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The Internet

i-Names Pick Up Steam 158

Posted by Hemos from the reserve-your-name-now dept.
There's been coverage in LJ on the whole "Identity Commons idea. Basically, it's a domain registrar for your unique name - with them on sale already. ASN has published a whitepaper on the topic as well.
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i-Names Pick Up Steam More

i-Names Pick Up Steam

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  • What about XNS names? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Meostro ( 788797 ) * on Monday December 06, 2004 @08:39AM (#11006851) Homepage Journal
    The i-name you have requested is an XNS "reserved" name. If you are the orginal XNS name registrant, you can reclaim it and convert it to a new global i-name here. If the original registrant of that i-name doesn't claim it during the EGS period, the i-name will become available again for registration on a first come first serve basis.
    I haven't found in the FAQs [2idi.com] or anywhere on the site [google.com] what that EGS period is... anyone out there have an idea of when I can register myself?

    • Re:What about XNS names? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @08:42AM (#11006871) Homepage Journal
      buzzword bingo.

      anyways, maybe they sold lifetime subs to their previous thing.

      now they sell "As a critical part of its mission Identity Commons is offering a time-limited opportunity for individuals to register a global i-name (opens new window) for 50 years for only $25 USD.".

      so.. is it going to cost more after this limited time? with all the referral shit too it's starting to sound too much like a network marketing semi-scam - with "pay now, the product may be very good in the future! you can't afford to stay away!" attitude.
      • What's the difference between this or Orkut/Gmail anyway? Except we pay them for the priviledge?

        Hmm. And what happens if this catches on and domain name piracy spreads to real name piracy? (That's a joke, son - we already have identity theft for that. Although I wonder how many Joseph Smiths there are out there, for example.)

        How unique are names anyway?

      • Re:What about XNS names? (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        so.. is it going to cost more after this limited time?

        Nah, what they aren't telling you is that in 5 years they'll start a new single-sign-in project and call it TheID or something, and all the websites will start using that, forcing you to shell out another $25 for a 50 year TheID account.

      • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @11:15AM (#11007910)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • I wouldn't call making a donation to Mozilla a waste, but this reminds me of the people selling acres on the moon(or any other entity in space) to people. Like those people have any real right to that property. It's just another way for people to scam people for money.

    • Re:What about XNS names? (Score:2, Informative)

      by fedux ( 262863 )
      I think they mean this: EGS [xdi.org]

    • Answer 50 years. BTW, THIS IS TRUSTED COMPUTING! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Alsee ( 515537 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @03:23PM (#11010251) Homepage
      I haven't found in the FAQs or anywhere on the site what that EGS period is

      From the FAQ: In this program, individuals may purchase a 50-year global personal i-name [2idi.com] What isn't in the FAQ is that you are only reserving the name for 50 years and getting 2 years of free "managment services". After that management fees are around $10 a year.

      Now that I have answered your question and justified leeching off of the first high rated post (chuckle) I have an important message:

      IT IS A FRONT FOR TRUSTED COMPUTING AND DRM!!
      IT IS A FRONT FOR TRUSTED COMPUTING AND DRM!!
      IT IS A FRONT FOR TRUSTED COMPUTING AND DRM!!

      The organisations involved, OASIS (oasis-open.org), XDI.ORG and the others, they are all TRUSTED COMPUTING groups creating "open standards" for ENFORCING DRIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGAMENT systems.

      One of OASIS's primary projects is:
      Extensible Rights Markup Language (XrML): 'The Digital Rights Language for Trusted Content and Services'.

      XDI.org's FAQ
      What does XDI.ORG do ...vision of an accountable, trustworthy layer on the Internet

      This "Identity Commons" wants you to sign up and created a "Trusted Identity" (which is conviently tied to the CREDIT CARD you used to register!), and in the future DRM files will be locked to that identity, and software installations will be locked to that identity, and access to websites will be locked to that identity (single sign-on oh joy) and on and on. And they are offering you an opportunity to sign up and reserve your name before the system is fully deployed, gee thanks.

