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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.
Microsoft has Passport. This alliance offers another alternative. Both push our society towards a "know your neighbor", or perhaps "know your customer" model.
I remember a few years ago there being a pretty significant backlash against banks attempting the "Know your customer" model of business.
Let's not forget the "None of the above" option when contemplating these systems. Identification of a person is not always necessary or prudent, for a multitude of reasons.
sorry, but I don't want AOL to have my credit card info, just as I don't want Microsoft to have it.
when will these companies learn that we don't want a huge easily hackable database with all of our info in it? I'm quite happy memorizing my credit card number and providing it only when I feel it's necessary. With these passport like services, it's way too easy for a company to get you to sign in to get free service, and then simply start billing you after 'n' days, since they already have your credit card info, etc, in their database... At least now they have to send you a bill, or at the very least you have to provide a credit card number for a free trial...
I personally don't care if it's Microsoft, or some other tech company... I don't feel overally confident that a huge database with all of our info in it on the web is not going to get hacked...
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Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
Sorry, but I can't see where this will be a whole lot better.
Okay, yeah, we definately know that AOL will provide the IM:) But what are the odds of a patent-free, royalty free standard? Zero. Check out the faq.
To be verified to use their tech, you'll likely have to either pay an exorbitant fee to join, pay an exorbitant 'license fee', or both.
Of course, there is no problem with charging to validate against, say, an AOL server, or store information there. But can even DEVELOPMENT occur without significant costs? No.
The only selling point to this seems to be "we're not Microsoft".
(And again, could somebody please explain the advantages? Most people on the street I've spoken with don't seem interested in having anybody store their CC and other personal information. And before you mention banks and credit card companies, most people would be quite pleased if they didn't have the info either.)
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Mmmm...open standards. Hopefully.
Someone take the crack pipe away from Hemos.
These will be competing proprietary standards to M$'s dontNET lockin standard. To prevent M$ from embracing, extending and extinguishing, all the key pieces will be protected with patents and trademarks and every other bit of legal jiggery they can use. Just like with JAVA, the liberty *ack* *gagh* alliance will not allow these to become free and open standards, they will smack any free version in order to create a legal precedent for when (not IF) they have to go after M$.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
I've got the karma to burn, so let me just don my "Captain Obvious" hat here...
America Online? Open standards? You're joking, right?
I seriously doubt that I need to explain myself here.
And don't even think about pointing me in this direction.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
It sounds like the Liberty Alliance is trying to create a set of common standards and not, as many people are freaking over, a second centralized database.
.NET is a good thing I think.
If they can come up with a decentralized yet intercompatible way of authentication then they might be on to something positive! Anything that can be done to prevent a Microsoft having a total strangle hold with