Sunday, April 20, 2008

The secure social web

How do you know that that person you are talking to on Facebook is really your friend from high school? 50lbs plus or minus and a person can look a might different...

How would a secure social web change how we interact online? Assuming everyone authenticates to a central authority and it works reasonably well, would we change what we do?

You could sign everything you post with your cryptographic signature, so people can trust it came from you. No more hijacking with a simple password to send stupid messages when your friend goes for a snack. You would be held more accountable, but you could hold that same accountability to everyone else. How would treat people that were not properly authenticated? With a level of distrust, questioning what or who they really were?

Granted there are about 300 million implementation problems but it will get here in the end, as it actually helps the **AA companies, not that that is really a plus...

1 comment:

avarner said...

You bring a great point, anyone one of my facebook friends could be a fake i guess. My question is with the password/signature thats publicly visible whats to stop someone from cracking that and impersonating me?