      The system will not be fully operational unless you are running Microsoft's Palladium operating system, or if you are running a Palladiumized version of Linux or other operating system. Palladiumized TrustedLinux is already under construction. And these new operating systems will only work on the new TrustedHardware. IBM and HP and others are already shipping PCs with this new Trust chip. Intel has already embedded a version of the Trust chip inside the Intell Prescott, although it is in an inactive form. The expectation is that the Trust chip will soon be standard on all motherboards, and then move into the CPU itself. Intel, AMD, ARM, Transmeta, and the rest, all of the CPU makers are on board.

      The Trust chip spys on your hardware and what software you are running and reports it to other people (remote attestation), the Trust chip makes it impossible to read your own files except with the approval and under the restrictions imposed by the software you were given (sealed storage), it prevents you from modifying the software on your own machine (code identity and sealed storage), the Trust chip even DEFEATS THE GPL! Having the source code and being able to modify and compile it is USELESS when that recompiled code DOES NOT WORK. The Trust chip forbids the recompiled code from access to the required encryption keys. The recompiled code will "run", but it will not WORK because it cannot read it's encrypted files and it cannot interoperate.

      I know this sounds like a tinfoil hat conspiracy theory, but IBM is already shipping ThinkCenter, ThinkVantage andNetvista desktops, and Thinkpad laptops with this chip embedded. HP/Compaq are already shipping dc7100 and D530 Desktops and nc6000,nc8000,nw8000, nc4010 notebooks with these chips embedded. Acer Veriton 3600GT/7600GT. Toshiba Tecra M2 Series. Fujitsu Lifebook S7010 and E8000 series and the T4000 Tablet PCs. Samsung all X model laptops. And more every day. As I said, the expectation is that is will soon be standard hardware on ALL motherboards.

      EFF on Trusted Computing [eff.org]
      GNU.org on Trusted Computing [gnu.org]
      Wikipedia on Trusted Computing [wikipedia.org]

      -
      • Allow me to be the first to officially say: WTF?!

        ...the Trust chip even DEFEATS THE GPL! Having the source code and being able to modify and compile it is USELESS when that recompiled code DOES NOT WORK. The Trust chip forbids the recompiled code from access to the required encryption keys. The recompiled code will "run", but it will not WORK because it cannot read it's encrypted files and it cannot interoperate.

        What is the basis for this? Are you saying I won't be able to write any programs on my own?

        • Are you saying I won't be able to write any programs on my own?

          You can do that just fine for programs YOU wrote, or "normal" programs which other people wrote. The problem kicks in when someone intentionally utilizes the Trust system. For example the RIAA can give you a GPL open source DRM enforcing music player. You could even compile it yourself (you'd have to get teh EXE exactly right) and it will play the music files just fine and it will enforce the DRM. If you attempt to modify that program in any w

        • The problem is that in a "Trusted Computing" environment, you won't be able to run your own program without the encryption keys. The problem now becomes getting said keys. Also, the "secure storage" part of it, which is touted to protect your private data from malicious crackers and malware, keys in files to the program they were run in. For example- if you created a file in vim in a TrustedLinux distro, you wouldn't be able to do anything with that file except in vim. That is, if you can even run vim.

    • EGS? It's a web comic [elgoonishshive.com], hosted by Keenspot... it's pretty freakish, though.

  • Well.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by beatdown ( 788583 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @08:40AM (#11006857)
    Now if there were only a site to keep track of my multiple Identity Commons names.

    • Re:Well.. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Meostro ( 788797 )
      I believe that's what an i-broker [2idi.com] is...
      • I don't know...the i-broker idea seems a little different (not to mention frightening).

        your i-broker safeguards your account password and allows you to manage your data sharing relationships with other i-name users (both individuals and organizations.) Personal i-brokers will also offer a growing menu of trusted data sharing services, from auto-address books and calendars to intelligent portals, "introduction" and "reputation" services.

        Here's what I got when I typed in my desired i-name:

        Your new gl
    • Now if there were only a site to keep track of my multiple Identity Commons names.

