Recognizing Your Digital Friends

Personal relationships are more and more managed over digital communication media, and electronic social networks in particular. Digital identity, conceived as a way to characterize and recognize persons on the Internet, has thus taken center stage, although this concept still remains vague in many of its aspects. This work aims at shedding some light on this topic, by sketching a basic conceptual framework, analyzing the issues for Internet users, and proposing possible solutions that promote a better use of digital identity.