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Ask HN: Thoughts on anonymous identity provider idea
9 points by macca321 on Jan 18, 2012 | hide | past | favorite | 3 comments
One of the big problems with online anonymous identity is that you have no way of evaluating trustworthiness of an anonymous person. I have this idea for a service which can solve this.

Basically, if there existed an open id provider site which:

- allows you to generate an anonymous identity with a single click for each online service when they ask you to authorize, or use an existing one

- has an API allowing sites using this authorisation mechanism to discover certain data about you without compromising your identity, e.g. has a valid facebook identity, has verified a phone number/credit card, is actually a software engineer looking for a job etc.

This would allow you do do things like establish trust (like on airbnb), block spammers but allow anon comments, etc.

- would you use such a service as a user?

- would you use such a service as an auth mechanism for your site?

- how would you get traction for this idea?

- how would you build a business around this?

- have any other thoughts?

cheers!



I suspect that Joe Public will care as much about this as they do about their Facebook privacy.


Well you start with the paranoid early adopters, don't you?


May paranoid early adopters be already conditioned to use free-as-in-beer services?




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