      They suggest you use only one for all your i-names (e.g. "=beatdown" and "=Brown.Dwarf")

      (not a putdown but an attempt to educate readers)

  • Ahhhh! (Score:4, Funny)

    by jrockway ( 229604 ) * <jon-nospam@jrock.us> on Monday December 06, 2004 @08:42AM (#11006868) Homepage Journal
    > whole "Identity Commons idea

    UNTERMINATED STRING CONSTANT. My head hurts now :)

  • With something as clumsy as '=victor.grey' (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bheer ( 633842 ) <{rbheer} {at} {gmail.com}> on Monday December 06, 2004 @08:42AM (#11006870)
    ...I really don't see a chance of this becoming popular, especially when it's arriving late in the game. Like it or not, the guys who thought up foo@bar.com-style addressing hit pay dirt in terms of coming up with an addressing scheme that real people could deal with.
    • Like it or not, the guys who thought up foo@bar.com-style addressing

      Those "guys" would be, I believe, one Vint Cerf [mci.com].
    • Yeah, can you imagine the shock when you give your email address out? I mean if I hadn't seen the format myself I would have thought that it would be a bogus email address. Afterall what would you think if you saw someone pass you =foo.bar? Nothing personal, but I think that this is one of the dumbest ideas that I have seen. People on the internet are comfortable with the foo.bar@foobar.com format. Most of the people that are savy enough to _want_ such a creature may not _want_ the hassle. Also asking the m

  • 25$ for 50 years ? (Score:4, Informative)

    by mirko ( 198274 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @08:43AM (#11006873) Journal
    But what's the point ? Being identifiable under a name which would look like this ?
    Valid I-Name formats

    I-names are designed to be as simple and human-friendly as possible. Global personal i-names start with an "=" sign followed by a string of characters (no spaces.) You can use letters, digits, dots ("."), and dashes ("-"), but you can't start or end with punctuation. I-names are not case-sensitive, i.e., "a" and "A" are equivalent.

    See these special instructions about internationalized (Unicode) i-names [slashdot.org].

    Examples:

    • =Mary
    • =Jones
    • =Mary.Jones
    • =Mary.W.Jones
    • =Mary.Wellington.Jones
    • =Mary.Martha.Wellington.Jones
    • =Mary.Jones.Phd
    • =Mary.Jones-Smith
    • =Mary.Jones.2000
    • =Pickles
    • =Pickle.Sandwich
    • =Foo-Foo

    Note that although dots are not required (i.e., you could register "=MarySmith"), the standard practice will be to separate real names with dots, just as it has become with email addresses.

    For further information on i-names please visit XDI.ORG [xdi.org] or the OASIS XRI (Extensible Resource Identifier) home page [oasis-open.org].

    • Hmmm... Ok, so what about people with double barreled surnames ? Or things like Foo van der Bar ?
      Should that become
      foo.van.der.bar ?

      How do you dilineate first name from surnage ?

      In the case of
      foo.van.der.bar foo is the first name, and the last 3 parts are the last name
      With
      st.john.bar, St John is the first name

      If it's going to be global, and it's going to be useful, surely there should be some way of identifying these parts of a name ?
      • say it with me: "an i name is not a name". your "i name" can be "=fscknugget", having it be based on your actual name is up to you, but it does not (and should not) be used as data which can in and of itself be parsed into your real name. in fact, your real name is one of the pieces of private data which an "i name" purports to protect.

        note that I neither affirm nor condem this "i name" business, just noting that the "i name" is not even designed to be parsed into a real name, so your points about "St. Joh
    • FYI:

      =porn is still available

      You're welcome.
  • Is it just me or is the site rather too wordy and techie for the purpose is it indended for? (ie. it's a site to sell their product and idea).

    I had a quick skim of the site and I'm still none the wiser.
    • will it last ? Realnames died and I've got the domains names I want.

      $25 for 50 years - provided they dont go 'belly up' aka chapter 11 or whatever its called where you come from.

    • Re:Poor site (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @09:15AM (#11007041) Homepage Journal
      /cynic mode on.

      you know why it's wordy and techie? to get techies to jump in quick to register their own name(s). you're not supposed to stop and think for a second if that 25$ is a ripoff or not. the whole community 'feel'(non mega polished with flash) in it is just intended to hide what's underneath.

      it's techy and named so 'commons' so that you wouldn't first think that it's a firm that's taking twenty five bucks for you to register a crappy name on it, with basically no real usage on anywhere at all!

