I-Names a Spam-Free E-Mail Alternative?

While the industry is left squabbling without a consensus on how to block spam, a consortium of organizations has delivered a privacy-protected global Internet address that cannot be spammed - because it is not an e-mail address.

Instead, the group seeks to eliminate spam at the fundamental level of Internet addressing. Within the next 90 days, Identity Commons, in partnership with 2idi, are offering the first 150,000 registrants who sign up for the service 50 years of exclusive ownership rights to their own "i-name."

Called i-names, the service is based upon the royalty-free XRI (Extensible Resource Identifier) standard being developed by XDI.org and a technical committee of the OASIS standards body. XRI permits recognition of identity in both a personal and generic context, without requiring a user to be federated within an organization. In essence, users control their own identity.

Federated identities only exist in the context of institutions -- which are the overlords of an individual's identity -- and not on a personal level. Standards being proposed by SAML, Liberty Alliance and WS-Federation are examples of federated identity solutions.

I-names are the first large scale implementation of XRI and are user-controlled personal contact gateways which are hosted by "i-brokers." Individual names are formatted in the syntax "=Name" and organizations are formatted as "@Organization." For instance, I would be =David and BetaNews would be @BetaNews. When used in combination the join is an asterisk, making me "@BetaNews*David."

The i-name personal contact page looks like a typical Web page, but does not reveal personal contact information such as e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, or IM screen names. Instead, visitors can use the contact page to request contact with the user. The request is verified by user's i-broker before forwarding it to the user, making spam all but impossible. This way, users can voluntarily form granular P2P-style data sharing relationships with anyone they choose to under their own terms.

Down there road, as the service matures, i-name information will be utilized by compatible services and trusted third parties for data exchange and synchronization. This eliminates the need for Plaxo-like services and enables secure single sign on for e-commerce sites. Likewise, there are rich scenarios for user-controlled, vendor-free, digital rights management; OASIS's XDI standard works hand-in-hand with XRI to enable digital asset management.

All i-name contact page requests are filtered through and verified by the user's i-broker, making unsolicited contact such as spamming nearly impossible.

I-brokers are analogous to banks that participate in the VISA credit card network. End users and organizations can shop around for their bank, but control their assets. In this instance, the banks equivalent to identity brokers, and Identity Commons -- like Visa -- sets the terms of service and is responsible for governance of its members.

"The personal contact page is the Chinese wall against spammers," said XDI.ORG President and Managing Director, Bill Washburn, "The epidemic of spam has made it nearly impossible to maintain a long-term email address. I-names and personal contact pages solve this problem at the fundamental level of Internet addressing."

XDI.ORG is a nonprofit governance authority for i-name infrastructure and is affiliated with Identity Commons. Commons is an international, non-stock membership corporation.

Identity Commons is confident that it has enough controls in place to ensure security and privacy, insisting that i-brokers will not risk being kicked out of the network. The group cites Visa's history of never having a bank expelled. "There's no gaming the system," said Identity Commons Founder Owen Davis. "Being kicked out is quite a hammer."

The verification process used by i-brokers is akin to the role served by the Internet's Domain Name Server (DNS) registrant system where centralized lists of domain name/IP addresses can be accessed by Web browsers to find a specific address. Prior to the advent of DNS and the Internet's core (TCP/IP) or the Web (HTTP) standards, services such as CompuServe and America Online could not talk to one another and data sharing was next to impossible.

To take corrective action to forestall a repeat of this scenario within the identity space, Cordance (another member of the Identity Commons consortium) and Neustar have partnered to deliver global i–name registry services based upon XRI to bridge the gaps. The registry functions as a public resolver which, put simply, looks at an i-name and sends the request to the appropriate i-broker for access.

Vince Calouri, President and CEO of Cordance, said the company partnered with NeuStar because of that company's expertise in operating global registry services, particularly for a new address that lets "users maintain a persistent, private identity that spans all networks and modes of communication."

The OASIS XRI standard, i-names and its offshoot registry service is designed to be interoperable with the products offered by today's leading single sign-on solution providers should they choose to participate. Identity Commons asserts that it has provided the last piece of the puzzle that has prevented single sign-on services from catching on, on a massive scale.

The i-names solution is equally as device agnostic. Sources have told BetaNews that i-names has provoked the interest of wireless providers in Europe. And, although it will not comment on the scope of its involvement, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is also a charter member of XRI's technical committee.

The initial offering of 150,000 i-names is essentially a fundraiser where proceeds will be used to assist in the development of open source software and services for i-names and i-brokers as well as for funding marketing campaigns to promote broad adoption of the service’s infrastructure. For the time being, registrations are in ASCII text only (internationalized i-names will be introduced early next year) and cost $25 USD for both business and individuals.

A global roll out of the system is scheduled for next February. Identity Commons expects that i-name pricing will eventually be on par with DNS name pricing.