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Last week, I attended the Internet Identity Workshop. As an attendee with less exposure to the user centric identity, an early session provided an great overview of how the pieces fit together. This is a regular topic at the IIW and I'm sure the community will continue collaborating online at the Identity Commons wiki page. However, the image below captures the map as discussed during our session.

Flickr Photo Credit: Thermistor (click link to see full view of map)

In this post I will walk through the information covered, because it has served as a useful framework as I've thought about the issues - and I believe will also be useful to the R/WW community.

3 Major Systems

Working from left to right on the diagram and to establish the basics, fundamentally decentralized identity systems involve three major systems / components for a user to establish their online identity:

• Identity Provider: the site / service that issues and authorizes a user is who they say they are
• Relying Party: the site / service that accepts an identity provider's credentials to authorize a user
• User / Client: the individual (typically via browser or other client) trying to authenticate with a relying party

Suites / Frameworks

There are four suites that have been established to communicate authenticated attributes across the different 3 systems (ID provider, Relying Party and User/Client) using appropriate protocols. These include:

• Open ID
• SAML
• Microsoft Windows CardSpace
• Liberty Alliance Specifications

Open ID

The OpenID framework has established itself as the leading framework for providing online decentralized authentication. Currently, more than 90 million Open ID accounts have been created, using various identity providers. This includes AOL announcing they had setup an Identity Provider server internally, enabling every AOL account (screen name) to be used as a user's OpenID account. This resulted in 63 million new Open ID accounts. (However, I'm sure many AOL users still need to learn what that means for them.) In addition to the progress getting companies to setup servers operating as identity providers, there are now over 2500 sites on the web that operate as relying parties to accept Open ID authorization. The growth of relying parties that accept OpenID has been tremendous over the last six months, as shown in the graph below from the OpenID foundation's presentation at IIW.

Microsoft Windows Card Space

Microsoft has been a involved in the online identity space for some time, starting with Microsoft Passport. And they have learned from that early experience. Their new framework is called Microsoft Windows Card Space (formerly 'InfoCard'). The idea is that users are able to select one of any number of digital identities (cards), which the end-user can choose from when asked for their identity from a relying party. In a paper introducing CardSpace and describing the Identity Metasystem Landscape, it was interesting to read the conclusion:

"Microsoft is doing its part by providing software for Windows, but it can't unilaterally make the identity metasystem vision successful. Others must also understand the benefits they will derive from more effective use of digital identities, and they must choose to participate."

After digesting this vision, I was interested in reading the following recent announcement that the CardSpace framework now works easily within the OpenID framework.

Other Frameworks

The OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) has developed SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) and theLiberty Alliance has developed sets of specifications.

Protocols and Attributes / Tokens

There are a number protocols which have been established for delivering attributes or tokens between each of the three systems (ID Provider, Relying Party and Client). Typically, the different frameworks try to establish a common interface to the variety of protocols and attributes a system would need to work with. While this certainly provides a flexible system, the vocabulary can get confusing - because the name of a suite is often shared by a specific protocol and attribute spec. However, that same suite can often work across additional protocols and attributes beyond the one they share a name with.

The best example of this seems to be Open ID. On the specifications page, there are both specs on the overall suite (or framework) as well as specs for attributes that can be exchanged. However,the OpenID framework works effectively to exchange attributes beyond the specified OpenID attributes. While this serves to be a very flexible architecture, as already mentioned it does sometimes make the conversation confusing.

Conclusion

While the user centric identity space is evolving, the landscape appears to be coming into focus. It seems like the major challenge in the next year will be working on simple explanations for end users to better understand how these components fit together. Hopefully as this happens, the conversation can shift away from protocols and standards and towards applications that are built on these frameworks. If this happens, I would imagine at some point we'll be interacting with the suites and frameworks on a regular basis. However, we'll be as likely to refer to them by their specific names, as we are today to talk about SMTP/POP3 when discussing our email. With that caution, I hope this was a valuable overview of the fundamentals.

(InfoWorld) - Dell is expected to begin selling on Thursday three models of its long-awaited laptop and desktop computers loaded with Ubuntu Linux.

The arrival day was unveiled by blogger Jeremy Garcia, a Linux advocate who runs the Web site Linuxquestions.org. In his blog last Friday, Garcia said he received an e-mail from an unnamed Dell employee who offered a few details about this week's product launch.

"We will be launching a Linux-based OS [Ubuntu] on the E520 [budget Dimension desktop PC], 1505 [Inspiron laptop] and [home entertainment level PC] XPS 410 starting next Thursday, 5/24," the Dell e-mail stated, according to Garcia's blog. "Please cover the huddle deck below with your team by [end of business] Sunday. If any questions come up, please let me know so I can address them before launch. The goal of launching Linux is to continue to give our customers more choices to customize their new Dell. Providing more options to our Linux Enthusiast customer group will hopefully create even more Raving Fans!!"

Jeremy Bolens, a Dell spokesman, declined to comment on the blog report Monday.

On May 1, Dell announced that it would meet customer requests and offer a limited number of Dell models with Ubuntu Linux preloaded for sale later this month. The move came after the company began asking customers in February for opinions on new products they wanted from the computer maker. One of the most frequently requested items was Linux-loaded computers, according to Dell.

After analyzing the ideas for several weeks, Dell moved quickly to announce in March that it would start selling some machines with Linux preinstalled.

In a posting on Dell's Direct2Dell Web site Monday, John Hull, manager of Linux OS technologies for Dell, provided more technical details about the Ubuntu 7.04 operating system that will be offered on the new machines.

"Before we announce the availability of Ubuntu 7.04 on select Dell client systems, I'd like to give an overview of what customers can expect from our initial Ubuntu offering," Hull wrote in his post. He also said that "the default software from the Ubuntu media will be installed on the system, including kernel and applications."

Dell will offer only add-on peripherals and hardware options "that have the most mature and stable Linux driver support," Hull wrote. "These hardware options have been thoroughly tested by the Linux team here at Dell."

The company will configure and install open-source drivers for the hardware when possible, he stated. "We use partial open-source or closed-source drivers where there is no equivalent open-source driver. This includes Intel wireless cards and Conexant modems," he wrote.

More information on drivers and hardware and other details can be found at a Web page created by Dell for its Linux-based machines.

Hull said the company continues to work with vendors of hardware not currently supported under Ubuntu to create stable drivers for the equipment. "While this may not happen overnight, we do expect to have a broader range of hardware support with Linux over time," he wrote.

So far, Dell support is not being included for proprietary audio or video codecs that are not already distributed with Ubuntu 7.04. "These include MPEG 1/2/3/4, WMA, WMV, DVD, Quicktime, etc. We are evaluating options for providing this support in the future," Hull said.

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