Identosphere 224: IIW XL (40) Highlights and transitioning

Thank You for Staying with Us During Our Brief Hiatus

We’re grateful for your continued support as Identosphere transitions into a new phase. My longtime collaborator, Infominer, has stepped back from newsletter production after experiencing a personal health crisis. I want to express deep gratitude for his incredible contributions over the past four years, and I wish him health and happiness on his journey ahead.

Moving forward, I’ll be continuing the newsletter with the support of my consulting partner, Lucy Yang. Together, we are integrating Idenosphere into our broader consulting practice—this will allow us to bring you more consistent updates along with insights from our client work and community engagements.

At the recent Internet Identity Workshop (IIW), Lucy and I had the opportunity to connect with many of you. Your feedback was invaluable, especially your enthusiasm for learning more about our consulting projects and industry insights via the newsletter.

We’re currently working to refine the newsletter format, and we welcome your input! If you have any suggestions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly at kaliya@identitywoman.net.

Finally, a heartfelt thank-you to our Patreon supporters. We’re pausing Patreon for now, but your contributions have meant a lot.

In this issue, I’ve included highlights from IIW XL (40) and a roundup of key developments in the digital identity space over the past month.

• Kaliya “Identity Woman” Young

IIW XL Highlights

The 40th Internet Identity Workshop was a tremendous success! As Alex Andrade-Walz shared on LinkedIn, IIW continues to be "where the architects of digital identity and trust gather to share knowledge, collaborate on solutions, and drive innovation."

For those wanting to commemorate the event, we've updated our little dog logo for IIWXL T-shirts, now available in two styles:

• Large logo on the front

• Small Logo on the Front

  

You can also find a wider range of apparel including our original logo from IIW #1 (2005) and our classic design.

IIW Reports and Reflections

Several community members have shared their experiences and insights from IIW XL:

• Phil Windley: Internet Identity Workshop XL Report

• Doc Searls: Photos from IIW on Flickr

• Mirko Molick: Internet Identity Workshop XL was amazing!!!

• DIF: DIF covered some meaty topics at the 40th IIW

• JC Lee: What a week at IIWXL 2025!

• Andrew A. Piscione: Reflections from Internet Identity Workshop

• Martina Kolpondinos, PhD: Cake - what a way to start a LinkedIn post
  

Identity and AI: Hot Topics at IIW

The intersection of identity and artificial intelligence was a major focus at this year's workshop:

• MCP (Model Context Protocol): An emerging protocol for AI Agents to access AI/LLM resources

  • MCP Protocol: a new AI dev tools building block

  • Let's fix OAuth in MCP

• Ankur Banerjee shared critical insights on hyperpersonalization challenges: We are not ready for the Era of Hyperpersonalisation

OpenID Developments

OpenID continues to evolve with important updates shared at both the OpenID Workshop and IIW:

• Nat Sakamura: OpenID Workshop Update [30min recap on YouTube by NotebookLM]

• Mike Jones: OpenID Presentations at April 2025 OpenID Workshop and IIW

• Mike Jones: Finishing the OpenID Connect EAP ACR Values specification

Hard Questions

• What good is a credential if no one accepts it? Why digital wallets aren’t enough on their own – and what trust infrastructure actually does, MATTR

• The SSI Illusion: Why Cryptographic Identity Can’t Replace Institutional Trust, Ott Sarv

• Why eIDAS Is Not the Problem: Understanding the Bigger Picture, Ott Sarv

• The Overuse of Trust in Digital Identity, Jan Vereecken

• The Three Protocols That Could Bring Down The Internet (And Life as We Know It): DNS, PKI and BGP

Community Thought Leadership

Our community leaders continue to publish insightful content:

• George Fletcher: Components of an on-behalf-of delegation pattern

• Phil Windley's recent work on policy and identity:

  • Why Do Policy Languages Feel So Hard?

  • First Person Identity

  • Establishing First Person Digital Trust

"It Could Have Been Different" Department

Interesting perspectives on how Bluesky could take a different approach:

• Ben Werdmuller: If I Ran Bluesky Product

• Mark Atwood: Bluesky: I would have done it differently

Regulatory Progress

• Utah Blazes New Trail for SSI: SEDI - An important development in self-sovereign identity regulation

Educational Credentials

New learning opportunities in the educational credentials space:

• Open Badges 3.0 Basics: Watch, Learn, and Earn on Participate

• The Learner Credential Wallet Experience

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Note: We welcome your feedback on the newsletter's new format and focus. Please share your suggestions for improvements and topics you'd like to see covered in future editions.