary.

Stefan and his team are rock stars in privacy-enhancing crypto. Today their technology and patents were acquired by Microsoft as you can read here, here, here, here and here. I want to congratulate Stefan personally. Here’s a fellow entrepreneur, and someone I’m honored to call a friend who’s done it all. Developed a deep technology, created a startup to implement it, and (now) found a distribution channel to bring it to everyone. And if that wasn’t all, the kind of technology that Stefan has developed is key to bringing about an identity layer that doesn’t trade away personal privacy. That is, it supports selective disclosure while reducing traceability. Way to go Stefan!