Major vendors join OpenID board
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Five large vendors have joined the board of the OpenID Foundation, giving a boost to the group's efforts to simplify the process of signing into Web sites.
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(InfoWorld) - Public key infrastructure is poised for a resurgence, with associated identity technologies increasingly underpinning applications as organizations look to securely share information, vendors said Tuesday at a standards conference in London. While it was a hot buzzword during the peak of the technology boom, PKI fell out of favor as IT projects were increasingly seen as bloated and without sufficient focus. "PKI still has a lot of perception problems," said Stijn Bijnens, senior vice president of identity management for Cybertrust. Bijnens was one of several participants in a conference by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (Oasis), a consortium that developments standards for business applications. PKI uses certificates that have been verified by a certification authority and allows other organizations or people to exchange trusted information. PKI simplifies e-government and e-commerce by letting a person identify themselves once to a certification authority that vouches for the person's identity when they interact with other organizations in the infrastructure. Several changes in IT should spur growth of PKI. Microsoft Corp.'s release of its next generation OS, Windows Vista, contains technology to help users manage identities, called CardSpace, Bijnens said. CardSpace will allow users going to compatible Web sites to have greater control over how their personal information is released. While it's unknown how CardSpace will work with other identity technologies, it should help grow the market for certificate accreditation and procedures around identity verification, Bijnens said. "Microsoft just enables the market for everyone," Bijnens said. Governments are undertaking electronic-identity projects that should also foster interest in PKI technology, Bijnens said. But PKI technology faces hurdles, too. The technology is growing increasingly complex even for those familiar with it, said Arshad Noor, of StrongAuth Inc. Noor said he was once involved with a PKI implementation at one of the largest pharmaceutical companies for its 120,000 employees worldwide. The chief executive officer (CEO) expected the rollout could be done in about five weeks. The rollout eventually finished, but not on the CEO's time scale, he said. "It was absolutely crazy," Noor said. "I think management needs to understand they are implementing more and more complex technology." Also key are the policies built around identity sharing. However, those policies often must rapidly be adjusted as businesses acquire other ones or business processes change, Noor said. Another problem with exchanging identities using PKI is establishing one authority that can vouch for identities, something that so far hasn't happened. "The framework doesn't exist yet," Noor said. Â
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IBM, Google, Microsoft, Verisign and Yahoo have joined the corporate board of the OpenID Foundation, giving a boost to the group's efforts to simplify the process of signing into Web sites.
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Genevish writes &quot;According to an article in the Register, Microsoft and the Newham Council in London have signed an agreement making Microsoft the preferred vendor for the council, instead of the original hybrid MS / Open Source plan. The council was very ...
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Sep. 13, 2004. Major Linux distributors on Monday said they have agreed to support a single version of the freely exchanged open-source operating system to ensure that it&#39;s growing popularity
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft says it will focus on four key areas to improve interoperability between its own software and other vendors' products. Senior Microsoft representatives met with InfoWorld on Thursday to highlight identity management; Web services and related development; collaboration between information workers and system management comprise the new interoperability focus. "We are really working on new protocols in the WS-* [spoken as Web services star] space that enable interoperability across identity systems," said Jean Paoli, Microsoftâs general manager of interoperability and XML architecture. Lat week, Microsoft vowed to integrate its CardSpace identity management system with the OpenID Web authentication standard. Paoli emphasized the move as evidence of the commitment. WS-* represents a series of Web services-related specifications for standardization in areas such as security and messaging. A lot of the issues Microsoft has in interoperability tend to fall into these four categories, said Tom Robertson, the companyâs general manager of interoperability and standards. "Those are the four areas that we're hearing about now," as needing attention, Paoli said. "It doesn't mean the list is closed." Microsoft's identity management push, however, apparently will not be centered on its previous Passport initiative for Internet security.Â  "I've not been hearing about Passport in so long," Paoli said. Microsoft plans to be creative in addressing interoperability, using a host of tools at its disposal. "It's going to mean making IP available in a range of ways," Robertson said. The company already has dabbled in open source as a way to boost interoperability, offering a bridge between the OpenDocument Format (ODF) and Microsoft's Open XML electronic document formats, said Robertson. Paoli and Robertson listed multiple Microsoft interoperability projects in the past several years, such as its work with Novell on interoperability between Windows and Novell's Suse Linux. The company's interoperability effort with Sun Microsystems also was noted. But they remained upset with IBM for what Microsoft perceives are IBM efforts to block Open XML from becoming approved as a standard by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The two co-authored an open letter this week entitled "Interoperability, Choice and Open XML," that pointed fingers of blame at IBM. "The open letter is an effort to clearly articulate what Microsoft is trying to do," Robertson said. It is important to shine a light on what IBM is doing to block Open XML and block choice, he added. In response, an IBM representative pointed to the ConsortiumInfo.org Standards Blog, which states there is "significant commercial opposition" to Microsoft's electronic document proposal. Microsoft made a "bad bet " that ODF would fail in the marketplace, the blog stated.