  • How Come? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @08:49AM (#11006900)
    How come when Microsoft tried to do this with passport everyone thought it was evil. But now, because it's not Microsoft, there will be a lot of people saying this is good. The reason why this stuff bothers me is because I don't want to trust anyone to control all my signing on to every site. Because no matter how secure it is, if someone breaks the security, they now have access to everything. At least I know now, that if someone breaks (guesses) one of my passwords, then they've only broken one of them, and not all of them.
    • This is why I hate ideas like this. I use my name 'jacksonj04' wherever I can, a Google will prove that. I know my username, people know that jacksonj04 is almost certainly me, and there's no single point of failure except my head.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Because if they did, it would be $1 Billion worth of software, and not actually money. Microsoft donates a lot of software every year to get tax breaks. Even though this is something that has no real value. Donating Windows to third world schools shouldn't count, because there's no way they would have paid full price for it anyway.
        • Donating Windows to third world schools shouldn't count, because there's no way they would have paid full price for it anyway.

          You're surely a troll, but:

          WTF? Would you make the same argument for microscopes, textbooks, or PhD-holding faculty?

          Just because they would never be able to afford it does not make it any less of a charitable donation.
          • Maybe you didn't catch what I meant but here it goes. Software has no intrinsic value. they charge $299 US for a copy of windows which is probably the same price they use when they donate it to a 3rd world country, even though the only loss to the company is a $0.05 Compact Disc. Software takes $X Million to produce the first copy, and 5 cents to distribute each copy. If they are going to give a copy away to someone who never would have bought it the cost to them is about $0.05. Textbooks probably fall

    • Because... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by daveschroeder ( 516195 ) * on Monday December 06, 2004 @09:26AM (#11007115)
      ...Microsoft would certainly tie it to payment methods (possibly creating a time when a Passport is REQUIRED to make online purchases from "partner sites"), and entrench itself everywhere, and use it as a method to hawk and secure market positions for its own products.

      A hopefully open consortium of people doing universal identity (not saying this idea is necessarily it) would be doing it for the public good, not for greed or a mechanism to use a monopoly position to force its products on people.

      • Good Reasons... (Score:2, Interesting)

        by dpilot ( 134227 )
        Thank you for listing the reasons simply and succintly. There has been a growing "Why do you keep senselessly bashing Microsoft?" voice on Slashdot, lately. Your post highlights that much (though I can grant not all) of the Microsoft bashing is NOT senseless, and IS based on their past corporate conduct.
      • What does this have to do with the grandparent's concern? I happen to echo his statement: why in God's name would I want the online equivalent of a Social Security number stored somewhere? It *will* be broken into, no matter what.

    • Re:How Come? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Spoing ( 152917 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @09:28AM (#11007126) Homepage
      1. How come when Microsoft tried to do this with passport everyone thought it was evil. But now, because it's not Microsoft, there will be a lot of people saying this is good. The reason why this stuff bothers me is because I don't want to trust anyone to control all my signing on to every site. Because no matter how secure it is, if someone breaks the security, they now have access to everything. At least I know now, that if someone breaks (guesses) one of my passwords, then they've only broken one of them, and not all of them.

      The motivations for each group are entirely different. Go and listen to Owen Davis' speach here. [itconversations.com]

    • Re:How Come? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by eekim ( 837745 )

      Because the Identity Commons system is distributed, not centralized. This is not apparent yet because there's only one i-broker, but the code will be released as open source sometime early next year, and anyone will be able to be their own i-broker.

      Also keep in mind that other than some minimum amount of information about you (probably password and email address), i-brokers will only store pointers to your personal information. In other words, you'll be able to store your personal data with whomever you

    • Microsoft has a known history of tying services to needing their products. That's one reason that them being in charge of your entire identity scared some people - it's because if they succeeded then say goodbye to using non-MS-approved products to browse popular websites. Not everyone agrees that their products are pleasant to use, to say the least. Now, this idea still has OTHER problems in common with Microsoft Passport, but it doesn't have that particular one.

    • Not Passport (words from 2idi) (Score:4, Informative)

      by Broadcatch ( 100226 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @03:53PM (#11010540) Homepage
      People often ask: what is the difference between your technology and Microsoft Passport?

      As I [xdi.org] like to say, the only thing good about Passport is at least you know their database won't get bought by Microsoft (because they already own it!).

