> This issue of identity was an acute one for FOAF. (...) there does not exist and probably should not exist a "planet-wide system for identifying people," (...

> This issue of identity was an acute one for FOAF. (...) there does not exist and probably should not exist a "planet-wide system for identifying people," (...) > Do we trust the homepages and conclude we have two different people? Or do we trust the email addresses and conclude we have a single person? Could I really write an application capable of resolving this conflict without involving (and inconveniencing) the user? It seems the author identifies identity online as a major problem. Interestingly, the last years have witnessed significant efforts towards a concept called "self-sovereign identity" [1, 2] that tries to solve exactly this. Emerging standards at the W3C [3, 4], open source software at the Hyperledger Foundation [5], and even non-profits [6] are working globally on the technology and governance of such a system. Eventually, I think, self-sovereign identity will happen. I wonder what will be the impact on decentralized social networking. [1] http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2016/04/the-path-to-self-soverereign-identity.html [2] https://sovrin.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/The-Inevitable-Rise-of-Self-Sovereign-Identity.pdf [3] https://www.w3.org/TR/did-core/ [4] https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model/ [5] https://www.hyperledger.org/projects/hyperledger-indy [6] https://sovrin.org/