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Table of Contents

Part 0: The Principles of User Sovereignty

Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order

by physical coercion. We believe that from _ethics_, _enlightened

self-interest_, and the _commonweal_, our governance will emerge. Our

identities may be distributed across many of your jurisdictions. The

only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize

is the Golden Rule. We hope we will be able to build our particular

solutions on that basis. But we **cannot** accept the solutions you

are attempting to impose.

β€” John Perry Barlow

β–€β–ˆβ–€ he first time I heard the phrase "user sovereignty" was at Mozilla. Firefox

β–‘β–ˆβ–‘ ostensibly follows user sovereign design principles and respects the user.

It is even baked into the list of principles on page 5 of the Firefox Design

Values Booklet.

Firefox Design Values Booklet

The earliest discussion of the phrase I could find is a blog post from August

4th, 2011 by the Chief Lizard Wrangler herself: Mitchell Baker.

Mithchell's Blog, August 4th, 2011

In it she prophetically describes user sovereignty as the consequence of new

"engines" that are "...open, open-source, interoperable, public-benefit,

standards-based, platforms..." She also makes the critical link between the

philosopy of openness and standards-based interoperability with that of

idenitity management and personal data dominion.

Where is the open source, standards-based platform for universally

accessible, decentralized, customized identity on the web? Today there

isn't one... Where is the open source, standards-based engine for

universally accessible, decentralized, customized, user-controlled

management of personal information I create about myself? Today there

isn't one.

Looking back from 2020, so much of what Mitchell says is correct, that I

consider her post a founding document of user sovereign design. But Mitchell

isn't the only one. Mozilla was a hot bed for this line of thinking in 2011 and

the years that followed. Bed Adida, Mozilla's Identity Lead back then, also

posted on more technical aspects of user sovereignty.

Ben's Blog, January 13th, 2012

In his post, Ben outlines three, then new, Mozilla products designed in the

spirit of user sovereignty: decentralized identity (BrowserID), mobile

web-based OS (FirefoxOS), and an app store (progressive web apps). All three of

which failed in the market because I don't think they went far enough towards

full user sovereignty.

I used to think Mozilla was too afraid to make any meaningful change to the web

that would enhance user privacy, pseudonymity and sovereignty because it would

damage their ability to make money from search referals and other deals with

surveillance capitalists. To their credit, they did try to make meaningful

change with the "do not track" setting and first-party isolation to prevent

IFRAME'd contentβ€”like the Facebook Like buttonβ€”from tracking users everywhere

they go on the web. Now it is obvious to me that the problem isn't that Mozilla

won't fix the web, but that the web is so broken that they can't.

The Non-User-Sovereign End of the Spectrum

I can't fault the Mozilla leadership for not knowing, back in 2011, what we

know now simply because back then Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were still

considered benevolent wonders of the modern internet world. It wasn't until

several years later when the social media (socmed) platforms shifted their

entire focus to global user surveillance and manipulation that technologists

everywhere fully grasped the implications and dangers they embodied.

By 2017 the dominance of the socmed platforms was ubiquitous and global.

Leaders at Facebook and others began policing content and taking us all down

the slippery slope of choosing who gets to speak and who doesn't. Today the

socmed platforms have so much data and power that they act like digital

aristocrats that own the land, the market, and the people. They make diktats

that affect people in their real lives. They can also sway elections one way or

another giving them the power to hold onto power by backing politicians that

support their corporate interests.

We're no longer surprised that saying the wrong thing on a socmed platform can

cost

you

your

job

but what about

losing your bank account

or in the case of YouTube content creators, demonitization or outright banning

that is

costing them their livelihood

The worse part is the lack of a balance in terms between users and the

platforms. If YouTube bans your account you have very little opportunity to

appeal the decision and no power to force them to reinstate you.

Popular psychologist Jordan Peterson recently described his experience of being

locked out of his Google/Youtube account

The interesting thing about Mr. Peterson's situation is that he forced

reinstatement by organizing what can best be described as a peasant revolt

against the aristocrats at Google. As he tells it, he tried to warn the Google

account management people that banning him "might not be a good idea." When

Google refused to reconsider, he contacted a number of prominent journalists

and tweeted to his 1.4 million followers. A few hours later his account was

reactivated and he suspects it was the publicity.

This outcome may give some people hope that there is a balance of power between

the users and the socmed platforms. Unfortunately there isn't. Or at least,

what little there is can only be leveraged by famous people with large internet

followings that share their animosity for the digital aristocracy. I'm sure Joe

Rogan, Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson and others like them can use the mob to

protect their user sovereignty but the other 4.5 billion internet users cannot.

The socmed platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are important in that

they demonstrate exactly what an internet system with little-to-no user

sovereignty looks like. Users of those systems are faced with choosing between

giving up all sovereignty or not using the system. They have no ability to

be private and anonymous and all authorization is based on who they are. Sure

the platforms use open and standard protocols for communication but the data

you upload is not retrievable in a portable standard format. Worst of all, the

platforms don't have a balance of power with their users. Users are only

granted limited rights under consumer protections laws like the GDPR and CCPA.

All other power rests with the platforms.

The User-Sovereign End of the Spectrum

If Facebook, Twitter and YouTube define one end of the spectrum of user

sovereignty, what does the other end of the spectrum look like? How would a

system designed to be fully user sovereign function? Before we can answer that

question we must decide what the principles of user sovereignty are. I think

they are easy to figure out just by thinking of the opposite of how socmed

platforms work.

There are just six principles, that when followed, produce a fully user-

sovereign system design:

Privacy

Privacy for users of a systems is all about correlation across time and space.

