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Real Time Identity: A Dance to the Music of Time

Published April 26, 2009 by cgerrish

dance_to_the_music_of_time

These are provisional thoughts, a tentative exploration into what the words ‘real time personal identity’ might mean. (With apologies to Anthony Powell.) It’s often said, with some regret, that the Internet wasn’t designed with an identity layer. Personal identity is a fundamental element, not a simple widget that can be bolted on as an after thought. Although that does seem to be the road we’re traveling on. So we’re left with the observation that in the online world, personal identity is fragmented and dispersed. Facets of identity appear situationally where ever they’re needed to assure the consistency of a transaction or the state of an experience.

Since the Greeks, the common approach to thinking about time is to speak of a series of “now points.” In a stateless medium like the Web, tracking a personal identity from “now point” to “now point” requires additional apparatus. Each cloud-based domain, or application, takes responsibility for tracking personal identity within its sphere. Although one can easily imagine a consolidation as each cloud application platform begins to offer identity, privacy and audit services. National identities dissolve and re-form under the flags of Google, Microsoft, Amazon and a convergence of financial institutions and telecoms.

Let’s slip the bonds of the Network for a moment and take a look a personal identity in our daily life. As I walk down the street, is there a moment when I am without personal identity? Walking through the crowd, I am anonymous– just a face in the crowd. But I am specifically anonymous– I’m not a blank shell, a default avatar moving through space. I look the way I look. I wear the clothes that I’m wearing. I walk with a purpose that is my own.

Was life itself designed without an identity layer? In the instances in which we transact with other people, businesses, organizations and governmental agencies– additional apparatus have always been required to track us from “now point” to “now point.”

At this particular “now point,” let’s change the frame of reference. Rather than viewing time as a series of discreet points, let’s now think of time as a continuous stream. This is akin to what physicists do when they think of light– now as a particle, now as a wave.

Moving back to the Network, if we view the concept of an application polling another application for status or a data transaction, we have the equivalent of a discreet “now point.” When we begin to discuss “real time” on the Network, there are two separate frames in which the conversation unfolds.

If time is a series of discreet “now points,” then “real time” is a higher number of “now points” per unit of time. Here perhaps, we run into Zeno’s paradox— What is the total number of possible “now points” between this moment and the next moment? If the metronome ticks at 120 beats per minute and we crank the dial up to 200 beats per minute– the music of time becomes much more frantic. To approximate a flow, the “now points” must have a dense frequency (24 frames per second).

The opponents of “real time” often rely on this argument. The music is too fast to dance to– In our haste we’ll make a mis-step. If only the tempo were turned way down, so that each step could be measured, considered, and thoughtfully taken. One wonders if the result of this prescription could even be called dancing.

The idea of time as a continuous flow also has a Greek origin. The fragments of Heraclitus compare our experience of time to stepping into a stream. If we unpack this metaphor, we might ask: from whence do we step, when we step into a stream? If we are to think of our experience of time as a stream– when is it that we stand outside of time? We are always already standing in one stream or another.

Now let’s switch the channel and move back to the idea of “real time” and streaming time. Some streams move at a faster pace than others. This is undeniably true, but is the lazy river rolling along any less “real time” than the raging torrent of flood waters? Is the tightly packed schedule of the executive more “real time” that the couple taking a late summer afternoon off to eat strawberries and drink wine under the shade of a tree? Something that already flows doesn’t need to increase its tempo to achieve the appearance of a real time flow.

Perhaps we’re ready to think about the phrase “real time personal identity,” and what it might mean. Is there a moment when I’m logged out of my personal identity in daily life? As a social being, I have a use for three different modes of connection: the anonymous, the public and the private. The value of these modes seem to be independent of whether I’m on or off the Network in any given moment.

Thinking of on or off surfaces the question of the pervasive and ubiquitous Network. Is there ever a time when I’m logged out of the Network? Is there a moment when I have no presence whatsoever? To check on a person’s presence, I can Google them to see what’s visible on the Network according to Google’s index of things that are. My presence on the Network begins to have the character of an instant messenger status message. I’m there, I’m always there– I may just not be available to listen or to speak.

A reciprocal exchange of identity artifacts, a la Skype or IM, can establish a public and/or private channel. We subscribe to each other’s messages, and this subscription is persistent with different status settings. The status setting serves the function that space/place does in the physical world.

In a relationship within a continuous, real-time network– why would I need to log in more than once for the term of the relationship? When would I actually be logged out? My presence and my online presence might be the same.

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Names, Spaces, Name Spaces

Published April 19, 2009 by cgerrish

Language is coarse, filled with misunderstandings, hidden meanings, used by anybody for any purpose whatsoever. Language provides transit for information, misinformation, thoughts, images, vague feelings, strong emotion and indications of a vague direction. Many different signifiers can point to the same signified. And the signified is a use, a way of life, that assembles itself variously under different contexts.

