asserting a specific name is always the same biophysical person?” If we reflect on the discussion about identity in Chapter 9, what we’re really considering is the mechanism through which to establish an anchored persona.

Given the differential identity registry established through the census, a necessary addition to provide for experiential identity is a policy infrastructure allowing for the creation and operation of trusted third parties. Today’s best technological approach to this infrastructure is the establishment of a public key infrastructure such as we discussed in some detail in Chapter 8 and in Chapter 9. This entails the creation of a means to build a hierarchy of trusted third parties that emanates from a root organization that forms the base of the hierarchy. In practice, it is plausible to consider a collection of independent hierarchies, each with its own root organization. To simplify our current discussion, however, let’s consider a single hierarchy that is grounded in some federal agency that parallels the Bureau of the Census. We suggest a federal agency because, given the critical nature of the public key infrastructure and its constituent transcendent personal devices, the consequences of abrogation of the policy under which the infrastructure and devices are provided should be correspondingly profound. Such consequences may constitute an overwhelming level of risk for any organization that doesn’t benefit from the concept of sovereign immunity. So, for the moment, let’s assume that the device is derived from a government agency, perhaps akin to a driver license. For example, we might consider establishing it in a context similar to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They are charged with storage, protection and study of the most virulent disease manifestations on the planet. Some of their methods may also be trusted to store the root keys of a public key infrastructure.

Whatever organizational niche it shows up in, once the root key of a public key infrastructure is in place, we’re in a position to establish subsequent identification of trusted third parties. We might suggest creation of the first such trusted third party as the “Book of Life.” While it’s highly unlikely that this particular entity would ever actually be fielded under this name, given the hallowed position the name holds within the traditions of Christianity, it in fact conveys the desired concept with iconic purity. To establish a high degree of trust through reputation, we need a reliable means of associating differential identity with experiential identity, including a reliable archive of experiences. Hence, we will use the term as an attempt at clarity within this discussion.

So, let’s think of the registration of an anchored persona associated with a differential identity. This digital persona will allow the third party to assert a name on the Web while the digital differential identity marker lets us mutually authenticate our interaction to that name in a highly trusted manner. In addition, trusted records of transactions engaged through this anchored persona can be preserved. This requires a few steps to accomplish.

To first establish a digital persona and differential identity marker, we ask the Book of Life to grant us a public and private key pair that is associated with our biometric differential identity. Remembering our earlier consideration of public key cryptography, we know that our digital name (that is, the public key from the key pair) can be freely disseminated. This now forms a digital metaphorical reference to us on the Web. The private key, however, is then our digital differential identity marker. If someone else besides us has this private key, then they can masquerade as us on the Web. So, the truly trusted way for the Book of Life to deliver our digital identity to us is within the secure form of our own transcendent personal device. How does it do this?

Well, within the confines of the Book of Life physical location there can be unassigned transcendent personal devices. To provision (remember the discussion in Chapter 8) this device for a specific person, the public and private key pair can be generated within the secure core agent

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