Suggestion: anonymity escrow

crocro

People are encouraged on this site not to use their real names or any information that could identify them such as email addresses or phone numbers. All very understandable given that this is the internet and there be nutters out there etc. Overtime, if you use a login for too long I find that bits of personal data tends to leak and you need to deregister and reregister with a new name.

but, anonymity has its drawbacks. People can misbehave without consequence. Nobody knows for certain whether a userid is the only one owned by a user or one of many. Lastly a boards login can't be used as an identity on other systems for all these reasons.

What if boards introduced a class of 'verified user'? Verified users would still be anonymous to other users but their identity data would be held in escrow by boards. There are various ways of verifying identity such as 1p credit card transaction,, 1p EFT, verify mobile number with a text, and others depending on how far you want to go and how much you want it to cost. eg Paypal, etrade.

Anyhow, the idea would be that you have a class of user that you know not to be sockpuppets. The benefit for users of being verified is that they can reuse their login credential on other websites such as e-commerce sites without directly disclosing their data to each company and creating a new username/login pair each time. Instead they would just log in to boards before going to the e-commerce website and authorise boards to release whatever info was required for the transaction to complete.

I presume you've though about this already.

Nevyn

Sounds like a data protection nigthmare tbh, and why push good contributors and commubity members here to 'verify' themsevles for no good reason?

Sounds like you want your boards logon to be some sort of openid for the internet.

Splinter

to be perfectly honest I reckon that's overkill. Yes there can be a lot of "muppets" that post on boards that arent worth reading but the ones that are worth it,you spot very very quickly.

It isn't hard to spot an intelligent poster and people will always reveal what they wish to reveal (hench the ability to post without being a user in PI for example).

I think this verified member idea may just cause much more hassle for boards admins...but i suppose in a way its kinda like subscribers? people who pay to help aren't hear to hinder? (not to say that non-subscribers are here to be a problem btw)

DeVore

the idea of "voluntary" verification of identity is a good one in theory. There are several practical problems.

1. How would people "prove" their identity. Whats to stop people simply forging this?

2. In order to make it non-forgeable, there would have to be checks and balances on our side of things. Even if we required a letter from your local police station, for example, we would still have to ring that station to ensure its true.

That introduces issues like time/staff to do that and the possible flood of such requests by people who are no more or less anonymous when you know they are "Mark Smith from Tallaght" as you are if you know them as "Mark07".

There is one section of the site we have considered this for, that is the Gardai. We have had situations where people have claimed they were Gardai and werent. We may consider verifying that certain accounts DO belong to Gardai. But I will be drawing the line there or thereabouts.

Someone bigger then us will ultimately face this issue, I've no doubt. Within 5-10 years we will have governmental accounts of some sort, mark my words.

DeV.

Terry

I had though about this last week.

Kevin Smith has people pay $2 in order to register on his forum. The money (minus the usual admin fees) goes to charity.
The idea was to keep muppets out.
In theory it's a great idea, but the place is still full of muppets. I'm a member FFS.

It did put a stop to a large amount of idiots signing up though.

This would never work for boards in my opinion.

We get a lot of young people joining to talk about the LC and JC and the like. Most of them would not have a credit card.
Christ, I'm 33 and I've never had one. Don't want one either.
3V is a option (but only if your friend didn't use your address when he maxed out his own one).

Splinter mentioned subscribers.
I've banned plenty of subscribers from AH over the years.
Some think that by giving money to boards, they have the right to break the rules.
Now that's only a very small number, but it still happens.


Dev, governmental accounts?
Members of the government or CT fodder?

crocro

DeVore wrote: »

1. How would people "prove" their identity. Whats to stop people simply forging this?

2. In order to make it non-forgeable, there would have to be checks and balances on our side of things. Even if we required a letter from your local police station, for example, we would still have to ring that station to ensure its true.

In the past I have set up a bank account remotely and operated it with internet banking. I have an etrade account in London also remotely created. As far as I can remember, verification involved things like
*making a very small credit transfer from my bank account to them
*making a 1c credit card payment
*receiving a small credit transfer into my bank account from them and repeating back to them the reference code used.
*sending a text from my mobile and receiving back a code
*sending a notarised photocopy of my passport
*sending a utility bill in my name/address
*receiving a phone call and/or letter from the company I applied to at my home number/address to verify my identity

I suppose identity checking is a best effort thing and you can go as far as you like. Even the passport application process isn't perfect.

