Who are you? How do you reveal your identity?

via Doc Searls, found Kim Cameron's Identity Weblog and he has just added a 5th Law of Identity in an effort to form a Universal Identity System.

There are good ideas on how to do this. Once you read and start thinking about the implications the affect that the pending decisions will have on future life will be enormous. More from Doc on identity can be found here.

As a blogger, and you reading a blog, you and I understand that we reveal a little of ourselves each time we post. If we were to meet in person, our first impressions would be added to what we have already read and stored on each other. As we continued our relationship, these bits would be added to the storehouse on what we know of the other. These relationships take time to build. Hence, the dating game, the pre-engagement, then engagement, then wedding preparation before the actual day and the new life begins for a couple.

The time line changes quickly in this technology world. How we reveal the information about ourselves to each other could be akin to walking up to someone and doing the trenchcoat flash, or stripping down to our birthday suit, or standing in our bithday suit with a series of flashcards folding out and telling our life story.

As I read it, the point of the 5 laws thus outlined by Kim would make this process more like strip poker, a layer at a time (and only just a layer at a time) until we have provided enough information to be acknowledged or accepted. This I could live with.

Are you ready?