Sickening shilling for MS by Ontario privacy commissioner

[Jamon Camisso]

Simon wrote:
> Google is your friend:
> identity metasystem -
> http://www.google.ca/search?lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=identity%20metasystem
> 
> The first neutral-looking result there is http://www.identitygang.org/
> 
> So, it's hard to tell just how involved MS is in all of this, but
> initially I would say that an extremely adverse reaction to this is
> unwarranted.  Suspicion may be helpful, but the real questions are
> what is the standard in question, who controls it, and how open is it
> to participation from third parties.  Not everything Microsoft is
> involved in have to be bad, it's a matter of asking these questions
> and seeing whether they're behaving or not.

The real question in my mind is how necessary something like this standard is in 
the first place. 20 years from now when you can't login to your own (networked 
or not?) computer without your SIN number (or digital identity metasystem 
equivalent thereof), you might recall this very question. Consider:

Law #1: "Technical identity systems must only reveal information identifying a 
user with the user’s consent."

So just like a shrinkwrap license, by using a system on which you'll invariably 
have to login to authenticate yourself as a legitimate user, by means of your 
digital identity of course, you implicitly agree to disclose your information. 
Simple really.

Law #2: "The solution that discloses the least amount of identifying information 
and best limits its use is the most stable long-term solution."

See "AOL search records" at your local google mirror for a little something 
something. From The Washington Post: "Michael Arrington, editor of the blog 
TechCrunch, said some of the data contained credit card numbers, Social Security 
numbers, addresses and names."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/07/AR2006080701150.html

We're just getting started here, there are 5 more "laws" to go, and I'm not the 
only one with objections.

> To be clear, I think any distrust of Microsoft is consistently
> well-justified by their previous actions, but it can't be so extreme
> as to be unreasonable.  Unfortunately, many people take them
> seriously, and if they see anyone hysterically bashing them, they're
> more inclined to side with Microsoft rather than the hysterical
> bashers.

See this link for something unreasonable having to do with IE7. Oh yes, and try 
it from windows with firefox -- same problem.
http://www.openrowley.com/2006/10/11/web-2-oh-dear-opinity-only-wants-microsoft-identity-selectors/

I too am going to have to do more than just post on this thread about the 
inaneness of such a system and the very real prospect of it becoming coopted 
rather quickly by those governments and companies seeking to implement an 
identity metasystem.
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists