(this picture is used in anticipation of a permission from Ascio Technologies who I guess owes some credit to Roy Lichtenstein)
Digital Identity. In the old days the saying was that On the Internet, Nobody Knows You’re a Dog (from page 61 of July 5, 1993 issue of The New Yorker, vol.69 (LXIX) no. 20). Not so any more! These days there’s a race with important and powerful players not only to control but also to effectively own your identity on the Internet. Who the winner will be is very much dependant on techincal standards for communication, retrieval, authentification, storage, metadata etc.
Under the auspices of the Danish eBusiness Association, I will be the (interim) chairman of a special interest group (text in Danish) on Digital Identity. First meeting is in Copenhagen, Thursday 7. March at 14:00. All interested are welcome to attend this first meeting of the group. Sign up here.
At the first meeting a representative from Ascio Technologies will present the standard for Digital Identity that they have spend considerable time to develop. I am pretty excited about Ascio’s Digital Identity concept. First of all, it is a totally open standard based on open and already widely accepted standards such as PKI, DNS and XML. Secondly, it seems to bridge the two often incompatible notions of authentification and privacy. Finally, applications complying with the Digital Identity standards should be interoperable with Microsoft .NET and Hailstorm.
Okay, I admit it: My views on Ascio’s Digital Identity concept might be slightly biased as the concept is the brainchild of Nikolaj Nyholm – an Ascio Technology co-founder – and a good friend of mine. Judge for yourself: Visit Nikolaj’s Digital Identity weblog.