Security/Contextual Identity Project: Difference between revisions

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<blockquote style="background:#eee;padding:3px;">Who am I?</blockquote>
<blockquote style="background:#eee;padding:3px;">"I am large, I contain multitudes." -- Walt Whitman, <em>Leaves of Grass</em> [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1322/1322-h/1322-h.htm]</blockquote>


That's a good question, and not simple to answer. It largely depends on the context in which this question is asked.
Whitman was not speaking of multiple personality disorder, but rather of the human tendency to present different aspects of self to different people. For example, many people want to keep professional and personal lives separate, or at least want to maintain different types of relationships (and thus share different information) with acquantainces versus say, parents. This problem has surfaced many times over the years: Carl Jung called this persona theory [http://helpingpsychology.com/jungian-theory-of-the-persona], Erving Goffman called it impression management [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impression_management], and more recently Lucas Adamski called it contextual identity [http://blog.mozilla.org/ladamski/2010/07/contextual-identity/].


<blockquote style="background:#eee;padding:3px;">
Managing these different personas is easier in meatspace than online. In meatspace, there are more clues about how your information will be shared, most information will eventually be forgotten, and information leakage is easier to track and contain. By contrast, intuiting the total amount of personal information shared online that can be inferred via a vast array of technologies (cookies, web bugs, search engines, user-supplied application data, log data) is difficult. Yet many users would like the convenience of chatting, posting, gaming, and otherwise participating in all their multiple identities or personas without the cognitive burden of preventing information leakage between them.
"One could say, with little exaggeration, that the persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is." – Carl Jung [http://helpingpsychology.com/jungian-theory-of-the-persona]
</blockquote>


So maybe I want different web sites or apps or people to see me as a different identity.  Some of this probably comes from the desire to keep ones' social circles separate. Perhaps more comes from the desire to keep professional and personal lives separate. Perhaps this is the feel of "privacy" people feel when interacting with groups or organizations [http://blog.mozilla.org/ladamski/2010/07/contextual-identity/].
Firefox already has several features that enable users to manage contextual identities. There is a profile manager that allows users to have multiple sets of cookies, bookmarks, addons, and anything else in local storage [http://mzl.la/LL5Dxl]. Unfortunately it's too much work for people [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=214675#c53]. There's also Private Browsing Mode [http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1929828], which isn't quite right either.


This sounds simple enough: allow people to switch between profiles.  We tried that [http://mzl.la/LL5Dxl].  It's too much work for people [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=214675#c53].  People use Private Browsing Mode for this [http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1929828].  That's clunky.
We need to understand what people really want before we can create software to serve them.  It's not about how people can operate our software, but rather how the software can operate as people expect. A large problem with complex systems like the Web is that peoples' expectations of how their identity and data is treated do not match up to reality.   


We need to understand what people really want before we can create software to serve them.  It's not about how people can operate our software, but rather how the software can operate as people expect it to.  A large problem with complex systems like the Web is that peoples' expectations of how their identity and data is treated do not match up to reality. 
This project aims to discover exactly what people expect and identify ways to help the browser close this gap between what they want and how the web works.
 
This project aims to define exactly what people expect and identify ways to help the browser close this gap between what they want and how the web works.


= Plan =
= Plan =
Line 31: Line 27:
Deliverables:
Deliverables:


; Relationship to Manifesto : This project is core to the values held by Mozilla, and here's why.  
; Relationship to Manifesto : This project is core to the values held by Mozilla.  
; Hypothesis and Estimated Outcome : Problem statement, criteria for measuring results.
; Hypothesis and Estimated Outcome : Problem statement, criteria for measuring results.
; Research plan : What kind of investigation is necessary and what resources are needed.
; Research plan : What kind of investigation is necessary and what resources are needed.

Revision as of 18:21, 18 September 2012

"I am large, I contain multitudes." -- Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass [1]

Whitman was not speaking of multiple personality disorder, but rather of the human tendency to present different aspects of self to different people. For example, many people want to keep professional and personal lives separate, or at least want to maintain different types of relationships (and thus share different information) with acquantainces versus say, parents. This problem has surfaced many times over the years: Carl Jung called this persona theory [2], Erving Goffman called it impression management [3], and more recently Lucas Adamski called it contextual identity [4].

Managing these different personas is easier in meatspace than online. In meatspace, there are more clues about how your information will be shared, most information will eventually be forgotten, and information leakage is easier to track and contain. By contrast, intuiting the total amount of personal information shared online that can be inferred via a vast array of technologies (cookies, web bugs, search engines, user-supplied application data, log data) is difficult. Yet many users would like the convenience of chatting, posting, gaming, and otherwise participating in all their multiple identities or personas without the cognitive burden of preventing information leakage between them.

Firefox already has several features that enable users to manage contextual identities. There is a profile manager that allows users to have multiple sets of cookies, bookmarks, addons, and anything else in local storage [5]. Unfortunately it's too much work for people [6]. There's also Private Browsing Mode [7], which isn't quite right either.

We need to understand what people really want before we can create software to serve them. It's not about how people can operate our software, but rather how the software can operate as people expect. A large problem with complex systems like the Web is that peoples' expectations of how their identity and data is treated do not match up to reality.

This project aims to discover exactly what people expect and identify ways to help the browser close this gap between what they want and how the web works.

Plan

This project will take three phases and produce clearly thought out revisions to Firefox and perhaps the web platform and identity-related efforts at Mozilla.

Principal Investigator
Monica Chew
Additional Team Members
Sid Stamm

Contextual identity plan.png

Phase I: Problem Definition

The Firefox Vision Statement says, "People seek to regain more control over their online lives and expect more nuanced and contextual relationships with other people, websites and applications -- to share what they want about themselves on their own terms."

Deliverables:

Relationship to Manifesto
This project is core to the values held by Mozilla.
Hypothesis and Estimated Outcome
Problem statement, criteria for measuring results.
Research plan
What kind of investigation is necessary and what resources are needed.

Phase II: Research and Study

Deliverables:

Catalog of Related Work
other work in this area.
User Research Papers
What we learn from studying our users.
Design Requirements / Use Cases
things we need to make our products live up to users' expectations.

Phase III: Implementation

Deliverables: (list is a work in progress)

Pr Feature Team Stage Directly Responsible Individual Theme
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