Our craving for clarity gives rise to second-order languages, controlled vocabularies that attempt to rule out all ambiguity. A single signifier unequivocally bound to a single signified is an extension of Euclidean geometry to the properties of physical space.

An implication of Einstein‘s theory of general relativity is that Euclidean geometry is a good approximation to the properties of physical space only if the gravitational field is not too strong.

Unique spacial coordinates describe a single location. Names are substituted for numbers, or letters, in the Name Space. In the spheres of mathematics, logic, physics and computer programming unique objects are a requirement. To the extent that the system is without friction, noise or ambiguity, it will operate outside of time– a perfect perpetual motion machine. By definition the system must be closed, new elements would upset the delicate balance.

Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations

120.

When I talk about language (words, sentences, etc.) I must speak the language of every day. Is this language somehow too coarse and material for what we want to say? Then how is another one to be constructed? –And how strange that we should be able to do anything at all with the one we have!

In giving explanations I already have to use language full-blown (not some sort of preparatory, provisional one); this by itself shows that I can adduce only exterior facts about language.

Yes, but then how can these explanations satisfy us? –Well, your very questions were framed in this language; they had to be expressed in this language, if there was anything to ask!

And your scruples are misunderstandings.

Your questions refer to words; so I have to talk about words.

You say: the point isn’t the word, but its meaning, and you think of the meaning as a thing of the same kind as the word, though also different from the word. Here the word, there the meaning. The money, and the cow that you can buy with it. (But contrast: money, and its use.)

121.

One might think: if philosophy speaks of the use of the word “philosophy” there must be a second-order philosophy. But it is not so: it is, rather, like the case of orthography, which deals with the word “orthography” among others without then being second-order.

The question of Internet Identity ends up being a tussle about binding organic and synthetic agents to a name space with the force of law. (Local law must submit to Federal law.) This intersection of human forms of life and unambiguous computing systems surfaces in the rise of social networks and the attempts of the semantic web movement to sanctify a second-order language. The most common example of this is the issue of claiming a username within the namespace of a particular service.

“You’re born, you know, the wrong names, wrong parents. I mean, that happens. You call yourself what you want to call yourself. This is the land of the free.” — Bob Dylan

Every John Smith cannot be John Smith within a namespace. In point of fact, the user with the username John Smith need not even be called John Smith. She might be Jane Doe. The “words” or “names” in the username are not actually words, they have an orthogonal relationship to language, they only need to function within the context of a particular computer program and its data schemas.

Oprah Winfrey recently joined the Twitter network. One of her first questions to Ev Williams was about how someone else could twitter as Oprah without actually being Oprah. Oprah’s name is a brand that is protected by the force of law.

In addition, Oprah is a member of Actor’s Equity which requires that each member have a unique professional name. Archibald Leach, Betty Joan Perske, Caryn Johnson, Frances Gumm and many others invented new identities for the unique namespace/brandspace of show business.

Remember: your professional name is your identity in a complex and ever-changing industry, and you may use it for 70 years – choose wisely!

The power of a username isn’t its value as a unique identifier within a computing system, it’s the value it has within a system of signifiers in our language as we speak it– in the rough and tumble world of everyday language. The value of the username “Oprah” was established through years of hard work outside of the communications system in which it was claimed. In Oprah’s case, a path was cleared for her by system admins to claim a particular name that matched her brand. Ashton Kutcher made a different choice with his username– his brand gave a unique string of letters a special value. (Username as code name, or nickname.)

As real life becomes entwined ever more deeply with the Network, it must accomodate– as Wittgenstein would call it, language full-blown, and life full-blown. A provisional or preparatory life that places arbitrary restrictions over its full depth starts out as comedy, but quickly becomes much more serious.

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Continuous Orientation in the Land of the Midnight Sun

Published April 18, 2009 by cgerrish

I remember there times when I was younger that I could stay up very late watching television. Everyone else had gone to bed, and I was by myself, bathed in the blue glow surrounded by darkness. It was a guilty pleasure. Usually it was some late night movie from the 1940s. I consider these experiences as part of my visual and cultural education.

When the movie was over, the broadcast day ended. To cap things off there were some announcements and then the ceremonial showing of the film “High Flight.” I remember the images of a jet plane flying, dancing through the clouds, while an overwrought poem was read in an earnest, solemn voice. It was the marker, the ceremony at the end of night. Then perhaps, a brief test pattern– and the oblivion of snow blending with my oncoming dreams.

Static on your television is random emissions of electrons from the cathode of your CRT onto the phosphor screen. Cosmic rays, (not really rays but protons or alpha particles), penetrate our atmosphere with extreme uniformity and the density is fairly well known. There is a statistical probability, then, that some of the dots on your screen are caused by them. But you can never know which ones.

That sort of ending has been pushed to the edges. In the center, the city never sleeps, the eye is unblinking, the sun shines brightly at midnight. Consciousness, or a form of it, no longer flashes its wakefulness as dawn breaks across the spinning time zones, receding as the night grows dark. The waking life and dreaming life blend in a Network that is always lit up– sleeping with the lights on.