      In functionality - such as automatic data sharing, form filling and single sign-on - we share much with Microsoft Passport. (In fact, Passport grew out of Firefly, which is descended from my 1981 thesis on a personalized newspaper - NewsPeek - at what became soon after the M.I.T. Media Lab. I named the systems "NewsPeek" for two reasons: it provided a "peek at the news," and it was a warning that if centralized control over personal profiles existed, the future depicted in George Orwell's 1984 - where the official language was "NewSpeak" - could come true.)

      But all that aside, where we differ is where it gets interesting. For one, we are decentralized [fen.net]. There is no single i-broker or data store that you must use. While it is true that there is only one sanctioned global registry for '=' (personal) and '@' (organizational) names, many other forms of community and peer-to-peer i-name registries can exist. It's also important to note that your data is not necessarily stored in any one place. For ease of use reasons you may choose to use a single i-broker to negotiate access to you data, but each item of your profile could conceivably be stored in a different data hosting service. (Note that current service providers that store information about you are acting as a data hosting service already.)

      Another point is that, through our architecture and FOSS (free and open source software) availability of our code, we don't lock you in [fen.net]. Rather, you are free to move around between the i-brokers of your choosing - and even to run an i-broker yourself! We (at 2idi [2idi.com]) are committed not only to providing you this choice, but also to providing such a compelling suite of services that i-name holders choose to have their i-names hosted at 2idi.
    • I still do think it's evil. Well, Not inherently and despicibly evil, perhaps not even evil at all, but at least distasteful. I would much prefer to handle my accounts with each site through the site. Suppose I used my name and password to log in to slashdot, and some elite cracker managed to lift my password, then decided to go see if I had a login over at ebay, perhaps even with a credit card number saved. No thanks, sell it to someone else.

  • Central database? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @08:50AM (#11006908) Journal
    From a brief look at the site, it seems that this is yet another single sign on thing. Having my personal data stored in a single place is a good idea. That single place should be my computer (or, perhaps, a USB pen drive). The Apple Keychain (most of it is open source, and a BSD-licensed work-alike is currently number 4 on my ToDo list) is a good implementation of this. What is really needed is not another single sign-on registry, but a standard for attaching semantic information for web forms allowing the browser to autocomplete them. Safari makes some relatively good guesses, but is far from perfect.

    Oh, and public lynching of people who use Flash for forms (*cough* UCI Cinemas *cough*).

    • Re:Central database? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jc42 ( 318812 )
      ..., it seems that this is yet another single sign on thing.

      To paraphrase an old computer-industry saying:

      The nice thing about single-signon schemes is that there are so many to choose from.

    • You'll be able to store your personal data on your own computer. Also, Identity Commons will use the open standard SAML for single sign-on. Several members of the community serve on those committees. There are also folks talking to SXIP and other companies to make sure that it's not YASSO. The reason for this fundraiser is to help build these next pieces of the infrastructure.

    • Re:Central database? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by shess ( 31691 )
      > That single place should be my computer (or, perhaps, a USB pen drive).

      No. The problem with all of the single-signon solutions I've seen is that they make it easy for me to blanket the earth with my personal information. They're solving the problem of how annoying it is to enter the information, but not the problem of how annoying it is to have to enter the information in the first place.

      Instead, I want my personal information stored with an escrow agent (such as a bank), and then I want to use the
  • Sure the idea of one common identifier is cool, but how does this system provide me with more security. Where is my personal data maintained? How do I know that this won't just end up as another information clearing house for corporations and the government?
  • I haven't read all the article yet, but... if one of the ideas of this thing is to enable sites to prevent multiple accounts by a single person, will be there be a way for me to register in a site using my i-name, without letting the site to know what's my actual i-name? (unlike MS-passport).

    It's technically possible.. I hope they implement it.

  • Welcome to Identity Commons (Score:3, Funny)

    by Zorilla ( 791636 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @08:58AM (#11006946)
    How many eggs are in your basket today?
  • Isn't this just another MS Passport like scheme? The reason that thing didn't catch on wasn't so much that it was Microsoft or even that they wanted to keep all your information on one (hackable) computer, but the fact that it simply isn't a big enough advantage.

    I personally have tens of usernames and passwords; the important ones are all different (as are the passwords), and the unimportant ones are from a small selection of names. Having only one names means having only one thing that an ID thief needs t

  • Picks up Steam, eh? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Brainboy ( 310252 ) <`iamchillin' `at' `gmail.com'> on Monday December 06, 2004 @09:04AM (#11006978) Journal
    i-Names Pick Up Steam

    I wonder how much Valve sold it for.

