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Wordpress 2.0.4 is released. I’ve just upgraded and, so far, everything seems to be OK (which makes a change for me!). I wonder if it will fix the trackback/pingback problems I’m having..?

Both Kim Cameron (here) and Ben Laurie (here) have picked up on the story about the House of Lords discussing a briefing on pervasive computing.

I’ve written previously in favour of maintaining the Lords as a strong second chamber and this debate seems to highlight that there are many advantages to doing so. One reason why a member of the Lords would “get it” (to quote Ben) is that they are not professional politicians - having an elected second chamber would destroy that advantage (and cause the loss of much real-world experience that sadly seems lacking from the Commons). Particularly in the areas of science and technology (although health, education, the law and civil liberties all deserve a mention!) the Lords has so much more expertise than the Commons. The debate on pervasive computing demonstrates this nicely.

The primary purpose of the Lords is precisely to stop the rest of Parliament from causing damage to the country through lack of thought or foresight - recent scuffles over ID cards show an aspect of how this works - so the members of the Lords need to possess that foresight and knowledge. The campaign to Elect the Lords has a page of myths about Lords reform - Funnily enough they don’t mention the loss of expertise and knowledge that would happen!

Paul Toal makes an interesting point here, saying that his advice to a new security manager would be to instigate user training and education. People have to be involved in the process of security, whether it be a corporate information security, airport passenger security or just members of the public spotting crime (or future crime as I mentioned here)

Bruce Schneier has being making this point for a long time and again has posted on this topic, showing that people are the vital element (although given the number of Brazil football shirts around I’m not 100% sure that the officer’s reasoning was completely valid!) in the system and can do things that computers will never be able to replicate (his mention of AI also goes back to the point I made previously). One thing that is obvious is that for people to make these intuitive assessments they have to be allowed to do so - processes and systems should be designed to take advantage of the strengths of people who should be educated to do the best possible job.

At last… I want my Open ID! will be donating money to open source projects that implement OpenID. Well done to everyone involved for a genuinely great idea. Here’s to lots of converts!

One of the reasons for me wanting a “quick links” section on the site was to draw attention to stories, pages or posts that I’ve seen, but don’t require much commentary beyond a “look at this”.

One of the stories that was going to go there (had I got it working) was this - A Psychological Explanation for Censorship and Claims of “Media Bias” - in which Adam Thierer discusses a couple of theories which when brought together explain an awful lot about how people see the media.

The main reason I thought this worth mentioning is that watching Newsnight on Monday this specific issue was brought up when discussing viewer complaints. Apparently, complaints had been recieved about coverage of the Israel - Lebanon “situation” (that’s hopefully the only mention of it here!) from viewers on both sides citing bias from the programme - a clear case of this phenomenon in action!

As should be obvious (unless you’re reading the RSS feed, of course…) I’ve added a second sidebar to the site. There are a few things I plan on using it for and I might move some bits around as well!

The main thing I plan on putting there is some sort of miniblog/asides section - I want this mainly for quick links (hence the title that is there), much like is done at qwghlm.co.uk, but I can’t seem to find the perfect plugin for this purpose (I’d prefer for the posts there not to appear in the RSS feed and not just be a seperate category; I’d also prefer not to use a widget, but a “proper” plugin…)

I’ve got a few other plans for stuff there depending on how cliched I decide to be I’m also open to suggestions!

Also I’m starting to wonder if trackbacks are working correctly from here. I thought WordPress is supposed to do it automatically, but doesn’t seem to be. Better test it…

I’m following the discussion between Dick Hardt, Kim Cameron and Ben Laurie with interest, Kim has replied to Ben’s post here which has generated this response.

It’s quite obvious that neither party will agree fully here - Ben is correct in some ways - there is a problem with current identity systems and federation does pose challenges (the business and legal implications far outweigh any technical difficulties). However, it seems to me that there are two ways of dealing with it - one is to become more insular and go ones own way on things, the other is to involve other interested parties and try to develop a system that works for everyone. As Ben states, quite rightly, an authentication system is not an open metasystem. Maybe it’s just me (and Kim, and Eric Norlin, and Dick Hardt and …) but it seems obvious that one should exist within the other!

What DOES worry me is that the Google approach to identity does need to be tweaked, but I’ve a feeling that they’ve got some momentum and drive behind them (although Robert Scoble wasn’t talking about identity specifically here, some of the comments regarding developer focus and support do seem relevant) that gives them an edge - at least in terms of a wider public image.

Hot-or-Not Admin Panel

I’m always on the lookout for new plugins to make my life easier with this site, or add new functionality, and I might be tempted by this, but obviously I’d much rather just have a photo of my girlfriend!

I’d also suggest that it be more configurable - there are people out there who might rather have photos of men! I didn’t even realise that Hot or Not was still around - it’s soooo Web 1.0

A few people have written previously about the choices that Google has made with respect to user identity (I have here, here and here). Dick Hardt has an interesting post with some of Google’s responses to questions about this.

I don’t know Ben Laurie’s credentials and I’ve not come across him before (but I’ll start reading his blog now) but reading his comments a couple of things occur to me. When Ben says

As of right now, what are the options? Is there any mature, reliable, secure identity federation mechanism that’s widely used?

It reminds me of the point I’ve made previously about competing protocols - until something gets enough traction to take a lead in this area then this response will be common. More importantly, however, is that whilst Google is developing its own identity mechanisms the people who should be taking a lead on this are arguing amongst themselves, trying to even define terms like federation and user-centric! Someone on the Identity Gang list made the point about terms being co-opted to sell an individual’s favoured products…

One final thing is that the “Identerati” (how I hate that term!) seems to be an insular (but somehow still fragmented!) group (the Identity Gang policy of invite only is only a symptom of this). The Whodentity list contains many familiar names, but Ben’s comments show that there is a much wider group who have an interest in this!

UPDATE: Kim Cameron also picks up on this here.

Tonight I happened to watch “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off“, which is one of the best movies ever made (IMHO). Rather worrying I was just checking IMDB and stumbled across this…

WTF..?

Today is 23rd July, 2006. That means that Alan Ruck is 50! Fifty!

Just makes me feel old.