TOPICS INCLUDE:
• Verifying and revealing identity
• Social basis of trust
• Digital identities and certificates
• Authentication systems
• Identity 2.0
• Electronic signatures
• Privacy concerns
• Traceability
• Smart cards
• Virtual worlds
• Identity management architectures
CONFERENCE OVERVIEW
Identity is no small matter, yet it is an increasingly ambiguous one. As the Internet continues to mature, existing identity systems will prove inadequate and digital identity will need to evolve. At this conference, we’ll focus on the tightly intertwined concepts of identity, trust, and relationship networks distinct from security and privacy. Though security relates to trust, and privacy to identity, we will try to put these into a richer context. We’ll examine new systems, models, and behaviors, especially those that center identity on the user, rather than around traditional directories and big systems.
Just how do we define ourselves online, how do others "see" us, and what do others think about us? Should digital identities be only as complete as a particular transaction requires? Do we need to rethink the wisdom of enjoying our multiple identities in our own virtual worlds, opting instead to have them all be related and visible? And how can we ensure that we ourselves are trustworthy?
Today, the role of intermediaries and trusted partners in the real world is being emulated in the virtual.
But in the virtual world, we have no natural mechanisms or developed skills to help us determine who’s who, and what their intent might be, with any comfortable degree of certainty. And that’s a real problem when we want to engage in online business, social interaction, even electronic voting, especially when we want to make sure our partners are "trusted."
For all its importance, trust itself is an inherently insecure thing. Trust is relational, networked, and built over time. And since it needs to be secure, reliable, available, survivable, evolvable, and maintainable, what sort of standards should we insist others use?