Know Me, Know Me Not


A featureless airport departures hall.




Achilles (for he’s back again): Oi, Tortoise!

Tortoise [po-faced and unresponsive]












T: Well, I suppose that’s a bit different.


T: Now you come to mention it…


T: Steady on, old boy.










T: That’s none of your business.







A&T: Oi moi! Ta’las! Tlê’môn!

The Nature of the Relationship, part 1

This is where the going gets tougher. The previous post here was about the different things we use to bodge our way around the minor inconvenience that you can’t actually prove anything about identity with absolute certainty (and it’s all even harder on the Internet). Accepting that we’re all just a collection of risks and uncertainties to be managed, and that we’ve got quite a few tricks (good and bad) at our disposal for doing so, we move towards an even knottier problem.

But to help us do this, let’s bring back Tortoise. Who is on a bit of a mission.

Tortoise: Achilles, Achilles—I’ve been reading all this waffly crap about online identity and I just want to get on with things.

Achilles: How so?

Tortoise: Screw it, fella. I just want my unique identifier now, please. I’ve got nothing to hide. I’m volunteering for you to strap everything you like on to me. Tie it to my old shell, big boy.

Achilles: You sure? Well, if it’s to make a bloody good point about what happens if you do—for the purposes of illustration—I’m game. You want it public or private?

Tortoise: How do you mean?

A: Do you want your identifier to be kept a secret that only you know about, or do you want it splashed everywhere in public?

T: Well, secret, I guess? Is it really a straight choice like that?

A: I’m afraid so. What type of things were you hoping to use it for?

T: Well, to log on to my local council services, naturally. And to see my health record. And to book a driving test. And to pay my taxes. And, and, and…

A: And you reckon that using this fiddly little string of numbers in what already adds up to hundreds of systems from that little list you’ve just given me means that number can be kept…secret? [raises a well-groomed Grecian eyebrow]

T: Fair point. So at some point I have to be ok with the fact that an abandoned hard disk…but surely encryption and good local security management policy will take care of that?…oh, wait, yeah, I see…I have to be ok with the fact that a big list of unique identifiers is going to wind up on Wikileaks or something like that eventually?

A: You do.

T: OK. I accept. I’m ok with that. After all, it’s just a string of fiddly little numbers. It’s not about me, the actual Tortoise that is me. Oh, or is it?

A: What do you think?

T: Well, I don’t really know. It could be. Or it might not be. If it isn’t, then is it really that much use? And if it is, I have this creeping feeling you’re about to show me cracking ice and swooping vultures. Hell’s bells, this has gone and got difficult already, hasn’t it? Why does this always happen? What’s the right answer, Achilles?

A: I guess it depends on whether you want to be identified as you, the real Tortoise, in all these transactions. And you do, don’t you? You have nothing to hide, remember?

T: Sure. But doesn’t that mean…oh I see what you’ve done, you clever bugger. You’ve let me neatly draw out the conclusion that the actual identifier is no great shakes, it’s what it’s attached to that really matters.

A: Quite. And as you’ve said that you’ve got nothing to hide, let’s take your Tortoise Insurance Number (TINO) and from henceforth make it the only identifier about you to be used anywhere in government. After all, lots of people keep banging on about how that must be the long-overdue common-sense solution to all this identity uncertainty. £1,500 please.

T: What? You’re going to charge me for giving me a number you’ve already given me?

A: No, don’t be absurd. This is just a one-off charge for all the migration work.

T: Migration?

A: Changing every single existing government system so they all sing and dance and recognise you off of this here TINO.

T: [Gulps] Is that strictly necessary?

A: Well, perhaps not. We could build some elaborate middleware and interfaces and ting. Might be a bit shonky and fall over from time to time. Or scramble your records with someone else’s. But you’re ok with that aren’t you. £1,500, remember?

T: It just all seems so expensive.

A: That’s because this is the real world, old son. I know when you were just out of the shell, you used to line up all the other tortoises and make up your own Little Tortoise Club stuff, giving everyone a secret name and a password?

T: Bloody hell – so I did. How did you know?

A: We all did. And it worked, didn’t it? You kept pretty strict records of, oh, a whole 10 individuals. Nothing leaked, nothing got mixed up, and it was all beautifully administered. And you used that as a mental model in your horny wee head of how identities and secrets and all that might work in the big world. But you know what, dear little chap? You were utterly wrong. This is a world of baddies, of fraudsters, of the incompetent and the helpless, of the excluded and the disabled. It’s a world of error, of approximation, of faults and mistakes. Lots of gritty reality that, if I’m honest, tends to bugger up enterprise-scale secrecyidentitysecurity systems faster than we can actually squeeze benefits out of them.

T: Lawks! Have you finished?

A: Yeah. But then I start again, and spend another £100m repeating all the mistakes I made last time. Just using a different firm of consultants. Boom boom!

T: So, to recap, I’ll be able to use my TINO wherever I like, accepting that at some point the relationship between it and me will come into the open somewhere, and that it provides a handy hook for anyone, anywhere, with or without me knowing, to hang whatever facts, associations or other metadata they like on me—which may be used against my interests to sell me stuff, compromise me or do loads of other bad things? And that I’ll be reliant on a panoply of passwords and other tokens to associate with my TINO to unlock the various doors that need unlocking in such a way that losing one of them doesn’t give the bad guys control of my entire life, but at the same time, a panoply that I will find easily manageable? I don’t see how that’s possible.

