Xebec
A three-masted sailing ship of the Mediterranean: lateen-rigged, narrow in the hull, and fast enough that corsairs favoured it.
An old question, asked with new equipment.
Mike Kiser writes here about identity: who you are, who gets to say so, and what it costs. Often that means digital systems, because that is where the argument is currently loudest. It also means history and philosophy, because the question is a great deal older than the technology.
Essays
All essaysThe Death of Authenticity
Authenticity is being undermined, and not just by technology.
13 Dec 2024 TechnologyShared Signals, and Thanks for All the Fish
Fifteen species of dolphin fish cooperatively with people. An argument for security systems that tell each other what they see.
03 Jun 2022 TechnologyIt’s Not Fair! Detecting Algorithmic Bias with Open Source Tools
Algorithms now shape bail decisions and transplant lists. The open-source tools that make them explainable enough to argue with.
15 Apr 2022 TechnologyCall Me Mark Jannell: The Future of Bring Your Own Identity
An assumed name that stuck for eighteen months, and what it cost when the truth came out. On bringing your own identity.
08 Apr 2021 TechnologyNow With More Privacy! The Rise of Nutritional Labelling and Customer Choice
Apple put nutrition labels on apps. A bank printing its own would first have to know what data it holds, and who can reach it.
Elsewhere
Talks usually arrive before the essay. The essay is the argument after it survived questions.
Speaking
Full listBridging the Gap: Verified Trust for All Identities
European Identity Conference. , 2026
Bringing It All Together: Harnessing the CAEPabilities With Event-Driven IAM
Identiverse. , 2025
AI, Do You Know Me? Identity in the Age of Intelligent Systems
European Identity Conference. , 2025
Open work
All projectsDigital Estate Roles
A sourced reference for when legal authority over a person, their property and their digital estate is assigned, when it starts and when it ends — powers of attorney, health-care agents, guardians, executors, digital-asset fiduciaries, benefits payees and organ-donation decision makers, across nine countries. Primary law and official policy only. Research for the OpenID Death and the Digital Estate effort.
Sigillo
An iOS camera that signs a photograph at the moment of capture — C2PA Content Credentials and an RFC 3161 timestamp embedded before the image is ever shown, asserting that this was made by a lens on this device. The inverse of Ruse: rather than breaking recognition, it makes provenance travel with the file.
Shared-Signals.Dev
A working demonstration of the Shared Signals Framework, transmitter and receiver both, against the current event profiles. Forked from the SGNL.ai receiver and opened up so the standard can be tried rather than only read.