Changing Focus to the Originating Name Space
by Chuck Kisselburg
ICANNWiki.org
There is no doubt I continue to be fascinated by this community of ours. It is rare to find a community that involves the growth of an in industry before our very eyes! An industry that affects large numbers of this globe’s population; whether directly or indirectly. You’ve heard me mention this several times, but I get energized by the entrepreneurial spirit found in the overall ICANN community.
When thinking about this further, it all seems to boil down to (for me, anyway) the name space or the domain name. What IS a domain name? This is where I like to also use the term name space as we are all using the Internet based on how we name the space of our destinations.
What does such a “name space” consist of? Is it the simple URL followed by the traditional .com, .net, .biz, .info, .org, etc… ? For many the term “name space” can mean “brand”. It is because of such branding that we see the various UDRP cases to clear up who owns the brand, or the “name” for such a brand, or any “names” that may be “confusingly similar” to such brands.
For me it goes deeper than brand. For me it means identity. Not only does our industry help define identity within this virtual universe we call the Internet, it can be used to identify to this virtual universe who “WE” are. Who I am. Who you are. So in my earlier reference of how we name the space of our destinations, that is only part true. There is a whole emerging industry that focuses on the other half of the name space and that is the space that identifies NOT the destination, but the originator. In other words, the part of the industry where the name space identifies who YOU, the individual, are.
OpenID is one such aspect of the industry that is growing rapidly. As stated in my earlier post from this year many large organizations have adopted the use of OpenID. Two camps have been helping identify the OpenID movement. While you have one camp, called “OpenID” you have another that provides a more secure form of OpenID known as the iname.
The whole purpose of OpenID is to allow you to use your same OpenID, or iname at any site that supports the general OpenID specification. The roadmap for the whole OpenID movement is for you to be able to customize attributes of YOUR OpenID or iname so not only can sites learn more about you with only the information you provide in your various attributes, it becomes YOUR identity, or trusted name space when accessing destinations around our virtual universe. It also serves as a way for people you know who tend to visit the same sites as you, they will see input from the use of your iname or OpenID. Being that you can use the same iname or OpenID across many sites, it is a good way for your friends to validate information that came from YOU, a trusted source.
So just as the ICANN community “traditionally” thinks of the name space as a domain name for a destination on the net, we need to start thinking about the name space for the originator on the net. The nice thing about inames is you can acquire your iname just like you can with destination name spaces, or domain names. Earlier I mentioned the iname concept being more secure than the original OpenID movement. This is true because inames were developed with security in mind. Meaning, once you acquire your iname, the secure number generated with that iname is yours forever. If you allow your iname to lapse where it is later picked up by someone else, that “someone else” receives a newly generated identification number. This way when that “someone else” uses the iname you allowed to lapse, it can never be fully tied to you as the generated secure ID numbers are different, and will forever be different.
The other thing that inames allows is for multiple structures for the use of an iname. For example NeuStar and 1id are allowing ICANNWiki users to pick up their own ICANNWiki community iname. So, for example, my ICANNWiki community iname is “@icannwiki*chuck”. So as part of the ICANNWiki community I specify myself (“*chuck”) as being a member of the ICANNWiki community (“@icannwiki”). Now I can go to any site that supports the general OpenID movement and use my ICANNWiki community iname to log in. Sweet!
If you don’t already have your iname, check it out for yourself and use the other half of our virtual universe’s name space! Obtain your ICANNWiki community iname by going here or obtain your own personal iname by going here.
Add comment August 25th, 2008