Uncategorized – joeandrieu.com
type: channel
description: My personal space
date: 2026-02-26T23:47:46Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
generator agent: https://wordpress.org/
items: Dehumanizing the Disconnected
items: Fighting for Consensus, Take 2
items: Fighting for Consensus at the W3C
items: A great conversation about #GoodID
items: How Identity Can Enable A People-Centered Internet
items: Beware the Plan of Sauron
items: Kindle files to my iPad (Gutenberg eBooks)
items: Personal Data Stores, Exchanges, and Applications
items: Looking for feedback on pRFP and Information Sharing
items: Steve Blank at the Pescadrome in Santa Barbara April 14, 2010

Dehumanizing the Disconnected
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2026-02-13T16:29:31Z
subject: privacy
subject: Technology
subject: Uncategorized
subject: digital fiduciary
subject: freedom
subject: humanity
subject: Identity
subject: realeyes
subject: uniqueness
subject: world
subject: worldcoin
subject: worldid
description: Last week, the Credentials Community Group of the World Wide Web Consortium hosted Scott Jones, sharing his company’s work on Client-side Biometric Authentication and Identity Verification. https://www.w3.org/events/meetings/6c106024-7f5f-4297-972b-18af6432aaef/20260203T120000/ He said a lot of smart things about his company, Realeyes https://realeyes.ai/, and … Continue reading →
encoded: Last week, the Credentials Community Group of the World Wide Web Consortium hosted Scott Jones, sharing his company’s work on Client-side Biometric Authentication and Identity Verification. https://www.w3.org/events/meetings/6c106024-7f5f-4297-972b-18af6432aaef/20260203T120000/ <img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" width="382" height="132" src="https://blog.joeandrieu.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/verifeye.png" alt="VerifEye Powered by Realeyes" class="wp-image-1486" style="aspect-ratio:2.8941636083816737;width:301px;height:auto" srcset="https://blog.joeandrieu.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/verifeye.png 382w, https://blog.joeandrieu.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/verifeye-300x104.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 382px) 100vw, 382px" /> He said a lot of smart things about his company, Realeyes https://realeyes.ai/, and their VerifEye offering. They are a leader in using AI and advanced biometrics for identity verification. I appreciated his discussion of how they are using real technology to improve the quality and privacy of identity assurance. In particular, I appreciate the progress towards client-side biometric authentication, which may prove a long term best-of-class approach to securing our digital identities without creating a panopticon. However, there is a fundamental flaw in their approach that deserves attention. Surprisingly, it is one that Dr Seuss’s Yertle the Turtle might have found familiar. At the end of the day, after all the privacy-engineering on the front end, Realeyes maintains their own uniqueness database. To their credit, they are refreshingly candid about charging for access. They hope to create a global database of who is human and then charge to query that database. It’s a straightforward business model that helps us better understand how such a system might be abused or otherwise cause harm. This vendor-controlled uniqueness database is the problem. Worldcoin and World <img decoding="async" width="150" height="150" src="https://blog.jo…

Fighting for Consensus, Take 2
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2023-09-08T21:34:03Z
subject: Uncategorized
description: In April, I appealed a decision by the W3C Chairs to place DID Methods in scope in the next DID WG Charter. That appeal was ignored and the charter advanced to AC Review. This is our Formal Objection to that … Continue reading →
encoded: In April, I appealed a decision by the W3C Chairs to place DID Methods in scope in the next DID WG Charter. That appeal was ignored and the charter advanced to AC Review. This is our Formal Objection to that charter. We oppose this charter on several grounds. Process Collaboration Technical Fundamentals Interoperability Goals PROCESS We stand by our appeal (https://blog.joeandrieu.com/2023/04/12/fighting-for-consensus-at-the-w3c/), which we feel was improperly handled. The Process rules, about consensus, appeals, and Formal Objections, in our opinion, were ignored. The incident (and the appeal) were filed under Process 2021; the current process is Process 2023. Staff’s response meets the requirements of neither Process. Since Philippe Le Hegaret cited Process 2023 in his response to my appeal, let’s look at what Process 2023 requires. Process 2023 requires Groups to formally address issues with a response that includes a rationale for decisions that “a W3C reviewer would generally consider to be technically sound”. Neither Philippe Le Hegaret’s nor the Chairs’ responses met that standard. Philippe simply claimed that “this charter is the most acceptable for the majority of the group (an assessment that was confirmed by a recent poll); and that 2) the charter is not a WG deliverable, and consensus must be reached at the AC level anyway, so Joe’s argument should be raised during AC review, not prior to it.” Unfortunately, the cited poll did not even attempt to gauge consensus. It merely gauged the popularity of advancing the WG, without consideration of the multiple options under consideration by members of the group. Rather than attempting to establish a legitimate vote, Staff created a poll that, like a Politburo election, only offered one candidate to vote on, where, in fact, it should have been inquiring about any objections to best understand the proposal with the weakest objections, instead of blatantly attempting to rubber stamp the offending decision. More pro…

