It's about relationships, friend

I am a security professional and I often ask myself what value we bring to the business. Why does the business want my services? I usually end up at the same conclusion. Business is about relationships and these relationships are built upon a degree of trust. Security functions to protect that trust.

You look around and see how much technology and life has changed us. The life of your grandparents' childhood seems alien, the pace of life, their prospects, and their goals. Yet very little has changed. Life has always been about relationships. You conducted business on the basis of trust and agreement. You started families on the basis of trust. You went to war over lack of trust.

Trust is also the basis of our government and society. We think of our laws as rational and blind based upon logic but in reality they are subject to relationships. When our laws cease to serve us and have been turned against us that trust is broken and relationships dynamics force them to change. In the 18th century this wrought the American revolution. We saw our recent election as a vote of confidence in our government. And today we see this force visible in the Middle East as change sweeps through the deserts like a great tsunami.

An important factor is the culture of a society which defines those relationships.

In the U.S. our relationship with our government could be described as subservient to the citizens. The design of our Declaration of Independence, Constitution and subsequent Bill of Rights is of limited power and limited trust. We believe our Creator has bestowed upon all people certain unalienable rights. Individual liberty is inviolable and held in highest regard. This doctrine of ours is infectious and admired, disdained and feared around the world.

Other governments are the opposite. There are monarchies where the power is considered to be granted by God to the rulers and citizens are subject to that power. Other governments claim to be a service to the people but the legal fiction is far from the truth such as evidenced by the tyranny of Baathist regimes. Those oppressive relationships which were seen as inescapable are now being rethought. We see the instinctual reaction of people to this hope of freedom and we also know from our own experience that the transition is neither smooth nor easy. But it is worthwhile.

Is this the issue today between 'Left' and 'Right'? Do Liberals expect perfection of the law to be our trust? To create a fair system that is incapable of oppressing people? Do Conservatives expect to withhold trust from a system that will never be perfect and always subject to corruption? To rely upon limited powers and the dynamics of relationships to balance the needs of the people against the needs of individuals? Or is it that the 'Left' is right brain driven looking at the emotional impact of our society fearing the responsibility of actions while the 'Right' is left brain driven seeking a logical framework which is tempered by common sense?

Of course the truth is somewhere in the middle or at least a combination of these extremes. Read on to find links to my discussions on national identity systems.

These discussions do not represent my attempt to justify a model for personal identification for the 21st century which I have thoroughly researched. Instead see it as a development of ideas to solve some problems we are now facing due to new technologies. The core of my philosophy is that human relationships are still the key to all transactions and must be respected.

Adam Shostack's post and my concern that we are solving the wrong problem:
Choicepoint Won't Benefit from Bank of America Leak

Pete Lindstrom's post about Social Security Numbers:
A Modest Proposal - Eliminate the SSN Facade

Saar Drimer's post:
publish SSNs!

My post on developing a solution:
A new identity model

Adam's response:
Publishing a List of SSNs Will Not Fix Anything

Pete's followup post:
More on Public SSNs

Axel's insightful post from Germany:
To ID Card Or Not To ID Card

Pete's summary:
Memento vs. Gattaca

Adam's post on National ID cards:
Astrologers and National ID Cards

Adam's reasonable concern for privacy and free speech are obvious and ultimately need to be addressed. I believe there is a secure framework for assuring identity when needed and not dependent upon government control. I also believe that any system is capable of corruption and abuse but that a free society is capable of keeping those forces (whether from government or rogues) in check. I also trust Adam and others will keep me in check...

Comments

[Adam Shostack]

I agree with you that it's about trust and relationships. So let me ask this. Would it shatter your impressions of me to discover that a card in my wallet has a name other than "Adam Shostack" on it? Would your impression be different if you discovered that behind that are reasons which are societally valid? For arguments sake, lets say I'm a former soviet agent, now comfortably living under my new identity in the United States, and maintaining an online persona? Or perhaps I was the victim of a very public child abuse case, and choose to not allow that to dominate my life? Or perhaps I'm in the witness protection program, and am building a public persona so I can claim to be misidentified when my Nigerian former friends show up?

I believe relationships are far more important, powerful, and resilient than certified names.

[Stuart]

No, it would not. All I really know about you is through your online persona.

I fully support the ability of people to maintain as many names and personas as they choose. People often feel uncomfortable revealing their pursuits to their neighbors for good reasons.

But let's say a person is a real deadbeat and changes 'identitites' for the sake of running up credit with financial institutions squandering that trust. This victimizes not just the business but the rest of us who have to pay the bill - those are the cases that should not be allowed to take advantage of our loose systems, as well as terrorists and other criminals. The motivations may be different (ranging from simple evil to an alcoholic like inability to control oneself) but the behaviors must be curtailed. We are seeing a growth in identity theft, spyware and plain old fraud all of which rely on weak systems being exploited for unjust benefit to the perpetrator.

[Adam Shostack]

I agree with you here, and I think that the problem is reliance on names and social security numbers as the basis for all these things. Adding a secure digitally signed tamper proof biometric hologramed national ID card will just shift what's being relied apon. The crime will go away when we acknowledge the huge externalities of the credit system we have today.