Persona Prime

So I ignored the signs about identity. I waffled back and forth trying to create privacy on important things like home addresses while trying to maintain my brand. In a way I was forced into it. Whenever anyone hears the name Silona and they know me – they assume it is me. It’s a reasonable assumption. But when some students of mine discovered silona.ch, I realized I had more to do. Silona.ch was a porn site for a dominatrix in the Czech Republic. Unfortunately she never showed her face and hard dark hair and a similar build to mine. Everyone seemed to believe me that it wasn’t me but.. the seeds of doubt were there. I knew I had to work more on creating and preserving my own identity. And I was tired of addressing the issue – “no that isn’t me…”

So I gave up on privacy. For me it had become a lost cause. So many sites and agencies wanted my address and phone. It had accidentally been published. So many things depended on my SSN and name. I had already been stalked once and because of that Dad and I had done concealed handgun classes together. (Yes I own 4 guns. Yes I am a Texan and a military brat.) I realized privacy as secrecy was a thing of the past – it just took me awhile to completely accept it.

I know it’s hard. I mean I do large scale databases for a living.

So I went looking for a way to fix it… my first attempt was a royal failure.  I realized things don’t just need to be available.  They need to be equitable.

As individuals, the electronic medium was forcing us to be transparent to businesses and government but they did not have to report back to us.

I decided to strive to create more equitable relationships.  Step was get government transparent… step two was business.  But I didn’t tell many people.  See in 2004 in Texas – most people already thought I was a little “unrealistic.” (to put  it nicely.)

Recently though I refocused.  Now I am focused on citations for government documents, creating citable data, and openbanking.

So I keep rewatching that clip of “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJJN9qwhkkE the bank run…

And I can’t help but think about how intertwined it all is.  This notion of trust and banking and how it doesn’t work without trust…

So what is trust?

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Trust

So a bunch of people are throwing around the word “Open” lately and I have to admit I am more than a bit offended by its abuse.

I think the biggest irony currently is Adobe’s use of the word considering their PDF’s are some of the most closed items on the planet as far as govt publications are concerned. I think I would be more supportive if they actually OPENED that up.

And of course you have another noxious offender Facebook claiming their API is “OPEN.” Check out Louis Grey’s post of definitions http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/10/blurry-picture-of-open-apis-standards.html

I purposely stopped saying “TRANSPARENT Government” a few years back even though I had been using the term since 2004. (and had registered just about every domainURL version under the sun) Basically, I realized just having the data available somewhere buried on the site was not enough. It had to be easily accessible as well. So I jumped on the “OPEN” bandwagon. And started referring to “Open Government” instead of transparent government.

But I also found that term to be lacking as well and created a new word for what I wanted. CITABILITY – which goes beyond available or accessible. It has set definitions. It must be citable also. This has a long and fairly well defined history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citable – So it creates a stronger term that is less subject to abuse.  And defines a specific goal.

Add to the term “citability” – the specifications on the website citability.org and the implementations being posted to citability.pbworks.com and you have a more enforceable definition. That I am hoping a community of people will support.

Also add in the time date stamp portions and you have versioning and accountability. This makes “citability” goes way past the generalized concept of “OPEN” and creates something specific.

I think we need to be careful about using such fluid terms…

(and since a silona blog post wouldn’t be complete without a reverse navel gazing about how I make be doing the same mistake i am critiquing…)

Which makes me ponder posting a better definition of “OPENBANKING” I want to incorporate the best of OPEN in regards to banking to create EARNED trust.

Time to make a quick ruleset. Since I am inventing this term and all and being one of the first to blog about it. (at least so far as I have found anyhow )

Now Adobe… let’s talk about Citability and standards in regards to your PDF’s… I’m sure we can figure something out to not just help you to be OPEN but Citable as well. I know you guys aren’t actually evil in regards to this just monolithic which results in being slow.

I was reading an interesting blog post today http://www.fiercecontentmanagement.com/story/can-we-control-records-cloud/2009-10-20

Where he basically ponders the loss of control of data… esp in regards to the cloud.

The current scenario of you (individuals, businesses, groups etc) uploading all your information onto the cloud without proper contractual safeguards means that you have no control over your data…

This is why I am arguing we need to have mutual ownership of data. The multiple parties get to have a traceroute of thier mutual owned data. We can see who has touched it and where it has been. That portion becomes immutable (and if the data is important enough hashed and tagged in multiple locations for verification purposes.)

We can then create contracts with these cloud entities about individual ownership and force them to acknowledge our mutual ownership of the data.

Currently you give aware tons and tons of money every day! Why do you think google and facebook is worth Billions? because you GAVE it to them (forever and ever amen.) Every single idle thought, your favorite movies, your friends listing, your best friend listing, your address, your email, your game playing behavior, every thing you would never give a survey or the government – you have given to them AND most importantly SIGNED THE RIGHT TO THEM. and yea honey – that is worth some serious cash because it is some serious power.