A: S’ok, my shelled friend. You have nothing to hide, remember?

T: I’m really not liking this much at all now. Is there an alternative to my ill-thought-through quick and dirty answer?

A: Why yes, there is. But we’ve just gone over 1,000 words, and according to the rules, that means waiting for the next post.

T: Oh, cloacas.

Petitions and democracy

Tortoise: Y’know Achilles, when we were last talking about this identity business we got into all sorts of hot water very quickly in trying to find ways to use a definitive identity to do governmenty things on the Internet. But I’ve found a brilliant use for one this morning!

Achilles: Really? What’s that then?

Tortoise: Well – this new idea to transform our democratic participation by cutting a swathe through centuries of saggy old unsexy representative democracy and allowing us, through the power of the Interwebs, to have our say directly about what does and doesn’t get gamed into the Parliamentary timetable.

Achilles: Gamed?

Tortoise: I mean, debated. Sorry. We haven’t got to that bit yet, have we?

Achilles: And it’s also a great excuse for some cheap headlines about the X-factor, isn’t it?

T: Naturally.

A: So what have you read?

T: That this new petitiony thing is coming in and it will let you band together in a free and open way and get really popular people’s choices some proper Parliamentary time.

A: And will this change anything?

T: Dunno. But giving the important stuff some proper Parliamentary time has got to be a good thing in itself, hasn’t it? Especially stuff which is bound to be based on issues that get people to join their voices together, really quickly, using the Internet? Oh…

A: Indeed. But you mentioned something about identity?

T: Yeah. But aren’t you meant to be the personification of the State in these dialogues?

A: I am. Sorry. That’s what happens when you start to mess around with the model of who really holds the power, hey? Just my little joke. Sorry.

T: Accepted.

A: So. Tortoise. I have realised that with this direct democracy business it’s pretty important that we only hear from those from whom we should hear. If you get my drift. So, if you’re not on the electoral roll, I’m sorry, your voice has no place here.

T: Couldn’t agree more.

A: So, are you on the electoral roll then?

T: Is that it? Is that the test – you ask me, and I say I am, and then my voice gets heard? Is that all?

A: It’s what happens when you vote in a polling station, pretty much. There’s nothing by way of a very rigorous identity check, is there? Got a little piece of card, you vote. Not got one, you say your name, my guys check it’s on a big paper list, you vote. What’s the difference?

T: Have you heard of channel friction, Achilles?

A: Yes, I had a touch of that when Agamemnon stuck his javelin… What do you mean, Tortoise?

T: Well, it’s a bit weak to say that just because something works one way in the physical world then its online analogue must be just the same. There’s a certain amount of bother involved in diddling votes down the polling station. You have to queue up, you might see someone who knows you and says “Hi Tortoise!” just as you’re squeaking “I’m Mr Mouse” to the teller, and you can only get away with it once in the same place or you’re really asking for trouble. That all takes time and effort. Think of it as a kind of ‘friction’ associated with the physical voting approach that sort of acts as a check on all the other bad things that might happen. It’s not perfect, but it’s worked just about well enough for quite a while now.

A: Whereas the Internet is very much a frictionless channel, isn’t it? Hmm. It would seem, Tortoise, that those who want to create mischief or subvert the democratic process can do so easily, at great speed, in great fictitious numbers and all without having to leave their bedroom and feign an honest face to the bobby looming at the school doorway. Yes, I see your point.

T: You’re getting there…

A: We’d better stiffen it up then. I need, Tortoise, for you to prove, online, that you are the same Tortoise who is on my electoral roll. Otherwise this whole petitiony thing is quickly going to descend into discredited chaos. (If I’m not to quietly drop the bit about electoral roll verification, that is, hem hem.)

T: And how are you going to do that then?

A: Well, I tell you what – I’ll build this massive database which has a unique identifier associated with every person who appears on the electoral roll, and then I will, having verified through the physical examination of something like your passport, securely give you that identifier and some associated credentials…oh bollocks. We’re here again, aren’t we?

T: I’m afraid so.

A: And we haven’t even got to the bit where any attempt at online democratic participation is going to be holed below the waterline morally, and possibly legally, when so much of our population doesn’t have decent Internet access anyway?

T: I’m glad you got there before Cyberdoyle did.

A: Quite. One for a future conversation?

T: With pleasure.

Achilles and the Tortoise do Identity Management


Tortoise: What?


Tortoise: I don’t want one.


Tortoise: Fair enough. Where’s my identifier then?


T: I’m Tortoise. Can’t you see?



A: For the purpose of this dialogue…

T: OK OK, here…

A: Thank you. Here’s your identifier.






A: In an envelope to your house.













T: Ah, yes, of course. Carry on.





A: Ah, but if you’re got nothing to hide…


A: Right.







T: But?


T: Why not?




T: Did I?



A: Fuck. Rumbled.

(with apologies to Lewis Carroll, and especially Douglas Hofstadter)

You can read more whimsy from these two here.