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Digital Identity and Access Control

Summary: Until we value freedom and independence in the digital world, we will yield up control of our digital lives to others who will act in their own interests, not ours.

In response to a post on X about China's social credit system, Paul Conlon said:

Digital ID is ultimately about access control where those who impose the system are the ones determining what you are required to be and do.

Provision of resources and liberties become conditional upon the whims of the affluent. Doesn't sound safe or convenient to me.

From X
Referenced 2024-08-28T08:10:31-0400

How Paul said this struck me because I've been thinking a lot about access control lately. I believe that we build identity systems to manage relationships, but, as Paul points out, in many cases the ultimately utility of identity systems is access control.

This isn't, by itself, a bad thing. I'm glad that Google controls access to my GMail account so that only I can use it. But it doesn't stop there. If I use my Google account to log into other things, then Google ultimately controls my access to everything I've used it for. This is federation's original sin1.

Paul's comment points out the primary problem with how we build identity systems today: when access control is centralized, it inherently shifts power towards those who manage the system. This dynamic can lead to a situation where individuals must conform to the expectations or demands of those in control, just to maintain their access to essential services or resources. While we often accept this trade-off for convenience—like using Google to manage multiple logins—the broader implications are troubling.

The more we rely on federated identity systems, with their tendency to centralization, the more we risk ceding control over our digital lives, reducing our autonomy, and increasing our dependence on entities whose goals may not align with our own. This is why the principles of self-sovereign identity (SSI) are so compelling. SSI proposes a model where individuals maintain control over their own identity, reducing the risks associated with centralized access control and enhancing personal freedom in the digital realm.

Critics of SSI will claim that giving people control over their identity means we have to accept their self assertions. Nothing could be further from the truth. When someone wants me to prove I'm over 18, I use a driver's license. The state is asserting my age, not me. But I'm in control of who I show that to and where. Sovereignty is about borders and imposes a system of relationships.

Now, China could use decentralized identity technology to build their social credit system. One credential, controlled by the state, that is used to access everything. Technology alone can't solve this problem. As a society, we have to want a digital world, modeled on the physical one, where individuals are the locus of control and use information and assertions from a variety of credentials to build and interact in authentic peer-to-peer relationships. Until we value freedom and independence in the digital world, we will yield up control of our digital lives to others who will act in their own interests, not ours.


Notes

  1. For similar reasons, I think federated social media systems are a bad idea too, but that's another blog post.

Photo Credit: Papers Please from DALL-E (public domain). Prompt: Draw a rectangular picture of police checking identity papers of people on the street

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Gender, Race, and Intersectional Bias in Resume Screening via Language Model Retrieval

Kyra Wilson, Aylin Caliskan, Proceedings of the AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society, Nov 13, 2024

The topic of AI-based recruitment and hiring has been discussed here before and research continues apace. This item (13 page PDF), despite the characterization in GeekWire, is a fairly narrow study. It looks at three text-embedding models based on Mistral-7B-v0.1, and tests for gender and racial bias on applications containing name and position only, and name and position and some content (the paper discusses removing the name but does do it). The interesting bit is that intersectional bias (ie., combining gender and race) is not merely a combination of the separate biases; while separate biases exaggerated the discrimination, "intersectional results, on the other hand, do correspond more strongly to real-world discrimination in resume screening." Via Lisa Marie Blaschke, who in turn credits Audrey Watters.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]




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View of Into the Open: Shared Stories of Open Educational Practices in Teacher Education

Helen J. DeWaard, Canadian Journal of Learning Technology, Nov 13, 2024

I enjoyed the lavish illustrations in this article, a rarity in academic publications. After anm introductory section, the paper offers what is essentially a dialogue around the topic of sharing and openness in education. This bit from  the abstract resonated most with me: "It is becoming ever more important to share expertise as practitioners, researchers, and theorists in the field of education by making explicit what is often tacit and unspoken, and when sharing knowledge, reflections, and actions. By actively thinking-out-loud through blogs, social media, and open scholarly publications, educators can openly share details of what, how, and why they do what they do." This is the space where OLDaily operates - a somewhat middle ground between full academia on the one hand and the popular press on the other.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]




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View of Preparing Educators to Teach and Create With Generative Artificial Intelligence

Paula MacDowell, Kristin Moskalyk, Katrina Korchinski, Dirk Morrison, Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, Nov 13, 2024

This paper reports on a process where thirty-five teachers enrolled in an elective three-credit multimedia design course "engaged in experiential activities focussed on developing artificial intelligence (AI) literacy, alongside a collaborative assignment to co-author an open-access textbook, Teaching and Creating With Generative Artificial Intelligence." In the process, "the Student Artificial Intelligence Literacy (SAIL) framework was developed (illustrated)." The paper concludes with the usual recommendations ('do no harm', 'develop communication skills', etc.). Each participant wrote a chapter, though a common template was used. I very much like the idea of producing a useful open resource as part of class activities. Oddly, the article doesn't provide a link to the textbook, but I found it here. It's a nice selection of 'how-to' articles that readers, I think, will find useful. One chapter (chapter 20 1/2?) is missing.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]




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Green Open Access - Free for Authors But at a Cost for Readers

Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, The Scholarly Kitchen, Nov 13, 2024

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Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]




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Check Accessibility from Your Toolbar

Steve Faulkner recently released a tool for Internet Explorer called the Accessibility Toolbar. It provides one-click access to accessibility validators and has features that go beyond simple accessibility checks.




