Quality of Identity

= an application to be used in open source p2p exchanges (such as Abundant Exchange), that allows individuals and other entities to have fined grained control of access to information as well as very strong anonymity AND Very strong assurances of identity

URL = http://qualityofid.com/

Description

1.

'An Agent is an application that allows individuals and other entities to have:

   * Fined grained control of access to information
   * Very strong anonymity AND Very strong assurances of identity

This is a deep and rich technology and the information on this site is only an overview and is a work in progress. We make some seemingly outrageous claims and the final proof of those claims is in the code." (http://qualityofid.com/#home)

2.

" Agents represent the next major step of evolution of the network that Van Jacobson envisioned as “Dissemination (focus on the data)”. This next step allows for a quality-based network that is no more complex than TCP/IP was when it was introduced and changed the definition of the network from path-based telephony making the Internet possible.

The qualities that the code of this new network of Agents enforce include strong authentication, granular control of data, verification of claims, strong anonymity, reliable distributed transactions, and communications that can be significantly more secure than what is feasible on the current Internet.

Our goal is to provide an alternative to existing cyber communication that can support information quality as part of the code, which is in turn based upon a mathematical model. The technology we developed is an application that can be implemented on any connected computer. The technology operates on the existing Internet, but is not be limited to it.

Specifically, an Agent will provide:

• The ability to easily create persistent, mutual, secure, and verifiable Connections that are independent of any identity meta-system or central authority, including network addressing.

• The ability to easily and reliably control access to information.

• The ability to execute highly reliable peer-to-peer transactions."

(http://qualityofid.com/#overview)

Discussion

Introduction to Quality of Identity

"The quality of information on the Internet is declining rapidly. The loudest voices get heard and too often believed as true. If we are to innovate and collaborate, we have to improve the quality of information we receive and use.

To improve the quality of information on the Internet two things must change: quality not quantity must be rewarded and evidence of quality easily curated and accessed.

This may be obvious and we are not the first to realize this, but this realization is only the lever of change. We think we have found the fulcrum that will allow us to apply a small change in technology to have a big effect socially.

The fulcrum is creating a means to support qualities of identity. All evidence of truth eventually comes from an individual or entity and the extent to which that evidence is accepted and acted upon is dependent upon the relationship between the receiver and the provider of the evidence. That relationship is the identity the provider has for the receiver and that identity is different for every receiver.

This reality is taken for granted in every day person-to-person interaction, but is poorly supported on the Internet.

If every claim we make that we want people to act upon is supportable by leveraging the web of identities, then we increase our influence. If we can easily verify claims others make, we can make better decisions.

An approach by those who have made this realization in the past have concluded that “information wants to be free” and only by allowing everyone to have access to every thing can we make better decisions. This may be theoretically true, but in today’s world such an approach does not reward the creative only the compilers." (http://qualityofid.com/#quality_of_id)

An Open Innovation Licensing Approach

"All code developed from the crowdfunding effort will be open source. Agent to Agent messaging is licensed by Agent Technology Inc., which has no licensing requirement for individuals, non-profit businesses, and non-G20 governments.

Agent Technology Inc introduces a novel licensing model, which we call “forward innovation”. We believe that those that invest in developing an idea should have the right to be rewarded for taking the risk and putting in the effort, but not at the cost of preventing others from innovating further.

Agent Technology Inc. recognizes that it has built on a huge body of others’ innovation, so any fee charged for-profit and G-20 uses of this technology is meant to represent the incremental contribution of Agent Technology’s innovation and will be nominal. License fees will be easy to calculate and have little material effect on the bottom line of companies and governments that use this technology.

Anyone who builds on this technology is free to make money from further innovation, as long as it does not inhibit further innovation and profit only represents the incremental contribution. Specifically, use of this technology cannot inhibit further innovation, by price, copyright, or patents. We call this forward innovation, since any attempt to use price, copyright, or patents to prevent further innovation or competition will allow the party accused of infringement to use this license as protection." (http://qualityofid.com/#overview)

What is a Web of Provenance?

Provenance: place or source of origin.

"The truthfulness or factualness of a piece of information can be supported by evidence, or the source(s) of the claim of truthfulness or factuality.

An Agent that is specifically used to validate claims is called a Curator Service. Any Agent can act as a Curator Service, but specialized Agents can be used specifically for the act of curating evidence to support information presented by others. For example, a law office may verify residency and identity. The law firm would set up a Curator Service to provide verification for their clients.

Curator Services are designed to be hosted by third parties that have a vested interest in the veracity of the evidence they are presenting. The host of a Curator would typically have a published process they follow to validate evidence of a claim.

The Web of Provenance introduces three key innovations that avoid some significant problems of current trust architectures, can build upon their capabilities, and provide new capabilities that would be difficult to accomplish without a Web of Provenance.

The first key innovation of Curator Services is that they do not provide evidence of a claim without the permission of the claimant.

his ternary conversation is only possible if the claimant is consistently available to validate the legitimacy of the request to check the claim.

Because the Curator Service supporting a claim is a connection of the Agent, secure communication can be implemented between the claimant and the Curator Service to severely inhibit circumvention.

The second key innovation of Curator Services is the separation of the action of trust from the evidence. Depending upon the consequences of betrayal of trust, the recipient of a claim may need more evidence than one Curator Service provides. The recipient may want to explore the Web of Provenance around a claim before deciding to trust a claim. In the Web of Provenance, this can be accomplished with the click of a mouse.

The third key innovation of Curator Services is the separation of the source of the evidence from the evidence itself. This innovation creates three significant capabilities:

1. First, it is possible to supply the evidence without revealing the source.

2. Second, it is possible to supply the source of evidence without revealing the evidence.

3. Third, it is possible to create “blinds” that separate the evidence from the source so that no one data source is able to link the two." (http://qualityofid.com/#reputation)

More Information

• The Abundant Exchange, open source p2p exchange platform