On 4 August 2011 10:27, Owen Thomas <owen.paul.thomas@gmail.com> wrote:

On 4 August 2011 03:34, Bob Pinheiro <kantara@bobpinheiro.com> wrote:

Although this discussion has focused on whether people should be able to
use pseudonyms online, there is a related issue that no one has raised.
Using a persistent pseudonym like "Identity Woman" in effect becomes
someone's personal brand. ...

I would like to add my comments about the use of personae and the projection of personal identity. I am told through letters like the one from Bob Pinheiro to which I am replying that the NSTIC community is having problems relating personae back to a single identity. For what anyone thinks it is worth, I think I have answered many (if not all) of these problems with a simple data model.

Very basically, my data model (which is in fact more abstract, but this example will give you the gist of what is going on), comprises a collection of Element types; three of which represent 1: a user's individual identity, 2: an affiliation that a particular user can assert over 3: a particular device instance. Now, a user, using a particular device, and asserting a particular affiliation can hide any of these details to other users so that other users only get to see perhaps one or two, but not all three of these identifying characteristics.

So, should the user choose to hide their singular identity, they can still project the devices and their associated affiliations (personae/pseudonyms) to others, without disclosing who they really are. Because my system knows who one really is (the structure of my data model mandates a user identify who they really are to my system), the user can advise my system to let others know if one persona identifies the same user as another persona. Hence, other users can infer an identity relationship between two or more personae as being the same user without the need for this user to disclose their unique identifier.

I think this is quite a powerful solution to the problem of multiple identities. It solves a dilemma that one has in keeping one's identity private, while also allowing others (should one permit) to infer that multiple personae represent one's self.

What do others think?

Owen.

--
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