Re: "The ID Divide"

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

________________________________________
From: Bob Frankston [bob37-2 () bobf frankston com]
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2008 12:50 PM
To: David Farber; 'ip'
Cc: 'Dan Lynch'
Subject: RE: [IP] Re:     "The ID Divide"

The problem is the word “Identity. For a hospital it is your body. But for social networking sites you don’t want to 
give out your one true identity (AKA name/password) – you need to provide proxy authorization or agency. But the rush 
to monetize can’t wait for such a sophisticated idea. It’s the same as confusing the DNS with trademark (or telecom 
with railroads). But even in the hospitals we’re still coming to terms of concepts of agency and informed consent.

In thinking about Spectrum’s Singularity site there’s a disconnect between the complexity of ambiguous social issues 
and the naiveté in mapping it into technology as if there were just one grand context as per the other meaning of ID – 
Intelligent Design.

It’s going to take a generation to sort out the social ambiguities and even longer if we insist on the kind of hill 
climbing algorithms inherent in focusing on short term unenlightened ROI. This is not about greedy corporations as much 
as the degree to which we’ve removed ambiguity. The cruel irony is that we tend to imbue “science” with the aura of 
certainty when it’s just the opposite – science is very conditional. But as we apply math to finance we tend to accept 
arbitrary measures which then fail when the context changes – as they must.



-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2008 11:53
To: ip
Subject: [IP] Re: "The ID Divide"





________________________________________

From: Dan Lynch [dan () lynch com]

Sent: Monday, June 09, 2008 11:44 AM

To: David Farber; Mary Shaw

Subject: Re: [IP] Re:    "The ID Divide"



I am on the board of a large health clinic for people of all categories and

what we realize is that the only ID that will work is one the patient brings

in with every visit: their biometric identity, the iris in their eyes.  A

tiny fraction of individuals will not have that due to unfortunate

circumstances and those can be handled "offline".



Dan





On 6/9/08 4:35 AM, "David Farber" <dave () farber net> wrote:



>

> ________________________________________

> From: Mary Shaw [mary.shaw () gmail com]

> Sent: Monday, June 09, 2008 12:40 AM

> To: David Farber

> Subject: Re: [IP] Re: "The ID Divide"

>

> Dave,

>

> This discussion is ignoring an important population, people who are neither

> illegal nor privacy advocates.

>

> One of my colleagues formerly worked with a medical clinic serving indigent

> clients.  He has told me that one of their problems was tracking clients --

> that is, matching a client in the clinic today with his or her history at that

> or other clinics.

>

> You might expect that an ID card would solve, or at least help with, this

> problem.  But he reports that the clients didn't retain and bring back ID

> cards. If I understand correctly, many clients didn't see the ID card as an

> item of any significance; if it had any value they'd have no hesitation to

> trade it away.

>

> So a discussion of universal ID needs to consider how to persuade people that

> ID matters and how they can maintain physical security of the ID token..

>

> That problem is even more intractable than the technology problems, and I

> think it's another reason why universal ID won't succeed.

>

> Mary Shaw

>

>

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