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A Universal Roaming Profile?
Arnaud Sahuguet asks: "I have a cell-phone with my phone book, a PDA with my calendar info and my address book. I have my home desktop bookmarks, my work desktop bookmarks, my laptop bookmarks, my PDA bookmarks, etc.
They are all mine, but somehow they are not, because they live in
different networks (or on the same network but with different operators).Everybody keeps talking about convergence, but I don't see any
convergence on the user profile front (data that matters to me). Microsoft is pushing for .NET MyServices, Sun et al. are pushing for Liberty Alliance, Apple is pushing for .Mac. Is it the right way to go?" One of the large major issues surrounding such a system would be implementing it in a way where the user can control the flow of data: where it is stored, when a certain piece of data can be sent, and who is allowed to get it. Sounds like a fine idea to me, what do you all think?
Napster is (I should say was) a community of users willing to share MP3 music files, administered by a central server managing meta-data about users and files. I don't know what the exact goal was, but I can see it as a way to free ourselves from the music industry monopoly.
GUPster would be a community of network entities (e.g. servers at Yahoo!, server at SprintPCS, servers at my university, my home machine, etc.) willing to share standardized user profile components, administered conceptually by a central server managing meta-data about entities and components. The goal is to create synergies between network components in order to deploy value added services for the user. (Since I am working for the telecom industry, the goal is to make network operators happy by making end users happier.)
Just like in Napster, my user profile information will be distributed but the meta-data will be centralized (at least from a logical point of view) at the GUPster server. This way, I can decide that my credit card information will be stored at my bank, my calendar information on my Yahoo! account, my game scores on the Sony web site, etc. Network components storing my profile information will have to support the right set of interfaces and protocol and will register to the server the pieces of my profile they are storing.
Note: I will be the one deciding who stores what. Think of it as like moving to a new place. You can choose your electricity, gas, phone, cable and Internet providers.
Applications willing to access any of this information will talk to the GUPster server. And just like Napster, the server will not return data, but referrals (i.e. where this information can be found).
Unlike Napster, the central server will also enforce some access control policies defined by the user (let's call them my 'privacy shield'). If the request for user profile information is not OK (e.g. nobody can access my presence information after 9pm), the returned referral is empty.
Does it sound crazy?"
"As a user:
- would you be willing to have your personal profile information stored on the network?
- who would you trust? Your bank, your ISP, your cell phone provider, your company, the EFF, no one but you?
- what kind of guarantees would you require?
Napster is (I should say was) a community of users willing to share MP3 music files, administered by a central server managing meta-data about users and files. I don't know what the exact goal was, but I can see it as a way to free ourselves from the music industry monopoly.
GUPster would be a community of network entities (e.g. servers at Yahoo!, server at SprintPCS, servers at my university, my home machine, etc.) willing to share standardized user profile components, administered conceptually by a central server managing meta-data about entities and components. The goal is to create synergies between network components in order to deploy value added services for the user. (Since I am working for the telecom industry, the goal is to make network operators happy by making end users happier.)
Just like in Napster, my user profile information will be distributed but the meta-data will be centralized (at least from a logical point of view) at the GUPster server. This way, I can decide that my credit card information will be stored at my bank, my calendar information on my Yahoo! account, my game scores on the Sony web site, etc. Network components storing my profile information will have to support the right set of interfaces and protocol and will register to the server the pieces of my profile they are storing.
Note: I will be the one deciding who stores what. Think of it as like moving to a new place. You can choose your electricity, gas, phone, cable and Internet providers.
Applications willing to access any of this information will talk to the GUPster server. And just like Napster, the server will not return data, but referrals (i.e. where this information can be found).
Unlike Napster, the central server will also enforce some access control policies defined by the user (let's call them my 'privacy shield'). If the request for user profile information is not OK (e.g. nobody can access my presence information after 9pm), the returned referral is empty.
Does it sound crazy?"
Microsoft Passport?
*ducks*
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
do you really think we want to trust someone else with that information? and if we did, would it be a commercial interest? I lied on my profiles from the time I got my first Hotmail acount more than half a decade ago. And I've seen more problems with companies having people's information than i care to count since then. So I don't see anyone with a background in information security or an idea of what goes on with that information, particularly those of us who are paranoid, as liking this concept one bit, regardless of who controls it.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
what about when this profile gets accessed by someone else? someone is bound to figure out how to spoof usernames and get another user's profile, giving them full access to all your information! now doesnt that sound like fun? it takes identity theft to a new level when your entire identity is on a network.