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InfoWorld - SANTA CLARA, CALIF. &#8211; Enterprises that in the past may have been leery of open source alternatives to commercial software have opened up to the concept, panelists said here Tuesday at an SDForum conference entitled "Open Source &#8211; Entering the Mainstream.&#8221;
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10 vendors of BPM tools have joined the Microsoft Business Process Alliance and agreed to add support for Microsoft's Biztalk server to their products.
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Continuing on with his look at his OpenID library and its implementation, Padraic Brady has two new posts with more of the story.   From the first post:   As a follow on from my previous entry about OpenID in the Zend Framework, I've been in brief contact with Dmitry Stogov across a scattering of emails. Dmitry posted his OpenID proposal for the framework over at the Proposals Wiki earlier in the week. [...] It's actually very hard to comment constructively rather than simply handing over my code which probably says a lot more all by itself. [...] Anyway, I've agreed to port my OpenID library to PEAR as a PHP5 package. I checked with the mailing list, and the approach I've taken in splitting the library across a number of freestanding components hasn't seen any objections. On the flipside, it does help by providing upgrades to existing PEAR Encryption packages which are not yet migrated to PHP5 versions.   And from post number two:   Over the weekend, I managed to grab a few hours to dig around my OpenID library with the ultimate development tools: patience and experimentation. [...] What I've refactored towards is a splitting of the OpenID process based on three categories: Request, Redirect, Response.
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Scores of vendors are now in the &quot;white-label&quot; social networking platform business, according to a running tally by a Forrester Research analyst.Instead of a proprietary platform like LinkedIn or Facebook,&#160;such companies offer a framework to enterprises or individuals wishing to build an online community tailored to their tastes and needs. The platforms are being used for everything from marketing and branding to internal enterprise use.It&#39;s hard not to let out a low whistle when you scan this post at analyst Jeremiah Owyang&#39;s blog.&quot;Yup, I&#39;m the analyst focused on this space, and not even I can keep up with the many vendors,&quot; Owyang said via e-mail.&quot;The flood in this market is due to low barriers to entry from easy-to-deploy software, an influx of venture money wanting to get in on the &#39;so-net&#39; action and media frenzy from existing social networks like Facebook, MySpace and others,&quot; he said.This particular bubble could soon contract, Owyang suggested. &quot;Like the [content management system] industry in the late &#39;90s, expect to see some major acquisitions from major [enterprise resource planning], media, and Web companies ... traditional CMS vendors are currently adding &#39;social features&#39; to their products -- most without success -- and will resort to acquiring vendors to fill their suites.&quot;Surviving companies will become marketing partners for enterprises, not just software providers, he predicted. &quot;Let&#39;s not discount technology completely, it can be an edge, but the ones that will stand out will have a full solution,&quot; he said.Alex Blum, CEO of KickApps, said Owyang has a point.A successful social-networking site &quot;has very little to do with technology,&quot; he said, and &quot;more to do with how you program and nurture a successful community.&quot;The company wrote a white paper, &quot;Nine Steps to a Successful Online Community,&quot; that spends only a limited amount of time talking about technology.Like other companies, KickApps&#39; hosted platform is set up to let customers handle customizations. &quot;We need to have a scalable business on a self-service basis,&quot; Blum said. &quot;If we relied on going out and talking to every one of our customers, it wouldn&#39;t work. It doesn&#39;t scale.&quot;However, KickApps offers tools that run the gamut from a simple-to-use editor for adjusting look and feel, to more robust developer APIs. The company claims that about 14,000 sites have been built with its platform.In contrast to the relatively new KickApps, which started up in 2005, Sparta Social Networks is a veteran in the space, having formed in 1999.That seasoning will help the company as the category contracts, said its CEO, Jerry Sheer. &quot;We&#39;ve got eight years behind us. We understand the space more than these new players.&quot;The company is also banking on its J2EE-based platform, which is ideal for large enterprises, Sheer said.Sparta will apply advanced analytics and metrics to derive meaning from social networking data. &quot;We&#39;re going to do some very interesting things,&quot; Sheer said, adding that a social network is essentially a &quot;focus group on steroids.&quot;That strategy ties into a trend Owyang sees: companies offering &quot;insight, intelligence and data&quot; about online communities. There&#39;s yet another related category as well, the analyst notes: firms pushing Web collaboration offerings.From the wide range of choices, G-Unit Records picked Ning, a company formed by Netscape cofounder Marc Andreessen. Ning targets both consumers and businesses with its hosted offering.Chris &quot;Broadway&quot; Romero, who oversees digital media at G-Unit Records, said Ning was the right platform for rap star 50 Cent&#39;s social networking site, citing its ability to &quot;stand in the background.