  • Late arriving cyber real estate agent (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mabu ( 178417 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @09:10AM (#11007007)
    I equate ideas like this to a late-arriving cyber real estate agent, seeking to find some creative, yet not terribly useful or practical way to divide up property that people already own.

    The premise is that you pay for a pseudo-permanent identity in cyberspace. Ok, however, the TOS, like most other TOS disclaim any responsibility to consistently deliver the services you're supposedly paying for:

    # Although our intention is that this service is always available, 2idi and its licensees and affiliates reserve the right to interrupt or terminate service for some unforeseen circumstance.
    # Please note that amendments to this agreement, and to 2idi policies that are incorporated by reference in i-broker agreements, may be made at any time at the sole discretion of 2idi in order to best serve all members of the 2idi community.
    The second part is particularly exemplative of the total and utter uselessness of schemes like this. Sure, they want to encourage you to use them as a central repository of personal information, and they allude to respecting your privacy, but they reserve the right, at any time, without your approval, to change the terms of their service, which may arbitrarily involve giving out personal info or whatever they want with whatever they have of yours.

    Whenever I evaluate the value of an idea such as this, I consider to what degree the value of the project is based on a useful service, verses the degree to which the success of the project is dependent upon a) obtaining market share and b) marketing. This project fails the test. It doesn't offer anything innovative, and therefore will be marketing driven, and if it doesn't have market share, it will ultimately fail and be useless.

    This is one of those markets where it's just too dangerous to fiddle with. For all the resources they invest into this effort, Google, eBay, MSN or Yahoo can pull a similar scheme out of their hat and put them out of business instantly. Spamcop already has a highly effective e-mail/spam forwarding service. The central identity thing has been tried with the .name TLD and hasn't worked. And Microsoft has far more resources poured into their pseudo-secure give-me-all-your-personal-info "solution."

    OTOH, what I do like about the basic centralized repository scheme, is that it would be better served as a way to manage and authorize legitimate SMTP servers.
    • First Read:
      http://xns.org/i-names-explained.html [xns.org]
      http://xns.org/xri-and-xdi-explained.html [xns.org]
      http://www.xdi.org/ [xdi.org]

      The premise is that you pay for a pseudo-permanent identity in cyberspace.

      What else have you got? If you don't have your own domain somewhere, that can often times be taken down by your ISP "just because", what else do you have? Your email address. That's pseudo-permanant, right. Is it 50 years permanant? Maybe.

      So you tell everyone your email address for a pseudo-permanant identity -
    • I-brokers, which are based on the open OASIS XRI, XDI and SAML standards, are not centralized. Well, they are now only because there is just one of them, but we have a project underway right now to package our code for release under the dual GPL/BSD license. At that point in time (by the end of the year) anyone can be an i-broker.

      The text in the 2idi Terms of Service is, IMO, not the best (disclaimer: I wrote it). I would like to see better text there. Identity Commons is a member governed chaordic org
  • Isnt this like the .Net Passport idea? Maybe I am confused, but I thought that was the idea behind the Microsoft Passport system... to have one common ID and login place.

    Only problem is... I have only ever seen it embraced by Microsoft.

    Correct me, if I am confused.

  • Totalitarianism (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    As mentioned by CastrTroy above, identifying yourself with one username and effectively logging much of your internet activity with one company is a very very bad idea. People who accept it as a good thing are nieve, and the sort of people who do not question government but trust it.

    In the UK at the moment, we are being shaped and molded by a totalitarian government that is effectively reading from the Manual of Marxism. Not only are they stealing our freedoms by the week, but they are fraudulenty manipula

  • LJ (Score:3, Funny)

    by fuck_this_shit ( 727749 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @09:18AM (#11007066)
    There's been coverage in LJ on the whole "Identity Commons idea

    huh? LiveJournal? Some angsty teen fearing her AOL screenname got haxored and is now Identity Commonized?!?

    • Sadly enough.. this was the same thing I thought at first...
      And I don't even have a LiveJournal. :/

  • i-Names? (Score:3, Funny)

    by slapout ( 93640 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @09:22AM (#11007091)
    i-Names? Is this an Apple product?

