I was recently asked to comment on the top 5 ways to protect yourself (as an individual) when using the cloud. Obviously I brought a very identity-centric slant to it, but it was an interesting exercise as I tried to put down on paper (!) the steps I take to protect myself daily. I thought [...]
Posts under ‘Personal Identity Management’
Google+ and The Trouble With Tribbles
In a prior post I talked about the backlash against the “Real Names” policy that Google has instituted for it’s Google+ social network. The resulting nymwars are in full force, and drew me into a very interesting twitter back-and-forth between Kevin Marks, myself and Tim O’Reilly over the weekend, which Kaliya (or IdentityWoman, as she [...]
What’s In A Name? A Lot, Actually
The “Real Names” debate has been fascinating to watch, because it such an intriguing melange of issues – social conventions, technical requirements, best practices, community responsibility – rolled into what would on the surface seem to be a very simple problem. After all, what we’re really talking about is what value to let people put [...]
Identity Proofing on Twitter – problems and potential
All the web has been abuzz recently about Twitters launch of Verified Accounts (read Mashable’s post about it here). The goal of the program is to be able to show a badge on a Twitter account that communicates to readers the authenticity of the twitter stream. The reason for Twitter doing this is to avoid [...]
Now How Are We Supposed To Solve This?
Here is an interesting anecdote I heard yesterday (identity of person withheld for their own protection): My tween daughter was entering some sort of online popularity contest. It involved registering yourself as a contestant online with your email address, and then verifying your entry by clicking on a link in a verification email you would [...]
The new Identity Equation
A few days ago, I tweeted about this CNET article that talks about the plans that Twitter has to expand their search service into what could be one of the most powerful real-time search engines anywhere. The key to this whole thing is the idea of reputation – that ephemeral quality that will improve the [...]
On Anonymity, Pseudonymity and Personas
One of the online forums I participate in is commonly referred to as the Identity Gang (it is now part of identity commons). An interesting conversation took place last week on the topic of anonymity and privacy. The conversation did branch out a bit (as these conversations often do), but it did bring to the [...]
The changing face of Password Management
A college student was arraigned on Wednesday for allegedly breaking into Gov. Sarah Palin’s private e-mail account last month. Political leanings aside, I read the news article with great interest for the inherent security implications. Reading it, this line jumped out at me: The F.B.I. said that the younger Mr. Kernell allegedly hacked into the [...]
Does ‘User-Centric’ also mean ‘User-Burdened’?
Dave Kearns recently took on the topic of how user-centric and enterprise-centric identity could possibly co-exist in his articles for the Network World Identity Management Newsletter. In his first post, he discussed what the difference between the two is - the need in the Enterprise scenario to have all identity-related transactions tied together from an [...]
If you can’t trust Airport Security, who can you trust?
The latest to suffer an identity theft breach – the innovative CLEAR system that speeds frequent travelers through airport security by collecting personal data, doing an extensive background check and issuing smart cards. Stolen from a “locked” room in San Francisco airport was a laptop with the data for 33,000 travelers. This line from the [...]



