Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Respect Network is Launched

So yesterday at lunch, I asked Dan Blum, the Security guru associated with the Respect Network,  to be launched in the City of London that evening, "What exactly will the Respect Network respect?"

His response was, I thought at the time, a perfect one. He jumped my clumsy "We will respect your Privacy" trap with consummate ease and stated confidently; 
"We will respect your right to control your data."

A wide ranging discussion, that included the promise of pseudonymous personas ensued.

I planned straight away to sign up for =adrian.seccombe , my soon to be forever cloud name. As well as =adrius42 my gaming persona. It was only after hearing the detail at the launch that I heard the clever and nuanced twists.

Drummond Reed the founder of the Respect Network described to us the switch opportunity, we are allowing you to move from the current world of providers that grab your data to monetise it on their behalf, to a world where you can control the use of your data. He proudly stated; "We are laying tracks." He neglected to clearly articulate that the current providers delivered a usable service with engines and carriages, and indeed semi-useable, if not at all respectful, data control panels. Whereas the Respect Network has, as yet, little to show in this space.

I felt having been told that there was a bridge that could cross the great divide from Enterprise Centricity to Entity Centricity that I was tricked, after discovering it was only currently built half way across. Then I realised that unlike the tower bridge, next to the launch site at the City Hall, was that this as yet unfinished bridge will not accept mere individuals on foot. I could find no useable UI's. One must travel in carriages, the Apps?, and as yet there are none to speak of! The all important monetisation of my data, may also apparently blocked by the incessant promise of "We will never sell your data!" But what if we want you to, but as our broker? I wish the 5P's the principles of the Respect Network Framework "a promise of permission, protection, portability, and proof" included the commitment to allow Entities to Profit from their data!

The truth, as always is even more nuanced and actually contains large amounts of potential future promise. The most important discovery was the fact that "=" is just the beginning "*" and "+" are soon to follow! representing as they will the cloud names for devices and organisations.

The components of this graph based identity relationship and reputation ecosystem monetised on graph connections are:
1) A cloud name e.g.=adrian.seccombe purchased for life for just $25
I felt like I was being sold a non stick saucepan that would never-ever stick!

2) A registry to store them 
all run by a company that "we won't have heard of", but they make the whole internet work....honest!

3) CSPs Cloud Service Providers who will keep our data for ever more.... actually I'm not clear on the death clause, and how my off-spring will be able to curate my data when I am in the after life.
Nor was I that clear on what I can store, my home security camera takes a lot of pictures!

4) The App developers who will create beautiful apps to change the world. None of which smelled or looked like the Killer App that will kick start the Respect Network. They simply felt like a new means of creating wealth for the app providers.

The missing components from my point of view:
0) A ridiculously strong authentication mechanism
I could not establish a way to use one or both of my yubikeys
a) An Entitlement Engine
b) A Respectful Personal Digital Assistant (RPDA) that understood how to manage the wonders of a hybrid graph and rules based relationship and transactions network
c) A really cool and useable Connections and Rules control panel 
d) A transaction based monetisation model, that would really enable the Intention Economy
This where I get to truly extract value from my data, it's the transactions! Just like the credit card world that was the system that the respect network was modelled after!
e) A killer curation agent, that would manage data storing and more importantly data culling, I really don't need 10,000 pictures of my living room!
f)  the ability to respectfully identify things and associate them with me, or another entity of my choosing. Of course entities can be Apps & Things, as well as people and organisations. In the Jericho Forum Identity Commandments, after much dialogue we stated that in special cases, entities can also be Agents.
g) the way back machine, see the Sauron comment at the end of this blog.

It is arguable that those missing components are simply missing Apps, but I suspect that the "tracks" will need to be laid in such a way as to accept both Rule Based and Graph based carriages. Certainly the Respect Network "Control Panel" must be capable of exposing mere humans to their graph and rules, and allowing them to manipulate both.

This might be a semantic nicety but graph based connections without the added flexibility enabled by an Entitlement Engine, are likely to be of limited transactional value. Perhaps the Hybrid carriage may in fact be the most valuable of all. 

But where are all these Apps? Meeco the soon to be "Me Economy" App that appears to be targeted at professional females, is not yet in the UK Apple store, and the Social Safe is going to cost me long term money. Not sure if I keep access to my data when I stop subscribing?

And please don't get me started on the missing core identity component, nor the fact that at the base level, my cloud name is protected only be a password! The Jericho Forum Identity Commandments review blog is going to take longer and require me to better understand the inner workings of the respect network.

Like always I feel like I am living life 15 years behind my expectations.

I imagine a world where I can simply say to my RPDA (Respectful Personal Digital Assitant) on the way home;
"This Lunch time I met with =dan.blum of +respectnetworks, this evening I met =docs.searles he of intention economy fame! I also had the pleasure of meeting =andy.dale CTO of +respectnetworks,(Bloody hell... I wish the Apple spell checker knew not to capitalise =Andy.dale just like it knows not to capitalise @andy.dale.  Hint: Start negotiating with them now for = & +, * is already sorted)

In point of fact, I would simply say Dan Blum, as my RPDA (Respectful Personal Digital Assitant) would have already acquired my Cloud Name for him, (ooops that's not how it works)

Having said all that apart of course from the bracketed expletives, my RPDA would automagically tag the already captured events as being important to me. My RPDA had surmised that these events would be important and responded with "surmised", rather than the alternative "surprised" which would have indicated that the RPDA had not yet fully understood my interests.

Clearly this state of affairs does not yet exist, and I have to waste 15 minutes doing mundane curation activities for the day.

An Aside: I sat next to Sally Duckworth during the launch, and heard her exclaim "....but my name has already gone!?" it seems that in the Respect Network, it's first come first served, there apparently cannot be two Adrian Seccombe's in the world.... really?
Worse, I cannot have two cloud names, where are the personas I was promised?
(Apparently Persona's are a future feature...)

Why should I know Dan Blum's root cloud name, and for that matter why should he know mine?

The concept feels like it has a flaw (or two). Have we moved back to "One ring to Rule them all?"

Let's hope that Sauron doesn't get wind of this! At the very least let's be ready for him. I must have a Respect Network Time Machine. In order to be able to turn back time after my Cloud Graph gets trashed.

Having just paid my $25, I always knew I was going to, but I can't yet find the pig in this poke!
But then that was actually how I felt when I first bumped into this weird thing called the Internet.
I must be patient, for I am convinced that Entity Centricity is the future.
I truly hope that the Respect Network finishes building this bridge to the other side of the Centricity Canyon. I want to be over on the Entity Centric side NOW!

Sadly the Respect Network does not yet pass the Connie 2.0 test, for my Mum cannot yet hope to use it!

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