&quot;&quot;Unless you&#39;re an administrator, you don&#39;t have to see their name too much,&quot; he said.Romero said Ning &quot;could run a little faster,&quot; but mused, &quot;Every time you add someone with the power of 50 Cent, it&#39;s going to bend the walls of any system out there.&quot;Seventy-five thousand people are members of the site, according to Romero. That growth was driven by person-to-person referrals, not traditional advertising, he said. &quot;It&#39;s definitely the way of the future,&quot; he said of social networking as a marketing tool. &quot;Everyone should do it.&quot;It may not matter much if enterprises find themselves with fewer offerings to choose from down the road, he suggested: &quot;It&#39;s more about the person&#39;s vision than the tools, most of the time.&quot;
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Several organisations will celebrate Saturday&#39;s International Software Freedom Day by hosting open source events around the country.
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OCTOBER 20, 2004 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - IBM has become the latest company to join the Liberty Alliance, a global consortium aimed at developing standards for managing user identities.
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People with a Yahoo user name and password will be able to use that ID information to access non-Yahoo Web sites that&#160;support the OpenID 2.0 digital identity framework, reducing the amount of different log-in information people need to create, remember and enter online.Already, almost 10,000 Web sites support OpenID, an open framework available for free to end users and Web site operators alike, according to the OpenID Foundation.Yahoo&#39;s move will triple the number of OpenID accounts to 368 million by adding its 248 million active registered users to the rolls, the company said Thursday.OpenID addresses one of several issues related to giving people more control of their online activities. Other groups are focusing on data portability, to let people move around the data and content they create online, so that they don&#39;t have to enter it manually in, say, every social-networking site they sign up for.Yet other initiatives, like Google&#39;s OpenSocial, aim to create standard interfaces so that developers can create applications that run in multiple social-networking sites, instead of having to rewrite the same application multiple times for every site.For all of these initiatives, it&#39;s critical for major Internet players to get involved, so that the benefits of standard technology and methods developed by groups like OpenID can have a real-world impact.Unsurprisingly, in Thursday&#39;s statement, Scott Kveton, the OpenID Foundation&#39;s chairman, hailed Yahoo&#39;s support as a crucial validation of the framework that will help spur its adoption by other large Web site operators.Other major players that have expressed interest and gotten involved in varying degrees with OpenID include Google, Six Apart, AOL, Sun, Novell, and Microsoft.Yahoo&#39;s announcement doesn&#39;t come as a complete surprise, since signs that it had been working on an OpenID implementation had surfaced. For example, a short message in the domain me.yahoo.com indicating the company would act as an identity provider for OpenID was spotted last week.Yahoo participated in the development of version 2.0 of the OpenID framework, which the company said provides new security features. Yahoo users who log in to third-party OpenID sites should know that the log-in process doesn&#39;t reveal e-mail or instant-message addresses, Yahoo said Thursday.Yahoo&#39;s initial OpenID service will be available in public beta on Jan. 30 and the company is working with several partners, including Plaxo, so that the Yahoo ID will work on their sites that day.&#160;
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft Corp. has thrown its weight behind OpenID, an emerging Web authentication standard. The announcement was made Tuesday atÂ the RSA Conference in San Francisco during a joint keynote by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie that was long on vision and short on specifics. Microsoft pledged to work to integrate OpenID with its CardSpace identity management software, which is now available in conjunction with Windows Vista. "The marriage of CardSpace and OpenID 2.0 is actually a giant step forward," Mundie said. By integrating these two technologies, Microsoft expects to "eliminate the issue of the man-in-the-middle-attack," Mundie said. In these attacks, which are increasingly being used by phishers, a thief steals sensitive information by setting up a fake Web site that passes information back and forth between the victim and the legitimate Web site. OpenID is an emerging open-source standard that simplifies the task of logging on to many different Web sites. Gates and Mundie spent much of their keynote discussing how their company plans to simplify security and make the process of managing digital identities easier. IT professionals could achieve both ends by getting rid of log-in passwords and replacing them with strong, certificate-based authentication techniques like smart cards, Gates said. "Passwords are not only weak. Passwords have a huge problem. If you get more and more of them, the worse it is," he said. "We see smart