back to article Online identity woes can only be solved through the medium of GIF

The Global Identity Foundation aims to recruit vendors in its ambitious quest to develop a global digital identity ecosystem. GIF is seeking to develop a new, global solution for digital identities, with the not-for-profit organisation building on work from the Jericho Forum, including the Jericho Forum’s Identity, Entitlement …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    One GIF to rule them all...

    One GIF to rule them all, One GIF to find them, One GIF to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.

    1. g e

      Re: One GIF to rule them all...

      Might need some form of encryption.

      Don't tell Bazza 'Bama

    2. Trigonoceps occipitalis

      Re: One GIF to rule them all...

      One GIF to rule them all, One GIF to find them, One GIF to bring them all, and in the net expose them.

      FTFY

  2. Graham Cobb Silver badge

    Setting the fox to guard the henhouse

    Good idea to work on some agreed requirements, but I am extremely dubious about having it led by corporate CISOs, rather than an open community including privacy organisations.

    Corporates aren't well known for being keen on privacy, and one key aspect of privacy is being able to use different identities with different players, with no way for those players to link or correlate those identities. For example, I use a different email address for every company I do business with not just to work out which ones are selling/losing my info but to avoid them linking my accounts. I also use cash when possible (instead of credit cards) and use different credit cards with different companies. This is specifically to prevent corporates doing some things they would like to.

    Even in the real world, different people know me by different names (in my case this is for historical reasons -- this is true for many people, for example women who have been married several times and may use different names in different contexts). I do not have, or need, just one identity.

    Does GIF have the right structure to take these issues into account? I can't find out, because their web site is empty when I try to look at it!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Tool

      It's just a tool. A ruse to harvest yet more (valuable) sensitive/biometric data from the sheeple.

      It will NOT be secure.

      It WILL be invasive.

    2. simmondp

      Re: Setting the fox to guard the henhouse

      So first, GIF is a global not-for-profit foundation, with matching charitable clauses with a commitment to everything being open source - it's exactly your first comment that means a new structure was needed.

      And yes, if you read the original work from Jericho, and the white paper from GIF then you will see embedded the concepts of persona that meet the needs of privacy, primacy and agency.

      Can't see why you are getting a blank web site - works for me!

      1. Graham Cobb Silver badge

        Re: Setting the fox to guard the henhouse

        The website is now working for me (mostly -- the layout seems to be borked but it is mostly readable).

        It certainly is saying the right things -- the proof will be in the actions. I have to say I think it was a very serious mistake to go public with a board just consisting of corporate types, and without any representatives of privacy/identity civil society on the board. That sends out a very worrying message. It will take a while to build confidence and relevance.

        But it is nice to have the CEO participating in the forum.

  3. Graham Dawson Silver badge

    You misspelled Jobal Identity Foundation.

    That's how it's pronounced, right?

    Like .gif?

    1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Surely this comment demands a link to the useful Wikipedia section on how GIF is pronounced.

      (JFTR, I use the soft-g pronunciation myself. But teach the controversy!)

  4. Graham Marsden
    Big Brother

    "a decentralised global framework"

    Well that's going to be a non-starter from the word go, our "freedom loving" governments will never stand for it because they *know* that they're the only ones who can be trusted with all our information...

  5. Tom 38

    I'm amazed no-one at any point in the setup of this Global Identity Foundation said "Hey guys, wait a minute, our acronym is going to be confusingly similar to something most tech people already use". They have so many choices of words, but they came up with "GIF". They could have gone French, and been "Fondation Mondiale Identité" (or basically the same in Spanish), but noooo.

    PS: I know I'm totally missing the point, but with GIFs I can get a little animated... boom boom

    1. breakfast Silver badge

      I don't know about FMI - any way we could work it over to "FML" instead?

      1. breakfast Silver badge

        Or maybe "Standardised National Identity Format Unification"?

        1. Captain DaFt

          "Standardised National Identity Format Unification"

          Oh, so close! How about:

          "Standardised National Affimation Format Unification"?

          I feel it more adequately conveys the end result of such a program.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I know I'm totally missing the point, but with GIFs I can get a little animated... boom boom

      Here's hoping for a little transparency in their operations, whatever they call themselves.

  6. heyrick Silver badge

    Identity 3.0 ?

    I am guessing that this means Identity 1 and Identity 2 failed. What makes anybody think Identity 3.0 will work? And will Identity 3.1 be compatible?

    Seriously, I am wondering of the potential for abuse if there is one single identification process. All the eggs in one basket. Plus how does one PROVE that they are who they are, really?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Is there a forum

    for all the various identity fora?

  8. David Roberts

    What ever happened to Digital Certificates, X.509 and all that stuff?

    1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Oh, I'm sure they're being taken into account, as an excellent example of how not to do this sort of thing.

      X.509 is a beautiful demonstration that however complicated and unwieldy a problem is, you can approach it with a solution that is even more complicated and unwieldy.

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