Ident Therefore I Am
As usual, I've had trouble wrapping my head around the Digital ID discussion.
Last time, it took
me 3 days to say something, which must be a first. Now Andre, Doc, Mitch, Eric and
the rest of the Digital ID brain trust are discussing Andre's thoughtful
article at Digital ID
World.
Finally I'm beginning to get it. I think. Although the following is purposely
cynical. The Digital ID initiative is a new form of the failed Push
technology.
There's no such thing as a federated
Digital ID and there won't be.
The various records about you are currently
owned by others, not by you. That's because you don't own any data and
never have. Data about buyers and employees is always owned
by sellers and employers and never by buyers
and employees. Since a company is no more than its data, no company
will give it
up to support the righteous quest for standards and interop and all the
rest. Sure, they'll talk about it and go to seminars and purse their lips
and seem to be interested,
but, when it's
time
to fish or cut bait, they'll just donate a little chunk of historic data
to the Digital Yellow Pages and keep right on hoarding their own, far richer,
more current dossier on you.
"So what?" you properly ask. Surely that doesn't invalidate the
DigID initiative. But data hoarding is the core of the problem because
the Digital ID resolution (whether
1, 3
or
27 phases in
the
future) won't
substitute a unique ID for the others, it will just add yet another digital
record of you to the multitude already out there, and not a very good one,
at that.
There's no way this incremental ID will be more accurate than all the rest,
because no one
will guarantee
the
accuracy
of what
they
supply. It's just another kind of credit report. Doesn't the following describe
what we'll have if Digital ID ever happens?
Lots of mistakes are made.
The sheer size of the consumer reporting industry is mind-boggling. According
to the Philadelphia Federal Reserve, there are more than 1,000 consumer
reporting agencies (CRAs) in the country. You're probably most familiar
with the three biggest CRAs – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.
Two million credit reports are ordered each day and two billion pieces
of information are added to these credit files each month. The average
consumer's credit report is updated five times a day. Computers or not,
when you're handling that much information, mistakes are going to happen.
But how bad is it?
Understanding how prevalent errors are depends on
who you listen to and what their biases are. We're aware of four studies
that have been done, all of
which point to either serious errors in credit reports or problematic inconsistencies
in credit scoring across the Big 3 CRAs. The overall consumer reporting
system is very important to our economy and does far more good than bad,
but it's
undeniable that serious errors are made pretty regularly.
(Disclosure: written to get people to buy a fool.com online
course, but
probably accurate)
What will happen when (if) the DigIDialogue gets
to the point that it's serious? Will the huge credit reporting industry let
some tech startup(s)
wrest their franchise from them? That's what's being proposed
here. Hell, this has as little likelihood as Microsoft
giving the Windows source to the Russkies (ya gotta love irony!)
So what's the answer? This DigID meme stirs up so much interest that something
deep is going on, even more than the usual excitement that can be generated
by really smart, intelligent, attractive, energetic young men describing a
non-existent
enterprise that might get some
funding from equally high-functioning other white guys with money.
I suggest our overarching interest is from 2 opposing forces:
Most of us hate the idea of being
no more than a blip in someone's data.
A few of us love the idea of creating
an industry that federates Digital ID.
We want to be of consequence! That
primal urge,
contrasted with our daily reality, is as painful to us as MP3s are to the
RIAA. Consider these truths:
- No seller cares about your kids' Little League record.
- You'll be missed about as much as your dead school buddies.
- The buyer doesn't care whether the seller lives or dies
—
as long as he
doesn't die on the premises.
- In an economic (non-village-based) world of willing
followers and exploitive leaders,
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
— T.S.
Eliot, 1925
Digital ID in its myriad existing and future forms doesn't replace or represent
you or me. Digital IDs are fictional symbols, personas if you will, that have
been created by companies to substantiate bookkeeping entries which they alchemize
into assets at the bank, in the stock market, at the country club and to inspire
employees.
Customers aren't you or me. Customers are data events that, referenced to
other supposedly valid data, pass the auditor's test of which collective fictions
are acceptable
to the capital markets during the current reporting period. Customers are as
evanescent as the money supply.
Economic/Cultural Romanticism
Might there be any way to make digital ID human? (Thanks, Doc!)
NYTimes.com, January 21, 2016
Congress today passed the Carbon Life Form Digital
Identity Act (CLFDIA) by an overwhelming vote, prohibiting
any entity recording or archiving information of any kind
about any carbon-based human persona. This is seen as a strategic win for
President William Sterling who
had made the legislation the centerpiece of his Sociolibertarian/Independent
agenda, and will sign it using his digital signature
at a ceremony at Davos.
Experts agreed that all the technical requirements are in place to support
the bill's implementation. It's estimated that 78% of AmeriEuro adults now
control their own web-based Digital IDs, as do a staggering 94% of people
between 13 and
21. The bill requires anyone who wishes to transact over the internet,
through
the mail or within the EuroDollar Community to maintain a web-based DigID
site supporting biometric validation.
Economists downplayed the significance of the legislation, calling it
largely symbolic, since the bill
does not affect transactions among Algorithm-Based Personas (ABPs),
which comprise 86.3% of the GDP. These self-perpetuating digital entities
will continue to transact with each other, exchanging digital services
for digital money, even though their creators, whether human or corporate,
are no longer involved in maintaining the entities' algorithms.
It is believed that the first ABP was the No Iraq, No Way meme,
started in 2003 and which still is collecting donations from the many pacifist
ABPs
still active. The ancient precursor to the NINW meme, the Stop-the-Taliban-Now
meme, functioned briefly in the early 1990s but failed because there was
no mechanism at that time to automatically fund meme support infrastructure.
2:34:35 PM 
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