[Privsec] Re:open standards for social networking

[Garth Graham]

On August 31st, I posted some questions about open source standards  
for social networking to 4 lists.  Apparently the field is not  
entirely blank.  I’ve received responses to my original post directly  
and from several lists as follows:

Ian! Allen, Computer Science, Algonquin College, Ottawa, Ontario
Ralf Bendrath, University of Bremen; WSIS Privacy & Security Working  
Group
Peter Frampton, Learning Enrichment Foundation, Toronto, Ontario
Artur Serra, i2CAT Foundation, Barcelona
Jacques Steyn, School of Information Technology, Monash University,  
South Africa

Here is a summary of their responses ….

Ralf and Jacques pointed to:
OpenID - an open, decentralized, free framework for user-centric  
digital identity
http://openid.net/
http://openid.org/start.aspx

Ralf and Artur pointed to:
The Friend of a Friend (FOAF) project.
http://www.foaf-project.org/

Ralf pointed to:
Xhtml Friends Network (XFN)
http://gmpg.org/xfn/


Ian! Allen responded:
> From:        idallen at idallen.ca
> Date: September 1, 2007 11:34:19 PM PDT
> To:     advisors at tc.ca
>
> We either have to discover or invent that "open [social] network"
> that will creep up behind Facebook.  Community networks need to find
> and encourage open social networking software and protocols, and do it
> before these open standards are marginalized due to the  
> commercialization
> of the network pipes and failure of "net neutrality".


Artur Serra responded:
> From:        artur at ac.upc.edu
> Date: September 1, 2007 1:46:01 AM PDT
> To:  ciresearchers at vancouvercommunity.net
>
> We are exploring FOAF, "Friend of a Friend" project.
> http://www.foaf-project.org/
> May be it could be interesting to apply it to describe living labs  
> as a friend of friends network.



Jacques Steyn responded:
> From:        Jacques.Steyn at infotech.monash.edu
> Date: September 3, 2007 2:33:45 AM P
> To:  ciresearchers at vancouvercommunity.net
>
> There are several initiatives on personal IDs -- eg. http:// 
> www.openid.net/ and http://www.openid.org/
> As a social network consists of a group of individuals, perhaps the  
> functionality of OpenID could be extended to allow individuals to  
> assign an ID to a group, and then invite membership to that group.



Ralf Bendrath responded:
> From:  bendrath at zedat.fu-berlin.de
> Date: September 3, 2007 6:04:24 AM PDT
> To: privsec at wsis-cs.org
>
> GG - The following article from the Toronto Globe and Mail  
> recommends open
> standards for social networking functions as an antidote to the
> "irritations" of things like Facebook.  It hadn't occurred to me  
> before
>  reading it that social networking is an important dimension of
> "user-centric digital identity."  But, since identity is defined in
> social relationship, obviously it should have.
>
> RB - Yes, that has been a central argument in many debates around  
> these "walled
> gardens".
>
>
> GG - Because it will block the kind of "walled gardens" the article  
> refers
> to, achieving user-centric digital identity as an extension of  
> Internet
>  Protocol is utterly critical to the Internet's survival.
>
> RB - That is still open to debate, I'd say.
>
>
> GG - But it's one of those  issues that's so highly specialized  
> that hardly
> anyone is paying attention to it.
>
> RB - Nah, ID management /is/ becoming a bigger and more widely  
> discussed issue.
> OpenID has already hit the front page of the business section of "USA
> Today". We'll have a workshop on ID management this at the IGF in  
> Rio in
> November, where the question of walled gardens or open protocols is  
> on the
> table.
>
>
> GG - Does anyone know who is working on open standards for social
> networking?
>
> RB - There are projects like "Fried of a Friend" (FOAF) and "XML  
> Friends
> Network" (XFN) that could be seen as doing this. But they involve  
> heavy
> privacy problems, as there is no granularity in who can see which
> relationships.


As Ralf knows, I am aware of the global communities of practice  
surrounding both open and closed identity management systems. My  
point about the lack of attention relates to the absence of general  
awareness of an obscure and technically difficult but never-the-less  
significant issue in public policy on Internet Governance.  Since it  
represents direct action to address that gap, or at least bring the  
players together in a context that is relatively public, his workshop  
at IGF is an important event.


Peter Frampton asked a question:
> From: pframpton at lefca.org
> Date: August 31, 2007 4:33:27 PM PDT
> To: garth.graham at telus.net
>
> The issue with a discussion of online identity is which Paf would  
> you like to know - I don't want my political interests intersecting  
> with work (though they do - but seldom openly) - facebook merged  
> too much … In having an online identity - what gets merged - and  
> technically how carefull do I have to be to still be two people?


I responded to his question as follows:
> Re "careful."  Each of us, as we express ourselves in social  
> ecologies, has as many identities as we do social networks  - way  
> more than two. And, in fact, online social ecologies explicitly  
> reward individuals who are good at constructing persona by design  
> (ie, they are effective "actors" - pun intended).  What I believe  
> is key to what you want in the getting and the having and the  
> merging is that those decisions remain in your hands .... that the  
> teller and owner of Peter's story is Peter.  For example, if the  
> protocols/software re identity management were based on your  
> ownership in law of the online expression of yourself then when all  
> those tombstone forms you filled in to join so many things were  
> merged into a simulation of your anticipated consumer behaviour,  
> then you would own
> that simulation, not the agencies that collected it.

In conclusion, I haven't yet played with any of those pointers enough  
to get a feel for their utility.  But my gut tells me that the  
reality for community networking use of appropriate open social  
networks  is still Ian! Allen's identification of the need for  
"inventing."

GG