Fighting for Consensus at the W3C
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2023-04-12T22:19:05Z
subject: Uncategorized
description: I am formally appealing to the Director of the W3C to deny the decision by the DID WG Charter chairs to override dissent about the inclusion of DID methods in the scope of the next DID WG Charter, as embodied in part in the decision to merge PR#20 and PR#27 into the DID WG Charter. Enabling the DID WG to develop specific DID methods will actively undermine the work's fundamental goal of decentralization. Continue reading →
encoded: Fighting for Consensus at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) 5.5. Chair Decision and Group Decision Appeals When group participants believe that their concerns are not being duly considered by the group or the Chair, they may ask the Director (for representatives of a Member organization, via their Advisory Committee representative) to confirm or deny the decision. This is a Group Decision Appeal or a Chair Decision Appeal. The participants should also make their requests known to the Team Contact. The Team Contact must inform the Director when a group participant has raised concerns about due process. Any requests to the Director to confirm a decision must include a summary of the issue (whether technical or procedural), decision, and rationale for the objection. All counter-arguments, rationales, and decisions must be recorded. From “W3C Process Document” https://www.w3.org/2021/Process-20211102/ It’s unfortunate that I find myself formally appealing a decision by the W3C Decentralized Identifier Working Group (DID WG) chairs. Simply put, the decision was not made according to the applicable W3C Process, which requires seeking consensus through selecting proposals with the weakest technical objections. The decision to appeal was not made lightly. It will force into the public view a disagreement between parties who generally have high mutual regard and respect. I personally think the DID WG chairs are well-intentioned and doing their best to resolve the challenges of the underlying work. However, in this particular case, we have a failure to secure consensus and an unfortunate autocratic imposition of the chairs’ position on a group in significant dissent. I got involved in this particular stream of work after attending the first ID2020 and Rebooting the Web of Trust II after over ten years in the user-centric identity movement as championed by the Internet Identity Workshop and ProjectVRM. I became (and remain) an editor for Verifiable Credentials Use Cases and …

A great conversation about #GoodID
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2019-02-21T15:50:17Z
subject: Identity
subject: privacy
subject: regulatory
subject: Technology
subject: Uncategorized
subject: Caribou Digital
subject: Good ID
subject: GoodID
subject: Harvard Kennedy School
subject: Omidyar Network
subject: Policy
description: Identity can be a real pain to discuss. #GoodID turns about to be a great way to talk about the diverse needs of different stakeholders in digital identity, resulting in actionable plans to shift policy. Continue reading →
encoded: <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blog.joeandrieu.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/dreamstimeextrasmall_77238067.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-1395" width="281" height="187" srcset="https://blog.joeandrieu.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/dreamstimeextrasmall_77238067.jpg 480w, https://blog.joeandrieu.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/dreamstimeextrasmall_77238067-300x200.jpg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 281px) 100vw, 281px" /> Ancient barbarian warrior or Gladiator ready to fight Identity can be a real pain to discuss. I’ve been to dozens of workshops and conferences over the last decade plus and the quality of engagement varies from exciting, enthusiastic progress to frustrating, disheartening dysfunction—even within the same event. So many of us bring our own ax to grind that even when we think we are in agreement, we can spend ridiculous amounts of time in rat holes and rabbit holes that just don’t go anywhere productive. Yet, identity matters. So we push on through, hoping to forge common ground and make headway against the seemingly intractable task of figuring out how identity should work in the digital age. So it is rare that I get to enjoy as productive a conversation about identity as I did earlier this month at Good ID: What’s policy got to do with it?, organized by the Omidyar Network, run by Caribou Digital, and held at the Shorenstein Center of the Harvard Kennedy School. It wasn’t a collaborative writing exercise like we host at Rebooting the Web of Trust. It wasn’t an unconference open space like we gather for at the Internet Identity Workshop. It wasn’t a trade conference with presentations and panels like we get at Know Identity. Nor was it a large scale summit bringing together the international community with technologists like ID2020. On the contrary, it was an intimate gathering of passionate and experienced individuals from diverse fields, first discussing what “Good ID” might mean and how policy can help us get there, then committing…