"And perhaps, posterity will thank me for having shown it that the ancients did not know everything." -Pierre Fermat
hell I don't even trust my own bookmarks on my own computer.
Girlfriend: Bill, why do you have two more links listed under Porn?
Bill: Uhh, I have always had those, they are there just for laughs.
Girlfriend: Bill, what a bunch of crap.
Bill: Actually, they are full of great sites.
You are looking for something like XNS. There is a company called OneName in Seattle that is working on a solution to do exactly what you want.
Nobody here will trust the government to setup a universal ID card - why on earth would we want a full profile, ready and waiting to be hacked?
Even the idea of what you are suggesting (info on the Internet) scares the shit out of me.
Now, on the other hand, a profile based on a physical item (ie/ a cd, datacard, etc) might be a nice idea. Just plug it into your PDA, cell phone, laptop, pc, etc.
Of course, considering how much information about me is sent across the Internet, maybe it's time to just give up privacy.
If we have to do that, let's at least all go nudist. That might be a fair trade off then...
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
It's called my brain. Seriously though, I follow the philosophy of "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link." Distribution of resources (with no central access) limits the damage of a single weak link.
Of course, though, if I was interested in a central system, why not something implemented with a directory service (e-Directory or AD)? A nice little certification architecture for a multi-tiered privilege structure? I'd put my faith in NDS before a lot of the other products mentioned.
What is music when you despise all sound?
... is an open source (preferably) suite that I can run on my PC at home, where I can decide the access controls, and have complete control privacy policy. Ok, so this requires a permanent connection, but that's becoming more and more available all the time.
I'm not all paranoid about privacy. I think that convenience is more important than any information people my glean from me ("He drinks PBR! We've got him now"). So, that being said, I think that so far, Yahoo does one of the best jobs of any kind of convergence. While it's not open, they've got enough services where you really can start to integrate. You can sync your Yahoo mail with any mail client, you can store your browser bookmarks there, files, notes, etc. You can get all of your Yahoo info already personalized in a Sprint phone. You can take care of scheduling with your Yahoo, your cell phone, or even text messaging to almost any device. It's not perfect, but it's the best I've seen. I'm even willing to buy some of their upgrades (premium mail, for example).
What you are looking for is a synchronization system (ie. SyncML). Passport and Liberty alliance only store authentication credentials and some basic profile info (ie. your contact info and optionally your credit card info for purchases.) SyncML.org has created an open standard for synchronization of PIM data so that you can have access to all of your contacts, appointments, tasks, bookmarks, etc from any devices or computers you sync with.
A co-worker and I just discussed this very thing yesterday! However, we defaulted to a hardware device that you would carry with you (quite possibly a PDA), then when you log into a machine, would have your preferences wirelessly available. Not just a desktop, but your cell phoen could wirelessly use teh address book for making calls, etc. I personally like the hardware solution best because then no one owns the cetral store of your personal data & preferences but you.
But, hardware or software, the only way this would be useful is if there was a standard for these major classes of data so multiple devices and applications could read, and in some case modify, the data. Your cell phone might not only want to use your existing numbers,but add a number when you receive a call from a never-before-seen number.
Who would make such standards? Surely Microsoft could give it a stab, and then extend it beyond usefulness. Maybe some of the existing standards are good enough, or could be extended (vCard, vCal, etc.).
Probably all just a pipe dream anyways.
with netscape 4.x (dunno about mozilla), you could store a roaming profile in an ldap db. then you could log in with navigator from wherever and instantly have your addressbook / bookmarks / preferences / mail settings magically load up. i have seen it work, and it was pretty sweet.
-BlueLines
--BlueLines "The cost of living hasn't affected it's popularity." -anonymous
There's no need for trust. Store my data on your server but store it encrypted. Only I have the decryption key. Everything I send to you and receive from you is encrypted. You are just providing the storage (and possibly I am paying you for this service).
Now, I don't need to trust you. I, of course, do have to trust my local machine and I have to trust the client I use to access my files. But I do not need to trust you.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
You start your post talking about Bookmarks, Phone Numbers, Calendar etc. This is information you want to access from anywhere. Real easy: agree standard XML formats, trusted authentication services, and security protocols. Whammo-bammo you can access your bookmarks from anywhere using pure XML and a password.