  • yet another flat namespace that won't scale (Score:5, Insightful)

    by keithmoore ( 106078 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @09:33AM (#11007154) Homepage
    an unambiguous human-friendly name is an oxymoron.
    • Looking strictly at a single global namespace of all possible people, human-friendly globally unique identifiers cannot scale. I know, I am one of at least two people in my extended family with the same first, middle and last name. (Hmmm... I wonder if that isn't why C++ has namespaces? :-) )

      Thinking about how these things would actually be used, however, it's not so difficult to arrange a way to make it work. People who interact with me are not likely to be interested in the other people with "my" name

      • What is generally used to make human names unique is the date of birth. It would be pretty rare to have the same exact name plus the same exact date of birth. Of course, once you have that information, you can do all kinds of nasty things like look that person up in public databases (voter registration, DMV, etc.). So in the end it isn't good to have your i-name reveal anything about you that can be used to find information you don't want to reveal (i.e. address), and definitely not to have it provide infor

      • Looking strictly at a single global namespace of all possible people, human-friendly globally unique identifiers cannot scale.

        if they're not globally unique, they're ambiguous.

        People who interact with me are not likely to be interested in the other people with "my" name.

        It's happened to me, more than once. There used to be someone with the same name as me working for Microsoft. Due to blind trust in directories and address books, I used to get some mail intended for him, and he got some mail intend

    • It's not a flat namespace. There are community i-names as well (under the @ namespace), and you'll be able to subdelegate namespaces under namespaces, such as @blueoxen*eekim.

  • I guess they set up this service only to get all the "$25 for 50 years" payments of people or companies which don't want someone else to take their "i-name".

    I'm sure they'll make a few thousand bucks on it, especially after the slashdotting. A few months later, the site silently disappears.

    Come on, the "single sign on" idea is flawed anyway. I'm never gonna trust all my data to a single entity, nobody does that - just look at asset management. Diversify your risks.

    I don't care about dozens of passw
    • I'm glad I'm not the only one who saw that... pay your $25 to "reserve" your i-name (which is useful for what?) for 50 years, only the site goes belly-up in a few months and your $25 and your "iname" go bye-bye.
    • Come on, the "single sign on" idea is flawed anyway. I'm never gonna trust all my data to a single entity, nobody does that - just look at asset management. Diversify your risks.

      People often confuse "single sign-on" with "centrally stored data". The Liberty Alliance solution is different because it is a federated approach based on identity.

      In this solution, you identify yourself with a single method. Take for example, 3 different entities you may interact with: your bank, a government agency, and a st

  • Congratulations (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The i-name =slashdot is available.
    The i-name =apple is available.

    Looks like a real popular system. Isn't this just RealNames all over again?
  • i-names tries to sell uniqueness through a world domination scheme. ($25 ?! )

    Google already has the world domination. (Microsoft tried with Passport, didn't work out.)

  • No way (Score:1)

    by xnot ( 824277 )
    This should be done via a software solution on the desktop that keeps track of all your passwords and inputs them for you automatically (a la Mac OS X Keychains). Uploading all your personal passwords to the net (no matter how many claims the company makes regarding their trustworthiness) is suicide.

    Seriously, I think companies are going to lose this battle. The internet started life as an anonymous network, and there are many people (myself included) who want to keep things that way. Though it would be co

  • Not so fast (Score:2, Insightful)

    by bLindmOnkey ( 744643 )
    At first having one login for everything on the web may seem like an intelligent idea; one that solves the problem of people not having to remember a gazillion different logins for every website. This may be also be great for old people who just can't remember. However, what happens if someone gets a hold of you login name, or oh, just overlooks you typing in your password. Will they have access to all your accounts on any website you have registered on the net? Isn't there a reason why people make differen

  • i-Anything (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Is it just me, or does the whole i-Something naming scheme make anyone else want to vomit? Everytime I see i-This or i-That, I want to hurl all over my monitor. Is anyone attracted to that?

