Welcome to A Digital Identity Digest, brought to you by Heather Flanagan of Spherical Cow Consulting.
Here, we explore the evolving world of digital identity on the web. This podcast is spearheaded by Heather's expertise, where she breaks down complex concepts, shares the latest trends, and provides insightful analyses in online identity management.
Join Heather as she navigates this dynamic digital pasture, delivering content that's both informative and engaging for tech enthusiasts, digital professionals, and the curious alike.
It's time to translate geek to human.
Thanks for listening!
SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW ON APPLE PODCASTS: https://apple.co/3RO11vy
To show your support, and help others find the show, please leave me a 5-star review.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS EPISODE: https://sphericalcowconsulting.com
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LET'S CONNECT
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LINKEDIN: https://linkedin.com/in/hlflanagan
INSTAGRAM: https://instagram.com/sphericalcowconsulting
YOUTUBE: https://youtube.com/@TheDigitalCowNetwork
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Welcome to A Digital Identity Digest, brought to you by Heather Flanagan of Spherical Cow Consulting.
Here, we explore the evolving world of digital identity on the web. This podcast is spearheaded by Heather's expertise, where she breaks down complex concepts, shares the latest trends, and provides insightful analyses in online identity management.
Join Heather as she navigates this dynamic digital pasture, delivering content that's both informative and engaging for tech enthusiasts, digital professionals, and the curious alike.
It's time to translate geek to human.
Thanks for listening!
SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW ON APPLE PODCASTS: https://apple.co/3RO11vy
To show your support, and help others find the show, please leave me a 5-star review.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS EPISODE: https://sphericalcowconsulting.com
—————————
LET'S CONNECT
—————————
LINKEDIN: https://linkedin.com/in/hlflanagan
INSTAGRAM: https://instagram.com/sphericalcowconsulting
YOUTUBE: https://youtube.com/@TheDigitalCowNetwork
Digital identity wallets are becoming a central focus in global identity conversations, driven by regulatory pressure, rapid technical evolution, and growing expectations around interoperability. This episode examines how layered architectures, protocol choices, and platform behaviors shape the user experience in ways that are often misunderstood. Listeners will learn why the Digital Credentials API (DCAPI) is frequently blamed for issues it cannot control, how differing operating system and browser implementations create fragmentation, and why meaningful governance and clear technical boundaries are essential for secure, privacy-respecting digital identity ecosystems.
This episode explores the regulator’s dilemma at the heart of digital infrastructure, where accountability, compliance, and governance reshape the systems they aim to protect. Heather Flanagan examines how modern identity, critical infrastructure, and risk management challenges emerge as digital environments outgrow traditional oversight models.
Listeners will learn why compliance-era controls no longer match today’s API-driven reality, how sovereignty contributes to Internet fragmentation, and why resilience now depends on coordination and shared accountability. The discussion offers a clear, thoughtful perspective on evolving digital identity governance.
When every digital system is labeled as critical infrastructure, do we actually make the Internet safer—or just more fragile? In this episode of The Digital Identity Digest, Heather Flanagan examines the growing tension between protection, control, and interdependence in our global digital ecosystem.
Through examples from the U.S. and EU, Heather explores how expanding definitions of “critical” can blur accountability, create policy confusion, and undermine true cyber resilience. Listeners will learn why meaningful protection requires prioritization, coordination, and a more selective approach to digital infrastructure security.
A friend sent over an interesting article by Ross Haleluik that opened with "Why it’s not just power grid and water, but also tools like Stripe and Twilio that should be defined as critical infrastructure." The point made is there are some services that cause harm if they become unavailable.
For decades, standards development has been anchored in the idea that the Internet is (and should be) one global network. If we could just get everyone in the room—vendors, governments, engineers, and civil society—we could hash out common rules that worked for all.
I've been having an intellectually fascinating time diving into Internet fragmentation and how it is shaped by supply chains more than protocols. There’s another bottleneck ahead, though, one that’s even harder to reroute: people. Innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It requires human talent that builds systems and sets standards.
I had one of those chance airplane conversations recently—the kind that sticks in your mind longer than the flight itself. My seatmate was reading a book about artificial intelligence, and at one point they described the idea of an “infinitely growing AI.” I couldn’t help but giggle a bit.
Many people reading this post grew up believing and expecting in a single, borderless Internet: a vast network of networks that let us talk, share, and build without arbitrary walls. I like that model, probably because I am a globalist, but I don't think that's where the world is heading.
When not distracted by AI (which, you have to admit, is very distracting) I’ve been thinking a lot about delegation in digital identity. We have the tools that allow administrators or individuals grant specific permissions to applications and service. In theory, it’s a clean model.
With the right motivation, even I will write a blog post on a dare. And the dare I got was to write a post about what librarians and pirate captains have in common, and why it matters for standards development. (If you can’t have fun when writing, what’s the point?)
Google recently gave us something we’ve been waiting on for years: hard numbers on how much energy an AI prompt uses. According to their report, the median Gemini prompt consumes just 0.24 watt-hours of electricity — roughly running a microwave for a second — along with some drops of water for cooling.
We’ve been talking about identity and access for people for decades (millennia if you think outside tech). Policies, role assignments, reviews, zero trust — these are familiar tools. The assumptions that go into them, however, don't quite work when the "user" is no longer a person." Enter in the AI Agent.
We don’t spend much time thinking about the roads we drive on—until one cracks, collapses, or dumps us somewhere we didn’t mean to be. Identity in the age of agentic AI? Same deal. It’s infrastructure. Like a good road, it needs to be ready for traffic we can’t imagine.
Let’s start with a confession: I love bots. Or at least, I love the idea of them. They’re efficient, tireless, and, if designed well, can be downright helpful. (They can also be downright unhelpful, but that's a topic for a different blog post.) But the incentives around bot traffic are completely out of balance, and that makes things messy.
This one’s for everyone who’s ever said, "I’m not technical enough to participate in standards development."
If you’ve wondered what working group chair skills actually matter, I have news for you: you don’t need to be a spec-writing wizard to be effective. I do get it, though.
If you want to follow what's happening in AI, it helps to know where the conversations are happening. That doesn't just mean the headlines and white papers; it means the standards bodies, working groups, and protocol discussions shaping the infrastructure AI systems will have to live with (and live inside).
Welcome to A Digital Identity Digest, brought to you by Heather Flanagan of Spherical Cow Consulting.
Here, we explore the evolving world of digital identity on the web. This podcast is spearheaded by Heather's expertise, where she breaks down complex concepts, shares the latest trends, and provides insightful analyses in online identity management.
Join Heather as she navigates this dynamic digital pasture, delivering content that's both informative and engaging for tech enthusiasts, digital professionals, and the curious alike.
It's time to translate geek to human.
Thanks for listening!
SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW ON APPLE PODCASTS: https://apple.co/3RO11vy
To show your support, and help others find the show, please leave me a 5-star review.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS EPISODE: https://sphericalcowconsulting.com
—————————
LET'S CONNECT
—————————
LINKEDIN: https://linkedin.com/in/hlflanagan
INSTAGRAM: https://instagram.com/sphericalcowconsulting
YOUTUBE: https://youtube.com/@TheDigitalCowNetwork
