In the real world, we present different aspects of ourselves in different environments: home, work, family, friends, school, etc. Why can’t we do this in the virtual world, as well? While marketers love to identify us with unique identifiers so they can track us mercilessly, there are tools we can use that will allow us to compartmentalize our digital lives just like we can in the real world. Today we’ll discuss the notion of decentralized identity with Dr. Paul Ashley, CTO of Anonyome Labs who runs the MySudo service.

Interview Notes

• MySudo: https://anonyome.com/individuals/mysudo/ 
• Anonyome Labs: https://anonyome.com/ 
• Open Wallet Foundation: https://openwallet.foundation/ 
• Verifiable Credentials (W3C): https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model/ 
• Privacy is Power interview: https://podcast.firewallsdontstopdragons.com/2024/11/25/privacy-is-power-2/ 
• EFF on digital wallets: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/09/digital-id-isnt-everybody-and-thats-okay

Further Info

• Recommend news stories: send to news [at] firewallsdontstopdragons.com 
• Send me your questions! https://fdsd.me/qna 
• Check out my book, Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons: https://fdsd.me/book 
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• Become a patron! https://www.patreon.com/FirewallsDontStopDragons 
• Get your Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons Merch! https://fdsd.me/merch 
• Give the gift of privacy and security: https://fdsd.me/coupons 
• Support our mission! https://fdsd.me/support 
• Generate secure passphrases! https://d20key.com/#/ 

Table of Contents

Use these timestamps to jump to a particular section of the show.

• 0:00:14: Intro
• 0:00:38: Getting more non-US news stories
• 0:02:44: Still waiting on big winner to reply
• 0:03:15: Intervew setup
• 0:05:23: How did Anonyome Labs get started?
• 0:12:20: Which identifiers are most valuable for tracking people?
• 0:15:19: Can you explain “de-centralized IDs ” and “identity wallets”?
• 0:24:28: Are there open standards for digital ID?
• 0:29:20: Can digital ID be used to privately verify your age online?
• 0:32:18: Can email relay companies see all your emails?
• 0:36:31: How about using a custom domain for creating email aliases?
• 0:38:50: Don’t a lot of sites reject email and phone numbers from alias services?
• 0:43:17: Do social media companies allow you to have multiple accounts?
• 0:46:37: What about ad ID’s and fingerprinting?
• 0:51:21: What happens if your virtual ID company goes bad or goes dark?
• 0:55:36: Can I trust the virtual ID companies with my privacy?
• 0:59:07: Are there downsides or gotchas to using services like these?
• 1:00:51: How can we convince companies to respect our privacy?
• 1:04:48: What else is MySudo working on?
• 1:07:41: Interview wrap-up
• 1:08:17: Patron preview
• 1:08:42: Looking ahead