cards ... [and] certificates in general as the way these things should go. You'll be presenting certificates as opposed to weak passwords," he said. Microsoft hopes to drive the adoption of smart cards, with the launch of its Identity Lifecycle Manager 2007, introduced at RSA. Expected to ship on May 1, this software integrates technology from Microsoft's 2005 acquisition of Alacris with the company's Identity Integration Server. The software will make it easier for users to integrate strong authentication technologies like smart cards into Microsoft networks. Mundie suggested that in order for security to work, technology companies will need to turn their thinking upside down, to a certain extent. "Security was really a blocking thing," Mundie said. "How do you invert this ... so these security mechanisms become a thing that makes it simpler for anyone to be granted permission to get [network] access." Microsoft plans to achieve this by switching the focus using technologies like IPsec (Internet Protocol security) and IPv6 (IP version 6), Mundie said. The company has already been using these technologies for the past two and a half years in an internal access control system that is better about granting employees and contractors access to the data and applications that they need, but keeping them away from the rest of the network, he said. With breaches being reported every week -- often after the loss of a laptop computer -- companies need to think beyond locking down the perimeter of their networks, Mundie added. "The threat model is changing in fundamental ways. We could continue to invest in this fortress mentality of protecting everything, but I don't think that would be sufficient," he said. "Our castle is fairly porous because a lot of our assets leave the castle." Microsoft's broad vision did not impress one attendee. "This was the most content-free presentation I've seen at RSA in years," said Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer with BT Group PLC's Counterpane unit. "My guess is that most people in the room could have given that talk because it's where we all want to go." The keynote, in which Gates and his successor sat side-by-side and, at times, finished each others thoughts, appeared to be a symbolic handing over of power, Schneier said. Gates will be stepping down from his day-to-day duties in July 2008, at which point Mundie will take over Microsoft's research efforts. But Schneier doesn't expect Gates to appear at next year's conference. "The take-away is Craig's coming back next year, but Bill isn't," he said.
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com October 18, 2004, 9:50 PM PT. This fourth priority&#39;s main focus has been enterprise directories as organizations spawn projects around identity infrastructure.
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Recently uncovered code on the Flickr website hints at Yahoo's plans to support OpenID, the identity system which would allow users to manage their logins for all Yahoo properties -- as well as other services such as LinkedIn and MySpace -- from one central, secure location.
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Yahoo appears close to implementing&#160;OpenID, a Web authentication standard that relieves people of the need to remember multiple passwords to log into different Web sites.Yahoo controls a domain me.yahoo.com, which shows a short message indicating the company will act as an identity provider for OpenID.Code on pages at Flickr.com, owned by Yahoo, could also let a person use their Flickr login and profile for logging into other OpenID-compatible sites. The code can be seen by viewing the source of Flickr photostream pages, and points to&#160;https://open.login.yahooapis.com/openid/op/auth.OpenID, an open-source project, has gained support&#160;from two other major Internet players, Microsoft and Google. However, those companies are not widely providing support on their sites for OpenID yet.But an early implementation of OpenID by Yahoo could provide a spark for broader support, some say.&quot;I expect Yahoo&#39;s implementation to be a major influence in encouraging OpenID 2 adoption,&quot; wrote Simon Willison, a freelance Web consultant and developer who used to work for Flickr. In January last year, Willison launched idproxy.net, a Web site that links Yahoo IDs and OpenIDs.OpenID is referred to as a decentralized system since no one company or entity controls all of the identity information. It gives users more power to determine who they want to share their identity with and avoids the potential security problems of having a massive amount of data locked up in a single database. The system is also free.Web sites acting as an identity provider for OpenID give users a unique URL (Uniform Resource Locator). When a person encounters another Web site supporting OpenID, they can enter that URL along with the password they have registered with the identity provider, which is then verified in order to login at the new site.The person is then allowed to carry their profile or other information into the new Web site, a concept known as single sign-on. It means that people may need fewer passwords but would be able to securely share their data and login on more Web sites.A variety of companies and Web sites are supporting OpenID, such as AOL, LiveJournal, Technorati and mobile operator Orange, which is owned by France T&#233;l&#233;com, according to the OpenID Web site. Hundreds of other Web sites are also using OpenID.Yahoo could not be reached for comment.&#160;