We need a Creative Commons style contract for all this data. So that we can create some checks and balances here!

because it gets scarier than Google and Facebook (how can it get worse that a behavioral profile of all my searches?)

well it can become a profile of how you spend your money (credit cards, shoppingcards) which could effect your credit rating (hello thoughtcrime?)

or your gps data (hello ATT – or have we forgotten about them giving everything away without a search warrant?)

There is a reason Sandy Pentland calls datamining on gps data “reality mining.” Because there is NOTHING more revealing that is being gathered on you today… and nothing worth more money!

take ownership! get paid for it! sue for damages when it is stolen or misused!

1) How can you tell when you do not fully own the data? when people can lie to you about it #dataownership #openbank

2) How do you know data is mutually owned? When at least two parties are needed to verify it as true #dataownership #openbank

3) I am amazed at the people/businesses who are offended at the idea of “mutually owned” data then complain about “false” data

I wrote these as simple ways to explain the concept of mutually owned data. It seems there are many people who feel that data is like an object and only has one owner.

I think most data is created and is actually more like a child with parents. Those parents have responsibilities to the child data they create. Good parents understand accountability and citability. Bad parents let their data roam around abused and used and often corrupted

metrics metrics metrics

With an openbank I get to prove a concept with the most old fashioned metric there is – money…

for what is money than the most generally accepted metric?

I want to educate people about the ownership of their data. No better way than to attach it to their money.
Show them that Data is the new money.
No better way to prove to businesses that people care than to make alot of money off of it.
No better way to get other banks to follow suit than to take money away from them.

yep I am a bit of a more pragmatic gal these days…

Doing more research on my Open Banking proposal (due in less that a week) and I am noticing many females coming to sisterly similar conclusions. This is very odd to me coming from the world of computer programming and gaming as well as politics. There just aren’t very many gals…

I also have thought of the banking industry as nothing but men… and yet these new concepts are all being reflected in women’s work. I’m not gonna preach but that does say something to me and makes me feel oddly happy and confident to see so many new sisters.

Kristin Moyer at Gartner

http://blogs.gartner.com/kristin_moyer/2009/09/15/customers-as-co-creators-of-innovation-in-banking/#comment-5513

Cate Long at Riski

http://shopyield.com/?p=5017

Kate Niederhoffer at Dachis Group
@katenieder

http://socialabacus.blogspot.com/

nifty!

And I have much to think about…

The biggest issue is me needing to be a bit more heads down for some of my work. it is an issue of priorities… and time…

I have been doing way too much, for way too long, for way too little money. It is simply not sustainable.

I thought long and hard about what matters most to me and what my CORE goals are…

It is hard to leave something I have worked so hard on for 5 years. But it is time to retire the Transparent Federal Budget and to rethink the role of the League of Technical Voters.

I think the time is now for the OurOpenBank. It is going to mean a drastic change for my work/social sphere. And I have to get up to speed on some topics I never really thought I would study. But it is important and my new priority. I have seen way too many signs of the dangers up head.

Just like when I saw how to run political campaigns in 94, MMOs in 98, and transparent govt in 04. It is time. Mutual ownership of data is the next thing and the only way to have true control over an ever changing fractionated identity.

I believe an open bank is the best way to go about this.

I know this will disappoint some people and I am sorry. But I am not sad that I have worked on these projects for the past 5 yrs and I did change the way some very important people saw possibilites. I mean when I started everyone told me I was nuts and yet I was able to reach and exchange ideas with some amazing minds.

I am not stopping on my mission to make the world a better place. I simply feel like for a time I got caught in the details without remembering the fundamental reason I started doing Transparent Government is the first place.

I started because of concern for the individual’s pursuit of happiness. I started because of my concerns of loss of privacy and social structures. I started because I perceived a dangerous inequality. This is a continuation of that story. It is more linear than just the concept of “government” this is going to hit people where it hurts the most – money.

I will start again here.

http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail4222.html

Phil gets me to talk about steps 4 and 5 for the openbank as well!

And jokes about this week being @silona week at itconversations

http://www.windley.com/archives/2009/08/silona_bonewald_week_on_it_conversations.shtml

now just need to write up both my posts for O’Reilly Radar! and then no geek alive can miss seeing my picture on the two topics of Citability and OpenBanking!

also some reference links from things I talk about…

http://freerisk.org

http://reality.media.mit.edu/

http://www.leighbureau.com/speaker.asp?id=455

and I guess I should put something up at ouropenbank.com and .org since I own them but not yet I think… I will make them point here for now.

This is the 10 year plan I created in 2004

1) transparent govt
2) transparent business
3) introduce checks and balances in behavior
and create legal constructs when social norms fail

I started on all this because I am “Silona Bonewald” the only one in the world and I am a database geek. So I realized with the nature of things as they become electronic – privacy thru obscurity is gone. We needed a new (might I say better) type of checks and balances. And decided to start making govt and businesses more transparent.

When I started I didn’t talk much about business – everyone thought I was crazy enough in regards to govt. But now with the crash and such… I am not looking as crazy.

This is why I do allllll the crazy projects I do…
this is my theme!