nodalpoint.org - beer - Comments

Identity is a hard problem

Greg — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 14:19:18 -0400

Identity is a hard problem to solve effectively on the web. I know there are a lot of people actively working in this area, but I seem to see little progress. I'm also starting to think that Web 2.0 is not a revolution if it doesn't include identity management, semantics (microformats aside), and distributed identity management in the definition. In other words it is just a marketing term for community participation, not exactly a revolutionary concept on the web...

And yes, one identity mechanism is very wrong, this is why a single identity document is never enough in the real world to get you a credit card, passport etc. you have to prove who you are in multiple ways. I guess that means you can never really prove who you are (DNA testing aside), rather probability of who you claim to be is more likely.

FOAFbook? Distributed identity management

Duncan — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 12:43:05 -0400

Yup, its a pain managing all these different identities. I don't think you're paranoid, we're just going to be stuck with the "silo solution" for a while yet. The same seems to be true for the various identity mechanisms we have for genes, proteins etc. It looks like OpenID will be important for author identification, see Geoffrey Bilders recent comments on my NSPNAS post on contributor IDs. On the other hand, having "one identity mechanism to rule them all", is a bit scary, what happens if this gets lost or spoofed? It would be like losing the one master key that opened your car, house, shed, computer, office, lab, etc. The e-criminals would have a party!

As for FOAF, do people still

Greg — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 11:26:55 -0400

As for FOAF, do people still use that nasty RDF nonsense?!

It is getting to the point where I thinking nobody apart from hardcore enthusiasts do (or ever did) use RDF. FOAF is starting to look very "2004". The rdfweb-dev mailing lists from the foaf-project.org page are 404ing and I was only able to find foaf-dev after a bit of googling. It seems quite low traffic these days. Ironically one of the most recent threads is "Does the URI of an OpenID server identify a person, or a html page, since it returns a representation ?". No comment.

I have a lazyweb question: "What is the best solution for maintaining identity information online, such that it is interoperable with services like face book?". Facebook is fun, but I'm tired of maintaining multiple personal profiles online e.g. nodalpoint, google, Nature networks, Linkedin, Facebook, to name a few. I did think FOAF+OpenID might be the answer, but in 2007 that solution still seems not to have reached critical mass. Am I beholden to these closed social network silos ? Am I getting overly paranoid in my cyber-old-age ?

Nodalpoint, Facebook and FOAF

Duncan — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 09:47:39 -0400

Ah yes, thanks Greg for introducing me to Boscoh. To facilitate more of this kind of thing in the future, I've created a nodalpoint group on Facebook. As for FOAF, do people still use that nasty RDF nonsense?!

I'm just back from Europe,

Greg — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 00:11:35 -0400

I'm just back from Europe, catching up on the Scifoo posts, late ISMB wrap-ups (mine is still in the works), LSID discussion and Bio::Blogs, so much activity, who would have thought.

Sounds like this year's scifoo was particularly good. I'm glad you had a good time hanging out with Bosco, I think this means there are two degrees of separation between us... which makes me think I should add FOAF support to nodalpoint.

Thanks Boscoh!

Duncan — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 09:10:04 -0400

Thanks Boscoh who responded to this and showed me how to hang out with the wannabe hipsters in Mission district. There was even an underground secret dinner (with bands playing in kitchen!) and a trip to ritual coffee thrown in. Thanks for your excellent hospitality.

Nodalpoint at SciFoo (again!)

Duncan — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 05:05:28 -0400

Well I suppose I'm following in Pedro and Jasons footsteps by attending scifoo. Its a bit of a mystery how Tim and Timo draw up the delegate list, but I count myself very lucky to be going. I wish they'd publish the delegate list, but its only available on a private wiki. Anyway, I'll try and blog what I can here on nodalpoint...

Sounds good, I hope you get

Greg — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 17:33:46 -0400

Sounds good, I hope you get the opportunity to post some highlights while you're there. I'm busy with work at the moment, so I haven't finished of my ISMB wrap-up post. But it will be soon...

Another year, no invite

mako — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 09:26:36 -0400

Since this is basically in my backyard, how do you go about getting invited? (kindof like asking why I can't sit with the popular kids at lunch).

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