credentials and custodianship
Historically, systems of government and economy have forged means through which, by way of financial instruments, exchange is made possible by terms in which may furnish protections to participants, by law.
The instruments used as an embodiment of value included different forms of stamp (such as a postmark), the practice of minting tokens (such as currency), that may or may not be worth their weight in gold; and various other forms of controlled ‘tokens’, ‘creative embodiments’ such as ‘certificates’, passports and other more modern forms of legal instrument such as electronic cards and licenses. These legal instruments are most-often owned by the issuer of the credential; who provides it to the holder of the credential whilst maintaining the ability to cancel it and/or protect the instrument from misuse.
In this way, the definition of personhood is instrumentally provided authoritative notations that form relations between self and external groups whose participatory governance role, provides assurance, and the means to maintain a form of insurance, as is sought by others, in relation to their fiduciary responsibilities pertaining to self and any role of agent they may be facilitating at a time of trade.
Internet has brought about circumstances where former means, have been outmoded. ICT systems have been adapted to make use of our international systems of knowledge economy; whilst still failing to render meaningfully responsive service, to an array of unmet challenges.
Some of these challenges include the means in which the notation of human reputation, contribution and socioeconomic participation is made; in systems of international ‘high-frequency’ trade. Where new instruments that render meaningful service to a ‘beneficial owner’, become moreover attributable to ‘surveillance’ and ‘attention’ related information exchanges by way of their agents, with few otherwise technically available options, having been explored or made easily available.
Today, many social network service (SNS) platform providers have a persistent electronic relationship with users worldwide; whilst there continues to be a built-upon fallacy, that the exchange of providing access to the predetermined and asymmetrically defined, universal environment; without financial charge (other than purchase of equipment and the on-going payment for subscribing to make use of the environment) is the only alternative in an environment that is now inextricably depended upon, for socioeconomic participation. Whilst these systems make use of data to benefit their commercial purpose, it remains the case that a significant variety of alternative use-cases are left without support.
Complicating matters further; As the means in which the information orchestration corpus is now operated; necessarily providing any and all knowledge to be transmitted, stored and made use of by them; artificial agents, owned and operated by them, designed to serve their needs, influence how it all works.
This situation is in-turn built upon, the implicit (rather than explicit) promissory ‘message’ that their environment – is indeed ‘fit for purpose’ for the beneficial use of personhood as to seek means in which to be made independently free, from all encumbrances be otherwise entitled to be attributed. In so doing, as we battle with issues such as fake news and ‘autocorrect’ issues (but not exclusive to it), our online systems furnish us with the right to define by way of express instruction; the means in which, ‘for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries’.
Technologically, it is the case, that the capabilities of the systems used and depended upon; are more capable of rendering a definition of what any such ‘discovery’ may be considered to have been beneficially ‘invented’ prior to any such human actor being made capable to undertake the necessary process as to complete their writings in independence for the purpose of seeking claim for any-such right.
Making matters more complicated; is the implication of legal means in which these ‘services’ are made useful by context to systems of law and diplomacy and inferred, lesser expressly considerations as they pertain to geopolitical stability and means in which to foster the works first documented by the means of international works undertaken in relation to the united nations, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”).
Through the use of credentials the means in which to associate group attributions as to make useful personhood; is now therefore performed. The issues of whether and/or how, ‘autocorrect’ or other artificial intelligence related services influenced communications and available ‘knowledge’, is being inextricably shaped by the operating characteristics of these systems. As it is the case, that autocorrect issues; and the practical process of fixing them, assists the operator to improve their artificial intelligence service; and that moreover, the principle driver of revenue is advertising as obtained through views and clicks, our world is being shaped through these narrow lens, world-wide; and the issue of ‘credentials’ or ‘verifiable claims’ has never, consequentially, been more important..
Verifiable claims and Economics
In our knowledge based economy the means in qualification or endorsement as to serve the interests of group/s, of various forms; makes use of “official” documents, keys or insignia in which participants in groups, furnish individuals with ‘instruments’, designed to denote a skill, competency, privileged and/or membership, as required for privileged participatory rights in some way shape or form. Similarly ‘proofs’ be by so means provided a means to warrant that a particular creative work is considered to not have formerly been embodied. Credentials form a means in which to present a claim, that is considered to be verified by a relevant authority who shares custodianship over the use of that claim.
Yet when considering the nuanced characteristics in which ‘electronic commons’ for the social benefits, as formerly facilitated in many ways, such as libraries, language and the irrelevance of extending these concept to a new electronic domain, the means to author, review, maintain, archive and make accessible; both old and new forms of commons, is needed to ensure access to articles of the natural world is both free and a shared responsibility.
In the production of these tools, services and bodies of work, that furnishes the means in which humanity is made able to learn; the practice of transferring notations into our infosphere is now also used for the contextual purpose of making available persistent accessibility to agents.
The context of which ‘electronic commons’ extends the ‘knowledge’ of microscopic and macroscopic natural world as a series of electronic embodiments of objects to universally make use of; As such, civics custodianship frameworks are required to address considerations as to the manner in which the underlying artefact of our natural world, be maintained and made accessible to all.
Through the use of ledger technology, that makes use of linked-data, the means to notate an array of disparate data-sources within a singular document provides a method to inter-lay information sources; that may include but not be limited to, sources made available by commercial means.
Ledger technology is also assistive, in decentralising the governance and discovery of electronic documents and the knowledge embodied by them.
In so-doing, a requirement that is brought about, where any commercial actor to both assist in the free propagation of natural world knowledge accessibility, can be responded to; as to simply notate the natural world, rather than seeking necessarily to take sole and/or proprietary custodianship of its accessibility / discoverability in the broader environment.
Through the use of various forms of decentralised ledger technology, the manner in which the discovery and informatics storage methods be considered to be rendered support for these elements pertaining to the humanitarian and artificial realms; is by way of ledger technology, whilst preferentially considerate of linked-data based decentralised ledger technologies such as IPFS, IPLD, Web Torrent alongside others.
Accessibility to these ledgers is made possible, in-effect, by way of credentials. The credentials interact with the knowledge-source as to permissively assert relations in connection to the supply of information that pertains to the specified form of knowledge that source is maintaining. Inforgs are also expected to support the means in which to supply high-quality statistical information alongside an array of other new forms of data that can be supplied in a ‘privacy preserving’ manner through the use of federated services.