    PS The e-Thing shit is starting to get annoying as well. Get some creativity and get a real name.
  • A PayPal ID has a means behind it to actually verify your ID - the credit ID system. I see no way in which INames ensures that the person holding an ID is...anyone. Since there is no verifiability behind the ID (and no penalty for misuse), this is already DOA. With a PayPal-style account, you can leverage the entire industry of identity theft tracking and misuse-penalizing via the credit industry (i.e., hit em in the wallet)

  • eh, no thanks (Score:4, Insightful)

    by l3v1 ( 787564 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @10:40AM (#11007622)
    Just another bad idea being forced (and for money, geez) upon everyone. Just wondering, how many people are there with same names (I am one of those people, who have such names that are one in a dozen in my culture and language) who will fight for a good i-name. The other point, who on this planet would trust every online access on a single id ? Well, nobody with a sane mind would. Once found out, all your base are belong to them.

    No way I am willing to be forced into such a thing and even cashing out money for such a wrong purpose.

    MS's passport wasn't that good either, but at least I (we) didn't have to pay for it.

  • LocalNames (Score:3)

    by LionKimbro ( 200000 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @12:38PM (#11008711) Homepage
    I'm working on a thing called "Local Names." [taoriver.net]

    It points names to URL's, but you can use that for identifying purposes. Especially if you mix & match with FOAF. [rdfweb.org]

    There are no central registries.

    Names are based on the community namespace, rather than some central server.

    (That means you don't have to pay me $25, and can address your friends by their first name.)

  • misconceptions: not centralized nor passport (Score:4, Informative)

    by Broadcatch ( 100226 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @12:52PM (#11008854) Homepage
    One of the primary misconceptions about i-names is that they're centralized. They're not [fen.net].

    Another is that 2idi is just another passport controlling your information. It isn't [fen.net].

    It's clear that Identity Commons [identitycommons.net] and 2idi [2idi.com] have to work on their messaging...
  • After reading the article and the whitepaper, I still have no idea what new technology these people are proposing.

    I found this particularly telling;

    ... an i-name can be viewed as the ultimate SPAM filter, since you will never again need to put your email address on the net

    Even assuming for the moment that you could substitute an i-name for an email address, there's no reason to suppose that your i-name wouldn't get just as much spam.

    Then there's this;

    Over time, you will be able to decide just how mu

    • Yeah really. You still need a real email address, so imagine some legit company you deal with gets your contact info with your permission. Then some employee within that company sells it to a spammer. All over, back to same hell as we have now.
  • The thing to remember is that the i-Names are sponsdered by XDI.org. When you get an i-Name you have to go to a broker, such as IDCommons. Asside from the format, here is what the XDI.org website has to say about the benefit of an i-name:

    # Privacy. Because an i-name or i-number is not itself a communications address like an email address or phone number, it is unspammable. You simply can't send it email, call it, or send it a fax directly unless the owner has given you permission. If you don't have permiss

  • you gotta own your own name. I have so many frigging identies the same way as I got to lug around a pocket full of keys...I go places not everyone is trusted to go..e.g. my bank account, my car, my email etc.
    Identies are necessary like keys to make sure the entitled party has exclusive access to things that he/she "owns" in whatever sense.
    WTF do I own that these 2idi.com people are going to guard for me? They have set up a toll booth in the middle of frigging e-nowhere.net and hope people will still p
  • I don't suppose this could be a place for PKI type of trust model could it?

    How does this avoid duplicates?

    I could see where as with DNS you have POC information for the admin type person for this type of configuration you would need more unique information about the indivudal like birthday (time included if possible), birth location, and maybe even some bioinformatic type of information (finger prints, retna scans, etc).

    Maybe they should use RFID tags for this type of things kept with each individual. T
  • That's not available? How about iIshmael? Take, too? Ishmael2? no? How about...

    Call me Ishmael-7143.

  • YANANRS? (Score:3, Informative)

    by BillX ( 307153 ) on Monday December 06, 2004 @11:10PM (#11014480) Homepage
    (Yet Another Non-Authoritative Namespace Resolution Scheme?)

    I tried to RTFA, but my brain blew a buzzword fuse. How does this differ from the various [igetnet.com] other [com.com] non-authorative [new.net] namespace [commonname.com] resolution [netword.com] schemes [actualnames.com] out there selling cute "internet names" that a majority of machines can't resolve?
  • More links, blogs, articles, insight, and opinion can be found here:

    http://idcommons.net/press/index.html [idcommons.net]

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