I gave a talk at HOPE2024 a few weeks ago on the need for portable Internet addresses. We have portable telephone numbers, why not portable email etc. addresses?
This is not as difficult as it might appear, there are several approaches besides the one I have implemented [1]. The hard part is seeing the need for them. We have had addresses bound to services for so long that this is considered natural and inescapable. It is not.
Recall that the reason the Web was so successful was that for 20-30 years, everyone had been building computers that would operate the way that HAL or the computer in Star Trek worked. You asked the computer a question and it returned the answer. What the Web did was provide people with a way to immerse themselves in the data which was the only way to approach the really difficult problem of working out the question to ask.
We kind of sleep walked into an architecture in which users belonged to institutions and institutions joined the Internet. And when we expanded to consumers, the institution was replaced by an ISP and now it is social media platforms.
Yes, I have done the 'identity' thing from time to time but I have always felt that the whole enterprise was flailing because we were asking the wrong question. What the users need is an address they can be reached at which belongs to them. What we keep building is ways for parties to act as 'identity providers'. The architecture is premised on the identity being the property of the provider, not the user. Only we have to pretend otherwise.
[1] Of course I have code, when I propose stuff that I haven't implemented, people attack me for 'vaporware' when I have code they accuse me of peddling the code. That is what is known as agenda denial tactics.
On Wed, Aug 14, 2024 at 4:28 PM Scott O. Bradner <sob@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Tomorrow, August 15, Harvard is going to kill sob@xxxxxxxxxxx.
I normally would not broadcast an address change notice to this list but the address sob@xxxxxxxxxxxx
is present on quite a few RFCs, including the most referenced RFC of all time :-).
A few weeks ago, I received notice that since my last teaching contract with the university ended on
July 1st their automated processes were going to delete my university accounts on August 15th.
sob@xxxxxxxxxxx happens to be the oldest email address at Harvard University, I created it when
I set up the first university email aliasing system in the early 1980s. (Before then I was sob at HARV10,
SOB at WJH12 (bitnet) and *!genrad!wjh12!sob)
But the university values process over history (or at least the automaton that is doing this does)
so it goes
So, if you want to get in touch with me, please use sob@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:sob@xxxxxxxxx>
Thanks
Scott
