How to Move your Identity
I started this post a few days ago, on the 24th (a whole 2 days ago…geez internet time flies). Note to skimmers…..if you can’t be bothered reading it all, skip and read the end….that’s where the point is.
24th…
Cam has started a discussion all by asking if he should move his blog.
Some respondents chime in from a technical perspective – like how you can move your blog yet still retain readership and get machines like google to follow you.
Others are dead against it saying that he has carved out a digital identity where he is (I’m assuming that means on typepad)
This begs the question. How can we move what we do on the net yet retain our digital identity integrity?
On one side you have the issue of moving ‘what’ you have produced. While this part is largely a technical issue it’s not just that. I liken it to moving house. You pack your stuff you’ve accumulated and shift it to another address. You need to inform everyone that this has been done. (well everyone you want to keep in touch with you). You can get the post office to forward all your letters from the old house address to your new one. You can do likewise with your telephone calls. We already have a system for that on the net for domains, the DNS. We have a system on the web in the HTTP protocol for moved sites and pages. These things work towards the technical moving of digital data we have accumulated from one ‘house’ to another.
But does this activity change your identity? Change how you tell others who you are.
At the bank, I tell my identity by showing cards. These are normally all in one place, my wallet. If I lose that I don’t lose my identity but I do lose the ability to prove my Identity…and boy what a hassle it is to reinstate this proof. My point is that in the physical world my everyday proof of identity is mostly in a single place. On the net I have a Distributed Identity. If you want a big picture of me, what I do (not that what I do is who I am), you’ll need to look at a few places.
Maybe we need an Indentity Whois or Identity DNS or Identity Agregation System – IAS. A multi-homed, distributed Indentity management system. Something that pulled the proofs of who we are together from all over the place.
26th….
Well it seems my tangental thoughts about our identities are well in hand by the Indentity 2.0 guys who have put out a paper on “The Laws of Identity…”
And Cam has posted again telling us a bit more of why he asked the question in the first place, commenting that he doesn’t really want “cameron” to be a brand.
Well then really, why the hell bother to ask anyone in the first place. If I take my observation about moving house to its full outworking, just shift and let those you want to know that youv’e moved. If I wasn’t a business and thereby interested in maintaining a brand I sure wouldn’t ask the people on the web if I wanted to move where I live. But I would ask my friends.
Then maybe that’s just his point, he views us as friends!
