Defining User Identity: True Identity VS Anonymity

From Mozilla’s new BrowserID to OpenID and the Facebook Graph API, determining user identity has become a simple matter of leveraging a profile. The problem, and the source of many heated debates, arises when trying to determine whether to identify a user by their true, real life, identity and whether that should be forced on them when interacting online. Social powerhouses like Facebook and Google+ are throwing their weight behind forcing users to be directly tied to their real life identity, but what does this mean for privacy, anonymity, and online social interactions? In this talk we’ll explore the concepts behind identity models, how online and real life social graphs are used for defining identity and relationships, and how using real identity and social graph models have led to real life issues of security and privacy worldwide. Through these models, we’ll explore how services like BrowserID, OpenID and the Facebook Graph API are used to construct user identity online.