Correlation is the ability to identify the same user over subsequent

connections (time) and even from different IP addresses (space). Correlation is

the foundation of all user tracking and the primary way in which our privacy is

violated when we use the web.

A fully user-sovereign system does not keep logs and does not attempt to track

users. Any correlation ability the system has is fully under the control of the

users and can be set to their comfort level. Users may choose to give the

system a "correlation identifier" that the user uses on future connections so

that the system can offer customized services. However the user retains full

control over that situation and may terminate the correlation at any point in

the future.

Without privacy, users lose much of their leverage in a world dominated by

surveillance capitalism.

Pseudonimity

Pseudonimity is the ability for a user to control to what degree the system and

other users know their real identity. With full pseudonimity, a user can appear

to be a first-time user of the system every time. On the other hand, the user

may also choose to present full know-your-customer (KYC) credentials that

reveal their real world identity in a verifiable way. Of course, anything in

between is possible as well. A user may wish to use a persona in a discussion

forum that isn't tied to their real identity but is given out to other users so

they may know them by that name.

Another key aspect of psudonimity is network level tracking. User sovereign

systems ideally operate only on internet anonymity platforms like the Tor

network. Operating as a Tor hidden service or some other IP masked service not

only maximises user pseudonimity but also the pseudonimity of the operator of

the service. Eventually the user sovereign internet will require a ubiquitous

and pervasive mix net transport layer that is used by everyone for everything.

What, Not Who

One of the more recent improvements in user sovereign technology is the

creation of decentralized, blockchain backed, verifiable credentials (VCs) and

proofs.

Verifiable Credentials Data Model

Developed beginning in 2013, VCs allow digital systems to shift away from

identity based authorizationβ€”such as access control lists (ACLs)β€”to more

decentralized capability based authorization. It is now possible to build

systems that care about *what* you are instead of *who* you are. As my friend

Timothy Ruff likes to say:

I only care that the pilot is properly trained and licensed to fly the

plane. I do not care what their name is.

Moving away from ACLs means that systems can have proper and strong

authorization while _also_ allowing fully private and pseudonymous users. As

long as the credential presentation uses zero-knowledge proofs the user cannot

be correlated and tracked while they use authenticated services.

Open and Standard Protocols and Formats

A large part of the balance of power between users and systems is a user's

ability to take their data and go to another competing service. Just like

free-market price competition puts downward pressure on prices, user and data

mobility creates pressure towards more user sovereignty in online systems.

User and data portability is only truly possible if systems use open and

standard protocols and data formats for all communication and storage. It is

why we create such standards.

Strong Encryption Always

Strong encryption must always be used to protect data in motion and data at

rest. Without it, users cannot enforce their privacy and pseudonymity. They

cannot use verifiable credentials and zero-knowledge proofs for authorization.

Encryption forms the backbone of all user-sovereign design. Without it users

lose all leverage and have no sovereignty on the internet.

Governments around the world continue to fight legal battles to limit or ban

the use of strong encryption. Just like guns in the hands of citizens, strong

encryption represents a real threat to the power of any government. It is the

only way we will keep the internet from becoming a global full-spectrum

surveillance tool that tracks our every move andβ€”with social credit

systemsβ€”manipulates us into becoming livestock held captive in regional people

farms.

Ongoing "Crypto Wars"

Balance of Power

Inevitably, internet services have tacit agreements between users and the

system as well as legal terms of service. User sovereign systems use balanced

terms of service to even out the power dynamic. Users will already have a great

deal of power from their ability to stay private, pseudonymous, and portable,

but to completed the balance the terms of service need to also include users'

terms.

The GDPR and CCPA are governmental attempts to balance the power of users and

systems but there are so many loopholes that most internet services just throw

up an interstitial EULA that nearly all users agree to withtout fully

understanding them. Not so on user sovereign systems. Users won't be giving up

their information by default like they do on the web today. They won't be using

software such as web browsers that can't help but track you and they won't be

blindly clicking through EULA's to get at content.

Conclusions

The six principles of user sovereignty are important because it gives us a

values framework within which we can make decisions. Without having these

values, how do systems designers choose one solution over another when the

overall function is the same? Why should we choose verifiable credentials over

a real name and password for authorization? Because one respects the user and

their sovereignty and the other doesn't.

It is sometimes hard to think of a world where users have agency on the

internet because we have all been conditioned to accept the status quo as the

technology was developed over decades. It isn't the fault of past systems

designers that the world is the way it is. Many times, time and money pressures

made them choose the quickest and easiest path without really thinking about

the long term implications. Even if they did take time to consider the

tradeoffs, they didn't have any coherent set of principles to inform their

decision making. Until now that is.

Where Do We Go From Here?

The direction from here is to consider distributed systems and the problems

they solve. Then apply these principles to improve them. There are nine

fundamental problems of distributed systems and each one must be solved with

a solution that is user sovereign to build a fully user sovereign service. It

isn't as easy as you would think and until very recently, it wasn't even

possible. The rest of this series is focused on that.

β–ͺ .

.

β–ˆβ–€β–€β€ƒβ–ˆβ–‘β–ˆβ€ƒβ–ˆβ–€β–€β€ƒβ–ˆβ–€β–€β€ƒβ–ˆβ–€β–ˆβ€ƒβ–ˆβ–€β€ƒβ–ˆ

β–ˆβ–„β–„β€ƒβ–ˆβ–€β–ˆβ€ƒβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–„β€ƒβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–„β€ƒβ–ˆβ–€β–„β€ƒβ–„β–ˆβ€ƒβ–„

. β–› β•Ώ β–‹

β–Ž β–ͺ β•΅ β–Ž .

▏ β•΅ ▏

▏

β–Ž

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