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Liberty Alliance Gains Momentum
kabanossen writes "News.com reports that AOL is joining the Liberty Alliance, which is a coalition of tech companies who are creating an alternative to Microsoft's Passport. Other members of the alliance are Sun, Nokia, Real Networks and General Motors "This provides a common language for authentication to ensure no one company controls the single authentication network" said a rep. " Mmmm...open standards. Hopefully.
With the track record of AOL, the last thing we need is people running software similar to AoHeLL on the new authentication system, and hijacking people's accounts.
This is better than no competition for Passport but not so good as if there were some aggressive and international lobbying and development of public, universal and non-proprietary authentication. This is like watching Fed Ex and UPS duke it out over who gets to run the U.S. Mail.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
I haven't been keeping up with this, and (I admit it) I'm too lazy to read the article carefully. What is the Liberty Alliance's stance on centralization? I certainly don't want Microsoft holding all my info on a centralized server, but I don't trust any of these folks all that much more. I'd really rather have it on my own machine, encrypted, with very specific as-needed permissions for releasing individual details. This should work in such a way that a malicious third party finds it difficult to cross-reference, say, my e-mail account and my medical records having retrieved each individually.
So where does the Liberty Alliance stand on this? Are my wishes way beyond the scope of this project -- is it a question of "which faceless corporation's basket do you trust with all your eggs"?
The bottom line was: since a lot of people here in Sweden use internet banking, and we all hope it is really secure, then your internet bank account would be one safe way of identifying you. So why not make banks account the basis of a net passport? Rather that than make Microsoft the key to my bank account!
Ebay now allows authentication via passport. Logging in from a win2k box or winxp box for ebay is automatic.
I just don't get all this. We do not need a centralized personal information system. That much is apparent. Not from Microsoft and not from anybody else.
These companies are doing all this stuff just for the sake of *doing* it, to spite and fight Microsoft. Nothing more.
While I'm not blind to the fact that whoever controls all this information will have a measure of power, it remains to be seen if people actually buy into the whole thing. Microsoft may claim 88 gazillion-trillion Passport subscribers, but how many of those are really one-time half-filled and fake entries used to get a temporary spamming Hotmail account? How many people are actually dumb enough to store their credit card information in a Passport (or whatever)? With all the negetive press e-commerce site hack-ins have received in the past few years I'd be surprised this constitutes any significant percentage of Passport users, even among clueless computer users.
The whole industry is overestimating this supposedly "next killer thing" for the Internet. But, predictively enough, the lemmings have all decided to jump over the cliff together. Well then, let them be squashed together.
Keep all the data local, but allow third parties to access it. I choose that SomeShop.com may read my creditcard and address info and if it changes, they automatically have the new data when they request it.
Even better, they would not have to store my details themselves. I do a lot of e-shopping and there are quite a few e-commerce shops that store my creditcard info. To be honest, I couldn't even name all the stores that do without going through my creditcard invoices.
The FSF or another capable OSS team should join this Alliance (that, or I should stop being lazy, start being capable and start coding).
I have no problem with third parties accessing an encrypted database through encrypted channels, served by an open source applications running on my own server. Yes, it's still vulnerable, but it puts the vulnerability and control in *my* hands.
Hm, but I will continue to be lazy. And the FSF would never create a cross-platform wallet that integrates with the 90% desktop OS. I guess our best hopes are with this Alliance?
(on the other hand, I've placed hundreds of orders in the past years with a creditcard and unless I'm really making so much money that I don't even notice, my card hasn't been abused a single time)
They should use XNS (http://xns.org). It's here today and it works. Otherwise, it'll take them to long to reinvent the wheel and Passport wins.
sorry, but I don't want AOL to have my credit card info, just as I don't want Microsoft to have it.
:( The option was given to us to go with Earthlink for a discount for the first few months. I decied to decline and go with another ISP that was localy owned and had better prices. Needless to say Earthlink would send me bills every month after that for the next 5 months. Luckily I did not give them my Credit card # or I would have been automaticly billed. The best part was that when I would call up to tell them I didnt owe them anything and to quit sending me these stupid bills for no service they could not do anything because they didnt know my "logon."
I agree with this. About 7 months ago my local ISP shut down.
Earthlink Phone guy: Yes we can do that what is your login ID?
Me: I dont have a login ID. I never signed up for your service. I dont want your service.
Earthlink Phone guy: You really must have one. Your in our computer.
Me: No I dont. I have never had your service Nor do I want it. Do you have a manager?
After doing that once every month for 5 months untill they finaly quit sending me bills. But not before threating to send me to a collection agency.
The less people with my CC #'s the better.
Vote early. Vote often. Vote CowboyNeal.
No one can be a wolf if people did not make themselves sheep. The masses are the ones who allow such an ID if they are tired of putting in User names and Passwords over and over.
It matters not if Microsoft or Liberty has the ID it matters that people know enough to realize that this is a bad Idea.
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You Don't have to burn books to destroy a culture, you just have to get people to stop reading them. Ray Bradbury