How Identity Can Enable A People-Centered Internet
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2017-08-25T14:36:40Z
subject: Uncategorized
description: Understanding Identity through Function This is the second of a regular column on Identity for the People Centered Internet. In the first column, I introduced the idea of Functional Identity as a way for ordinary people to discuss identity, with … Continue reading →
encoded: Understanding Identity through Function This is the second of a regular column on Identity for the People Centered Internet. In the first column, I introduced the idea of Functional Identity as a way for ordinary people to discuss identity, with this definition: Identity is how we keep track of people and things, and in turn, how they keep track of us. This article describes how we do that. An identity system is a collection of tools and techniques used to keep track of people and things. As individuals, we do this naturally, in our minds. We name things, then use names and distinguishing features to remember what we learn. We treat people differently based on their identity: treating our friends and family differently from strangers and known threats. Organizations create processes, software, and services to achieve similar ends. These identity systems are best understood in terms of how they function, which is the same way that identity has worked since the dawn of civilization. The goal of Functional Identity is to bridge the communication gap so business people, community leaders, and parents can talk with engineers and regulators, and together and we can make identity systems that work better for us all. Definitions In the diagrams below, the blue boxes are nouns and the red ovals are verbs – the building blocks for describing identity systems. We start with the simplest identity system, using three nouns and a verb: Subjects are entities—people or things—under consideration. Identifiers are labels which refer to entities. They are used to keep track of what we know about those entities. Attributes are what we know about people and things. They describe the state, appearance, or other qualities of an entity. Correlate means to associate attributes with particular entities, to associate what we know about someone with either an identifier in the system or a subject in question. Identity systems correlate subjects with attributes in two ways. First, attributes ar…

Beware the Plan of Sauron
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2015-02-17T04:01:52Z
subject: ProjectVRM
subject: Uncategorized
subject: Vendor Relationship Management
subject: Lord of the Rings
subject: project VRM
subject: Sauron
subject: startups
subject: VRM
description: The “Master App” can’t magically make it all work. On the project VRM blog, Doc Searls recently suggested that the killer app for VRM is the “Master App”. In response, on the Project VRM email list, Jim Pasquale suggested it’s … Continue reading →
encoded: The “Master App” can’t magically make it all work. On the project VRM blog, Doc Searls recently suggested that the killer app for VRM is the “Master App”. In response, on the Project VRM email list, Jim Pasquale suggested it’s more of a mixing board than a master app. Jim’s right. The “master app” reminds me of what I call “The Sauron business model,” a term I coined after watching over one hundred and twenty 60 second pitches at two different Startup Weekend Santa Barbara events in the last two years. With all of those pitches in rapid succession, the pattern popped right out. For those of you who might not be Lord of the Rings fans, Sauron was the bad guy hell-bent on unifying everything in Middle Earth under his brutal rule, and wanted that hobbit’s ring to do it: Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. [quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Ring] What I saw repeated again and again and again in those pitches at Startup Weekend were hopeful entrepreneurs who earnestly believed that if they could just unify all of a person’s [insert unique idea here], they could provide a ground breaking new service that would transform the world. Just like Sauron, all they needed was that One Thing to make it all work… Creating the only singular view of an individuals financials, MyFinances.com will make it easy for people to instantly waste less–and make more–money! Bringing together all of a user’s vendors into one coherent dashboard, people will finally be able to make smart choices that both save money and create more value, while vendors get better access to the right customers at the right time! Giving users control of their identity across a…

Kindle files to my iPad (Gutenberg eBooks)
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2012-01-15T22:19:02Z
subject: Uncategorized
subject: ebook
subject: gutenberg
subject: ipad
subject: kindle
subject: mobi
description: How do you get a book at Project Gutenberg into your iPad Kindle app? It’s easy. Go to Gutenberg on your iPad and download the “Kindle” .mobi file. It’ll automatically open in the Kindle app. Yay. Don’t worry about instructions … Continue reading →
encoded: How do you get a book at Project Gutenberg into your iPad Kindle app? It’s easy. Go to Gutenberg on your iPad and download the “Kindle” .mobi file. It’ll automatically open in the Kindle app. Yay. Don’t worry about instructions for how to get a .mobi file to your iPad Kindle. It’s a bit of a chore. But as long as you have a URL for the .mobi file, just use the Safari browser to download it directly. One you open it, it will be in your Kindle bookshelf until you delete it. Works like a charm.