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OCLC Research Will Harvest DSpace Metadata

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Fed Trends in Restricting Information Access

Congress enacts open government legislation in three main areas: (1) laws that provide public access to federal records; (2) laws that allow the government to restrict public access to federal information; and (3) laws that provide for congressional access to federal records. A new 90-page Congressional Report by Rep. Henry A. Waxman provides a comprehensive, though arguably partisan, examination finding the Bush Administration has acted to restrict the amount of government information that is available.




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I Prefer Dark Mode Because Light Attracts Bugs

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Solx Will Manufacture Solar Panels In Puerto Rico

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A 30-Megawatt Space Solar Power Plant Is Scheduled For 2030

Innovators in the field of space solar power are outperforming expectations for commercial application, motivated by the potential for harvesting solar energy on a 24/7 basis, unimpeded by weather or climate.

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Canadian Transit Think Tank CUTRIC Chooses Inaccuracy, Irrelevancy, & Attack

Over the past three weeks, I’ve been assessing various aspects of the Canadian Urban Transit Research and Innovation Consortium’s (CUTRIC) positions, research, and publications on transit bus decarbonization. I’ve published ten articles directly about CUTRIC’s material and reports, or closely related and with serious implications for their claims that both ... [continued]

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Toyota Exec Says California ZEV Goal Is Impossible To Achieve

Toyota is already complaining about the state of California and CARB as it seems an opportunity to shove its point of view down our throats.

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Global Installed Solar Capacity To Blow Past 2 Terawatts, USA Or Not

The installed solar capacity of the global PV industry is poised for another round of rapid growth, with or without an assist from the US.

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Colombia EV Sales Report: 1000 Sales Surpassed in October, Country Reaches 6.4% EV Market Share!

Colombia’s EV market is booming. As I said a couple months ago, we’re not only seeing significant YoY (year over year) growth (as we are in several other markets, including Costa Rica, Uruguay, Mexico, and Brazil), but we’re also looking at “bursts” of demand that lead to significant MoM (month ... [continued]

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The Extraordinary Traction & Torque of LANKELEISI MG740PLUS Dual-Motor Electric Bike — CleanTechnica Tested

Following Hurricane Helene, I had difficulty getting a dual-motor e-bike shipped to me in Asheville that I so wanted to review. So, as it went back to the company after more than a week of not being able to be delivered in devastated Western North Carolina, they shipped me another ... [continued]

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Best Value for Money EVs — Subcompacts (B Segment)

This is the second of a five-part series of articles (you can check the first part here), where I look at the best affordable EVs in each size category. There are plenty of good EVs right now, but one of the main challenges continues to be their price and how ... [continued]

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BLUETTI Unveils Elite 200 V2 Power Station: 17-Year Battery Life for Resilient Backup During Extreme Weather

This year, the U.S. has faced extreme weather, including record heatwaves and intense hurricanes, like Idalia, causing widespread disruptions and power outages. In August 2024, Hurricane Idalia alone left over 2.4 million homes and businesses without power​. As these natural disasters become more frequent, the vulnerability of traditional electricity grids ... [continued]

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英・National Literacy Trust(NLT)、英国の子ども及び若者の読書に関する報告書(2024)を公開

2024年10月24日、英国においてリテラシーの改善運動を実施している団体National Literacy Trust(NLT)が、2024年の英国の子ども及び若者の読書に関する報告書“Children and young people’s reading in 2024”を公開しました。

報告書は、NLTの2024年の年次識字調査(Annual Literacy Survey)に対する5歳から18歳までの子どもと若者からの7万6,131件の回答に基づき作成されました。

主な調査結果として、以下のようなものが挙げられています。

・ 余暇に読書を楽しんでいると答えたのは、8~18歳では3人に1人(34.6%)であった。2023年から8.8ポイント減少しており、2005年の調査開始以来の最低水準であった。
・ 毎日余暇に何かしらの読書をしていると答えたのは、8~18歳では5人に1人(20.5%)であった。2023年から7.5ポイント減少しており、2005年の調査開始以来の最低水準であった。
・ 8~14歳では、読書を楽しんでいる子どもや若者は、読書を楽しんでいない子どもや若者よりも、読解力が高かった。

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アクセシビリティ分野における欧州出版業界の能力向上に取り組むプロジェクトAPACE、欧州の出版におけるアクセシビリティの現状に関する調査報告書を公開

2024年10月2日、アクセシビリティ分野における欧州出版業界の能力向上に取り組むプロジェクトAPACE(Accelerating Publishing Accessibility through Collaboration in Europe)が、欧州の出版におけるアクセシビリティの現状に関する調査報告書を公開しました。

APACEは、イタリアの非営利団体Fondazione LIAの主導の下、欧州の出版関係団体等が参加しているプロジェクトです。2025年6月から適用が開始される欧州アクセシビリティ法(European Accessibility Act:EAA)を背景として2024年1月に立ち上げられ、アクセシビリティ分野における欧州の出版業界の能力向上に取り組んでいます。

発表によると、報告書では、欧州の出版におけるアクセシビリティの現状について、出版社等に対するオンライン調査と専門家に対するインタビュー調査を基に分析しています。主な結果として、調査対象となった出版社の70.5%は、EAAが自社の活動に影響を与えることを認識しているものの、アクセシブルな電子書籍を作成しているのは全体の37.4%にとどまること等が述べられています。

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Jeff Bezos's rocket company Blue Origin accused of 'toxic' culture