Clearly some of these checks would be expensive and there's no point in introducing any system that doesn't pay for itself. Some of the checks such as a credit transfer would double as the meas of paying for the verification.

Someone bigger then us will ultimately face this issue, I've no doubt. Within 5-10 years we will have governmental accounts of some sort, mark my words.

I'd expect the passport office to do it in the end. Maybe Facebook might offer to do the same thing. However, I think there is room for multiple identity escrow agencies. The government might accept applications for state services authenticated by boards verified logins. Why not?

The idea is that I am looking at a web site for say house insurance while logged in to boards. The insurance company wants my name, address, date of birth and I click something that authorises boards to release that information that one time to that one company. The idea would be to eventually charge a small fee to companies for receipt of verified data. The company receives verified information rather than the usual fictitious stuff. I save time.

Meanwhile I preserve my anonymity when posting and as a perk I can change my user id whenever I wish to a new verified user id that links to the same personal information.

There is a trust issue here as I would obviously be fed up if my data leaked out. However as it stands there are many companies out there with copies of my data so I'm facing that risk already.

Terry, the idea is to do it on a voluntary basis.

Thaedydal, Data Protection is not an issue so long as there is consent for the method in which the data is used and the data is safely stored, changed if found to be wrong - all the things you would do already unless you were a scammer. You need to outline your data protection concern beyond 'it would be a nightmare'.

You could choose to do authentication only or authentication plus personal data. You could store encrypted data only.

DeVore

Actually, having the system send you a code to your mobile is actually a good idea.

You can be tracked through your mobile and thats a form of "validation"... ie: we dont know who you are, but we can certainly trace you if needs be. mind you, we can sort of do that now but that would certainly be a neat addition.

Wont be this year though

DeV.

Splinter

I duno, i see the Pro's, but why would people feel the need to authenticate themselves? i share what i wish to share on boards be it photos, my name, workplace to some extent, and I have attended beers for example. but I dont believe a "prove your ID" situation would be taken well by others.

shellyboo

I can see it being part of further mud-slinging, tbh, where people who don't want to "prove" who they are for any number of reasons being accused of being trolls simply because they're not "verified". I don't see the need for it at all, but I must say a lot of the OP's technical reasons for wanting went completely over my head

DeVore

funny, I would see it the other way... the people who DONT want to be accused of anonymous trolling can say things in public with the force of being able to say "I stand behind my comments".

It could be the internet equivalent of "name and address with the editor" at the bottom of a letter to a newspaper.

I dunno... its interesting but a moot point at the moment. We have a ton of things to get fixed and built first too...

DeV.

shellyboo

DeVore wrote: »

funny, I would see it the other way... the people who DONT want to be accused of anonymous trolling can say things in public with the force of being able to say "I stand behind my comments".

It could be the internet equivalent of "name and address with the editor" at the bottom of a letter to a newspaper.
.

But what if you want to maintain anonymity? Why should someone have to prove they're "real" to get their point across? That's what I'm
struggling with. I'm not against it per se, I think I'm just not understanding why it's necessary. I didn't realise you had to be verified as a legitimate whatever in order to hold an opinion, which is what boards is about. But like I say, I think I might be missing the point Hey ho!

johnnyskeleton

DeVore wrote:

You can be tracked through your mobile and thats a form of "validation"... ie: we dont know who you are, but we can certainly trace you if needs be. mind you, we can sort of do that now but that would certainly be a neat addition.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. DeV knows what you had for breakfast (and is disgusted)

shellyboo wrote:

But what if you want to maintain anonymity? Why should someone have to prove they're "real" to get their point across? That's what I'm
struggling with. I'm not against it per se, I think I'm just not understanding why it's necessary. I didn't realise you had to be verified as a legitimate whatever in order to hold an opinion, which is what boards is about. But like I say, I think I might be missing the point Hey ho!

+1, and I've thought so for some time.

I'd much rather the current system whereby your argument stands or falls on its own merits. I hate it when people make comments along the lines of "Well I work in X and you're talking out your hole" because even accepting that they are who they say they are, 1) they might be lying 2) they might be using specific qualifications to cover general ignorance and 3) the fact that something is done in a certain way does not mean it is correct.

I've had a number of frustrating arguments with posters who say "unless you identify yourself as X, Y or Z your views have no merit". Boards, unlike real life, allows a talented ameteur's correct views to trump the falsehoods of professionals.