The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) is an initiative by the Obama Administration to explore the current terrain of online identity and hopefully propose solutions for challenges everyone is facing. A key component of this which affects NymRights is how names work on the Internet (and elsewhere). If you care about names and want to make sure your voice and opinion is heard, please join NSTIC as a voting member (it is free!) and share your stories and why names matter to you. Our goal with NymRights is to show that name and nym rights are important to regular people. Also, you do not need to be a US Citizen to join NSTIC.

Since the process to join can be a little confusing, I’ve gone ahead and created some easy steps to follow:

1. Go to this url: https://www.idecosystem.org/page/new-member-registration-form. Choose “Voting Member” and “Individual Member” from the radio buttons.
2. Ignoring the First/Last name structure, put your name. I put “aestetix” for a first name and “.” for a last name.
3. For the “Employer Name”, put “Self”
4. For “Stakeholder Group”, put “Small Business and Entrepreneurs”

Then click on submit. In theory, you’ll get an email receipt, and hear back in a few hours (or days) letting you know you’ve been accepted (hopefully!). Once you’ve gotten the acceptance email:

1. Fill out the information on page 3 under “Member”. I recommend using the same name you put in the application form. I’m assuming this signature is mostly to make sure you’re a real person and not a machine.
2. Send in the form. They have a fax number as well as an email address. I went ahead and emailed my completed form to the address, although I’m sure either method works.
3. Get a beer (or non-alcoholic drink) of your choice, and cheers!

We need as many people as possible to register so that NSTIC/etc knows we’re real (and normal, regular, ordinary) people with something to contribute to the process.