Verifying Identity as a Social Intersection

In the context of RxC's Social Identity, a paper titled "Verifying Identity as a Social Intersection" was introduced. The paper is authored by Nicole Immorlica from Microsoft Research, Matthew O. Jackson from Stanford University, and E. Glen Weyl from Microsoft Research and RadicalxChange Foundation. The paper can be accessed at .

The abstract of the paper discusses the current state of "Digital Identity," which is mostly centralized (issued by governments) or individualistic (Self-Sovereignty). The concept of "Identity" only holds meaning in the context of society and is inherently Intersectional. The paper proposes a system that defines, verifies, and utilizes identity through a Web of Trust, drawing inspiration from this concept.

The main text of the paper explores the idea that while individual pieces of information may not hold much value, they can be used to establish uniqueness over a longer period of time. For example, knowing that Matt spoke to Nicole on October 23rd and to Glen on October 15th, and that he was at Microsoft New England on November 6th and in Ecuador on November 8th, provides a combination of facts unique to Matt. The paper suggests that demonstrating uniqueness by revealing only a part of one's identity without disclosing too much about oneself is sufficient.

The paper also discusses the concept of trust in relation to identity. It questions whether the trust we place in others based on limited information, such as someone having a Devcon sticker on their Mac or being able to create memes, is similar to the trust we have in someone because they share a part of our Intersection of Society. It introduces the concept of "intimate circles," where each circle holds internally shared but externally private information.

Before the emergence of modern centralized authorities like nation-states and corporations, identity took the form of these intimate circles, where a large intersection of shared fragments of individual identities existed within cohesive communities. This system can be labeled as "communal identity." However, the closeness of these intimate circles made identity highly localized, making it difficult for outsiders to distinguish or trust community members.

To mark unique identities without the ability to record the richness and complexity of social identity within communities, nation-states and corporations simplified identity into abstract forms such as name and surname pairs, fingerprints, birthplaces, and identification numbers. This simplified form of identity, which is achieved by centralizing identity, is explicit but lacks security and is vulnerable to a single point of failure. The paper criticizes this system as being "thin" and lacking in "pluralism" in identity.

The paper proposes an approach that reflects *How to verify other people's claims outside of formal systems based on formal identity. For example, if a manager wants to verify that a job applicant has worked in a certain role at a company during a specific period, the manager may make several phone calls. If the manager knows and trusts someone from the company the applicant claims to have worked for, they can directly call that person to confirm the applicant's claim. If the job is particularly important and the manager requires high reliability, they may seek confirmation from multiple sources. If the manager does not personally know anyone from the company, they may call a trusted friend who is believed to know someone from the company and ask about the level of trust they have in that person. If there is sufficient trust, the friend can verify the applicant's claim. The more important it is for the manager to verify the applicant's claim, the higher the trust in such sources, and the use of independent multiple sources becomes possible.

The paper provides a brief explanation of the Web of Trust, where individuals create Party and sign it as a network of trust. Approaches like Idena's Proving Family Relationships with Genome Codes of Hash Values (discussed in the paper "Who Watches the Watchmen? A Review of Subjective Approaches for Sybil-resistance in Proof of Personhood Protocols") are examples of this approach. The trust network itself becomes more trusted. This concept is similar to Federated identity.

The level of information shared and with whom it is shared depends on the context in which it is queried. It can be seen as an internal version of "秘密の質問" (secret question) within a specific group.