Instead of PKI

[ciphergoth]

Remember I said that PKI deserves to die?

This Clay Shirky essay states the problem with names in a really nice way (it's an independent reinvention of the ideas in this one but in clearer language)

Mark S Miller has taken the shape of the problem and shown that it's the shape of the solution! Here's how names should really be handled.

At first I thought "who would go to the effort of writing <pn>Alison</pn> all the time?" But the answer is, of course "anyone who can be bothered to write <lj user="purplerabbits">" - ie, it seems, nearly everyone who uses LJ.

This is really neat. And it's just become an essential part of my ideas on how LJ can become decentralised.

I can imagine the user interface already. You see a story that says

went to the cinema with ?Connor, who insisted we watch Spiderman.

Click on the "?Connor" and you get a little interface that tells you about the name in terms of names you already know.

* This user prefers the name Connor, but you already have a user of that name in the database (edit)
* Grant knows ?Connor as Daniel (accept)
* David knows ?Connor as Gingernuts Johnson (accept)
* Enter your own choice here _______ (accept)

[ ] Publish choice

Click on the appropriate "accept", and that name will be subsituted in that and all future appearances:

went to the cinema with Gingernuts Johnson, who insisted we watch Spiderman.

(U: replaced "?Ciaran" with "?Connor")

Update: A burst of nostalgia for the day we lost our naming innocence, just over eight years ago (and prescient words a few months earlier)

Comments

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Interesting problem! A first reaction:

It seems unlikely that the problem you name can be solved. If I want a state where every "meta" I see everywhere means you, and there's to be no universally recognised authority handing out names like "meta", then other people who call themselves "meta" will have to appear to me by some other name.

I don't see many name puns on LJ - I think it's part of IRC tradition. Perhaps it's something that a secure alternative would break the same way proportional fonts break ASCII art.

Neat analogy!

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's something that a secure alternative would break the same way proportional fonts break ASCII art.

Sometimes I just love you because you're so very clever, you know...