“sanity is a madness put to good uses; waking life is a dream controlled”
-George Santayana

While you slept, the storytellers continued unwinding their threads. The story continued to unfold– and as you awake you find yourself walking into a program already in progress. But is it really any different than any other day? Didn’t the world always already spin millions of different stories outside of your earshot? It’s the points of connection, the spots where your story connects with the stories of others– that’s the bit that matters. That’s the web of connections now visible in real time.

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You Know My Name, Look Up My API…

Published April 13, 2009 by cgerrish

tincan_network

For the last few years, when the new phone books were delivered– placed on my front porch. I’ve picked them up and taken them directly downstairs to the blue recycling bin.

When I pick up my daily mail, I sort it over the recycling bin. I take the good bits inside the house for further review.

When I check my email, one of my chores is emptying the spam bins, marking the messages that got through the filters, and discarding the messages that aren’t currently of interest.

When I watch broadcast television, I mute the commercials, and when I can– I record the programs and fast forward through the commercials. There are a number of small or alternate tasks I do while the unavoidable commercials run.

When I’m in the car listening to the radio. I mute the commercials. I don’t have any cues to tell me when they’re over, so I miss parts of the programming. But that’s an acceptable price.

When I look at web pages, I focus on what I’m interested in and block out the rest. If you were to do an eye tracking study, you’d learn that I don’t even see the advertising around the edges.

I suppose the original spammable identity endpoint was the physical location of a person’s residence– the unique public spatial coordinates. The postal address is a unique identifier in a system where messages are sent. Anyone who knows an address can send a message to it. No reciprocity of relationship is required for a message to be sent from one node to another in a postal network. The genius of this kind of system is that no special work is required for any two endpoints to exchange messages. These were the also the pre-conditions for spam.

The telephone originally had the same characteristics. Fixed spatial coordinates and a publicly visible unique identifier, with any node capable of calling any other node for message transmission. Unlisted numbers, caller ID and other filtering techniques have been employed to screen out the unbidden caller. However, the number of robo-calls continues to rise, even with the advent of the national ‘do not call registry.’ It’s only with Skype and Google Voice that the messaging permission context begins to change– filtering is baked into the system.

spam-lunch

Email suffers from the same blessings and curses. Once an email address has been publicly revealed it can be targeted. Because the cost per message is so low, the email system is overwhelmed with spam. Of all the messages in the email system, more than 94% of them are spam. The actual value of the system has been compressed into a tiny percentage of the message traffic. Needles have to be pulled from a haystack of spam.

The amount of energy spent shielding and filtering spammable identity endpoints continues to grow. But as online social networks grow, alternative messaging systems start to gain purchase in our interactions. The two models that have the most uptake are: 1) the reciprocal messaging contract (facebook, skype); 2) publication/subscribe contract (tw*tter/rss). Both of these models eliminate the possibility of spam. In the reciprocal model, a user simply withdraws from the contract and no further messages can be sent. In the pub/sub model, the “unfollow” or “block” deactivates the subscription portion of the messaging circuit. The publication model still allows any unblocked user on the system to subscribe and listen for new messages.

In these emerging models, the message receiver has the capacity to initiate or discontinue listening for messages from a self-defined social/commercial graph. Traditional marketing communications works through the acquisition or purchase of spammable target identity endpoints and spraying the message through the Network at a high frequency to create a memory event in the receiver.

As these new models gain maturity and usage, the spammable identity endpoints on the network will begin to lose importance. In fact, as new models for internet identity are being created, an understanding of this issue is a key to success. Motivating a user to switch to a new identity system could be as simple as offering complete relief from spam.

So now we must ask, what’s lost in moving away from the old systems? The idea that any two endpoints can spontaneously connect and start a conversation is very powerful. And this is why concepts like “track” are so important in the emerging context.

These new ecosystems of messaging are built on a foundation established through the practice of remote procedure calls between computer programs on a network– accelerated by the introduction of XML:

Remote procedure call (RPC) is an Inter-process communication technology that allows a computer program to cause a subroutine or procedure to execute in another address space (commonly on another computer on a shared network) without the programmer explicitly coding the details for this remote interaction. That is, the programmer would write essentially the same code whether the subroutine is local to the executing program, or remote. When the software in question is written using object-oriented principles, RPC may be referred to as remote invocation or remote method invocation.

The outlines of the new system start to become clear. The publish/subscribe messaging framework allows for both public and private messages to be sent and received. Publicly published messages are received by anyone choosing to subscribe. Discovery of new conversation endpoints occurs through track. Private messages require reciprocal subscription, a layer of security, privacy and audit. All commercial transactions through the Network can be reduced to forms of private messaging. Messages are transacted in real time.

The applications in our current Network ecosystem that have most of the elements of this public/private messaging system are Facebook, Twitter and FriendFeed. As more of our social and commercial transactions move to the Network, we’ll want a choice about which APIs we expose, and their rules of engagement. You know my name, look up my API…

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