Personal Data Stores, Exchanges, and Applications
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2010-09-18T03:20:41Z
subject: Uncategorized
subject: PDS
subject: PDX
subject: personal data application
subject: personal data architecture
subject: personal data exchange
subject: Personal Data Store
description: Words matter. In the last few years, we in the VRM community have been using term “personal data store” as cornerstone concept. We all understood we were talking about the same thing: a VRM approach for allowing people to use … Continue reading →
encoded: Words matter. In the last few years, we in the VRM community have been using term “personal data store” as cornerstone concept. We all understood we were talking about the same thing: a VRM approach for allowing people to use share personal information with third- (and fourth-) party service providers on their own terms. Yet as our community grows, it has become clear that the Personal Data Store is but one aspect of a complete system, one we might as well call the Personal Data Architecture. As developers get more traction with their technology and the marketplace, it gets more and more useful to delineate the elements of the architecture more rigorously. To do that, Doc Searls, Craig Burton, Iain Henderson, Kaliya Hamlin, and I set some time aside after the VRM+CRM 2010 Workshop. Like the ongoing VRM conversation, it was a rolling evolution of a dialog. It started with just Craig & Iain with the rest of us showing up and participating throughout the afternoon. The core agreement is the terms I present here. I’ll post a following up with some new ideas in a few days. These are the key definitions underlying the Personal Data Architecture at the core of VRM and all of our work: Personal data store – a service where data is actually stored, with the ability to provision access to that data by permissioned applications; may be distributed and/or replicated across multiple physical stores. Personal data exchange – a service where an individual manages personal data store permissions. Personal data API – the interface a permissioned application uses for accessing personal data stores and personal data exchanges. Personal data application – a service permissioned by an individual to access their personal data store for particular use of specific information. Also an “app”. Service – an instance of software running on a machine. Individual – a living human being. Bonus Term: (which wasn’t the topic of this particular meeting, but syncs up with the work Iain and I are doin…

Looking for feedback on pRFP and Information Sharing
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2010-09-07T21:14:36Z
subject: Information Sharing
subject: Personal Data Store
subject: ProjectVRM
subject: Shared Information
subject: Uncategorized
subject: ISWG
subject: Kantara
subject: pRFP
description: At the VRM+CRM workshop last month, we (the Kantara ISWG) released two papers for comment. One on the Personal Request For Proposal (pRFP) Engagement Model and the other the Information Sharing Report. The first is a look at a the … Continue reading →
encoded: At the VRM+CRM workshop last month, we (the Kantara ISWG) released two papers for comment. One on the Personal Request For Proposal (pRFP) Engagement Model and the other the Information Sharing Report. The first is a look at a the negotiation stage in the Car Buying Engagement Model, which paints a detailed picture of one person’s experience through the entire Customer-Supplier Engagement Framework for a new car. Think of this as “car buying VRM style.” In the pRFP Engagement Model, we do a deep dive on how Sally would use a pRFP broker to buy a new car. The second is a report placing Information Sharing in the global context. Based on a comprehensive literature review by Mark Lizar, the ISWG takes a look at the historical conversations about privacy and data protection to illustrate how we see Information Sharing as part of an emerging solution to managing the increasing risks and challenges of individuals sharing personal information online. If you have an interest, please take a look and give us some feedback. We’ll be incorporating input from the comment period starting next week, September 13, 2010. Extended to September 27, 2010. I hope to hear from you.

Steve Blank at the Pescadrome in Santa Barbara April 14, 2010
type: item
creator: Joe Andrieu
date: 2010-04-05T21:40:04Z
subject: Uncategorized
description: Steve Blank, Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur and author of Four Steps to the Epiphany, will be presenting at the Fishbon Event Lab, Wednesday April 14 in Santa Barbara. The Event Lab starts at 7ish with a potluck barbecue, followed by … Continue reading →
encoded: Steve Blank, Entrepreneur and Author Steve Blank, Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur and author of Four Steps to the Epiphany, will be presenting at the Fishbon Event Lab, Wednesday April 14 in Santa Barbara. The Event Lab starts at 7ish with a potluck barbecue, followed by the presentation at around 8:30. Steve’s startup experiences include E.piphany, Zilog, MIPS Computers, Convergent Technologies, Ardent, SuperMac, ESL and Rocket Science Games. Total score: two large craters (Rocket Science and Ardent), one dot.com bubble home run (E.piphany) and several base hits. After he retired, he wrote a book (actually his class text) about building early stage companies called Four Steps to the Epiphany. He now teaches entrepreneurship to both undergraduate and graduate students at U.C. Berkeley, Stanford University and the Columbia University/Berkeley Joint Executive MBA program. With “Customer Development” the core theme in these classes. In 2009, he was awarded the Stanford University Undergraduate Teaching Award in the department of Management Science and Engineering. The same year, the San Jose Mercury News listed me as one of the 10 Influencers in Silicon Valley. In 2010, I was awarded the Earl F. Cheit Outstanding Teaching Award at U.C. Berkeley Haas School of Business. He has also given several well-received talks on “The Secret History of Silicon Valley“. In 2007 Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed him to serve on the California Coastal Commission, the public body which regulates land use and public access on the California coast. In 2010 he was appointed to the Expert Advisory Panel for the California Ocean Protection Council. He is on the board of Audubon California (and its past chair) and spent several years on the Audubon National Board. He is a board member of Peninsula Open Space Land Trust (POST). In 2009 he became a trustee of U.C. Santa Cruz and joined the board of the California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV). The event will take place at the …