Internet Identity Workshop 2016-04-27

how do we reshape structure for more symmetry?

there are models of fairness where they don't really exist. The Personal Cloud initiative rely on individuals having an electronic resource that they own and maintain. We rely on individuals having the time and money to take care of that. We get data anonymity and power for those with the luxury to afford this

Bob Blakely and I have a paper based on a keynote we did on this. Those with wealth and power have more ability to maintain their identity

if you have the resources you can remove advertising

"you can chose to sell your data" - we're still framing it as commerce - selling yourself as a product

that happens because of lack of trust - if you could trust the assertions we make, would be paid for by the risk reduction for the RPs

if you're a content provider with revenue from advertising, trust isn't going to affect your need to sell that information

if we have verifiable claims we are creating an incentive for redlining to prove you only have high value readers

VRM is premised on people having the power to share their own data, and get back power from markets

markets don't work that way in practice: in theory every consumer has the ability to shop anywhere for food or banking; in practice a lot of that ends up based on redlining through store location

I don't think VRM will take us to the promised land, but we should look at radical changes

Any situation between humans and businesses is asymmetric by default, as the trust model we rely on as humans doesn't work. One way to solve this is to incorporate everyone, - and I'm Mike, Inc and I sue you

you can't copyright facts

I like inverting the "corporations are people" trope but it doesn't really change the power

I want to talk about power asymmetry in the physical world - even how we sit in the circle and who is choosing to sit how - how much space do you take up expresses power and comfort. We watch that happen and need to help those signalling lower power and bring them in. This kind of observational skill and leadership is essential. If we want to make space designed to get input from different populations. There are also gender race and class asymmetries that happen in this community which we don't always bring up.

there really is real discrimination on the internet. If the thing on the other end thinks you're a woman or a man, or in certain zipcode you see different prices and ads

people's identity and the various privileges and systems of opression impacts their experience online - certain groups have to think more about their identity online have to present themselves. A great example is women in the gaming community over gamergate where women are attacked mercilessly for having an opinion on games while female, and presenting as a women can be a threat.

because our culture has a lot of power asymmetry it causes problems inherently

Facebooks policy for 'real names' discriminated against Native people's names because they don't look 'real' to the algorithm, or transgender people who don't use their birthnames.

what can we do in order to not impose the first world perspective. What can we do proactively to ensure that. I went to a workshop with non-profits on the role of identity for people who have been trafficked. If you require them to have an identity it makes them much more targetted, which I hadn't considered. As architects, what can we do to bring in those perspectives.

if the laws of identity are true, then people can assert different identities.

we can't rely on market forces to protect the rights of minorities - they don't have market power by definition - how do we inject ethics into the system?

this is not abstract for me - I fill out where the market forces don't make sense - i need to bring an investment convening perspective; I don't know the answers. Although I am not the same complexion fo people here, I'm not at the margins of society. Problems of power asymmetry exist - what can we do to provide solutions.

what are design principle that we can build into this - we need to bring people into the deign process. Native Americans, transgender, people fleeing abuse. Identity and relationship matters.

markets can empower too - eBay created ways for people to build businesses, whereas advertising is based on stereotyping and prejudice

the same day delivery article re amazon is a good example of unintended consequences - Prime users in certain neighbourhoods gave a racist/classist effect that gave a power imbalance. evaluate your decisions based on that. That we are in this room is indicative of privilege; we are going to make mistakes. When we get feedback from a community we need to be receptive to that feedback. No one solution is going to work for every community. The way that social space has evolved o n he internet - 10 years ago the forum was the be-all and end all -there were walled garden communities with moderators and known membership. We have evolved into this twitter/tumblr model wehere everyone is screaming at each other. When you talk to the social justice community there is a struggle to create safe spaces for people. You can't do that without that behaviour injecting into that space - a single global community doesn't work. Especially when you have groups with mutually conflicting needs for their safe space. We need to recognise that systems don't work for everybody.

class in a different sense is legally represented by class action lawsuits

privacy and security become a luxury good, only available to a specific class of people. I know nothing about Bill Gates's kids because he can provide that buffer. It's an example of it being a luxury good. Look at the design of systems.

one of the things we need to think about is how we talk to different populations. I would like to write some kind of document about in person dynamics. I'd like to invite people who havent' been aware fo that to have some kind fo knowledge about it. Those who choose to speak about dynamics we see get pushed back on as victims.

telcos, military kinds of things are part fo our models -top down, command and control. Our identity systems place people into roles they have to play. we have created a software tradition that is an embodiment of our beliefs that this should eb an asymmetric system. What does a symmetrical system look like.

how our stances in the room effect our design. Watching IIW try to shift the dynamics. Developing a literacy of power.

the language of standards is an authoritarian one, and we are told MUST and SHOULD and MAY, and have all evidence and examples removed

what is called advertising these days is actually Direct Marketing, which has always been annoying

the whole adtech industry is falling apart. I know one $100M adtech company that says it is a zombie

while advertisers are putting ads in front of you that take 300ms to appear, they pay the adtech in 120 days

The reason you see toe fungus ads everywhere is because of tracking you across sites

there used to be a few name brand agencies, now there are thousands of adtech companies, and publishers don't control them

there's a phrase in the Big Short "wherever you have a mania and fraud, there is a bubble" Adtech has both

Don Marti wrote about the toe fungus ad problem here http://blog.aloodo.org/posts/service-journalism/

CHEDDAR is a list of rules for making acceptable ads: http://blog.aloodo.org/posts/new-acronym/

CNAMEs: Ads, and other third-party resources such as analytics scripts, served from a subdomain of the publisher's domain

HTML5: avoid the malvertising risks of vintage plugins by using web standards only.

Encryption: Limit the ability of ISPs and other observers to gather user data that can be used for targeting later.

Data leakage protection: Many users are still unprotected from web tracking - notify them and offer incentives

Do Not Track: use the EFF DNT policy on your site https://www.eff.org/dnt-policy

Accountability: accurate WHOIS info for everything in the adtech chain. No anonymous registrations.

Reciprocity: an offer of signal from the advertiser for attention from the audience.

how does a site assert that it supports CHEDDAR, and how do you check?

building an implementation guide is the next goal here