But then you start talking about banking and privacy and trusted companies. This is totally different, it's information you want others to access from anywhere; and the security model wouldn't be remotely similar. Which are you talking about?
Your GUPster idea is also fatally flawed because you're talking technology -- same thing as Microsoft and Sun and Apple. Talk standards and maybe you'll get somewhere. Anyone can come up with a technology to do this, but it's only in getting people to agree that you'll come up with anything decent.
...but I just carry a floppy disk around with a few text-files on it. A HTML bookmark page can be viewed on pretty much anything if you stick to HTML standards and don't use any dumb formatting.
:-)
I'm considering buying one of these. I'm a bit worried about the software requirements, though ("Requires Windows 98, ME 2000, Mac OS 8.6 or greater"; I guess my Linux box is greater...). They look like a nifty way to carry my stuff around with me. Until I lose it
--Jon
Cleanstick.org: Dumb weblog about nothing
Bookmarksync will take care of your bookmarks for Winboxen. You can use it to access bookmarks from work via web, add bookmarks from work via web, download your bookmarks locally to any computer, and sync bookmarks between Netscape v4.x to IE. Its not free, but it works.
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
Take a look. This is the first of open standards to control information about yourself.
May we never see th
A better solution than storing it on someone else's server would be to make the interface synchronizable between platforms.
I'd keep a copy on my work desktop. I'd sync my home PC and my work PC over the internet (using VPN or SSL, of course.) I'd HotSync it to my PalmOS device. My Palm could Bluetooth it to my phone. My phone could GPRS it to my car's phone. My wife could sync the "Family" category on her Palm to the "Family" category on my Visor.
PalmOS does this sort of thing now with the HotSync program, but only in the limited "Handheld -- Palm Desktop -- Outlook" chain. With a robust protocol (almost certainly XML) and a strong standards committee this should not be an insurmountable task.
John
No form of identification should be in a form you can't set down and walk away from.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
The poster illustrates the problem with examples such as bookmarks and address books ( which is a different problem than what liberty et. al tries to solve I believe) . These kinds of information can already be kept in an LDAP server and most applications can store and retrieve these from those servers. Outlook does it, mozilla does, ximian does it.
LDAP address book support is relatively mature in most email readers. Check out OpenLDAP for more info.
Single sign-on can also be done via LDAP. Or Kerberos/LDAP if you're so inclined. Netscape NTSych product, the Psynch® product, etc. can be used to sych NT or win2k with an external database. Check out projects such as pgina. There's a free general purpose NT password sync dll available from AcctSync. This DLL is nice, you can catch user passwords and pass them to an arbituary script with the username. This could be a perl script that updates LDAP to a vbscript that updates the coresponding Oracle user, it doesn't matter.
Also, it's simple to store public certs in an ldap server, making it easier to deploy PKI on a budget ( you don't want to know how much netscape and novell charges for this per user, trust me :)
In short, a lot of your problems can be solved right now by running a LDAP server and configuring your applications to rely on it for their datastore. Good luck.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
Seriously, this is a great idea but for two things: 1) Cellphones don't have USB ports, and 2) With few exceptions, PDAs don't have host USB ports.
There are work-arounds, of course: You can upload the info to both the PDA and phone with appropriate connection hardware/software. But you'll still need a way (perl scripts?) to translate the data from some central format to the target software's preferred format.
Business plan:
1) Work out a solution for all the above.
2) Make it work with every PDA, cellphone, browser, email reader, etc. -- and continue to support it as those all change (tracking cellphones alone will keep you busy).
3) Package it up so any bozo can use it.
4) Profit!
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
I don't bother with full profiles, but I use rsync on a daily basis to sync my home jukebox with my libretto along with a few other things (I also keep my ssh private and public keys on the keydisk, never storing the private keys on a hard disk). .config files in a *nix environment are beautiful. Too bad most windoze proggies have no clue about multi-user environments.
Consider storing data using servers local to your Internet provider (or company). This data could either be placed in LDAP-style servers, or in XML over HTTP. A mechanism could be designed whereby you establish your identity using your e-mail address (e.g. joe@example.com), name servers query ns.example.com for information about this service (using SRV records perhaps).
So when you get a new cell phone, you'd tell it your e-mail address, and maybe given it a password, and it'd go fetch the information about you and store it into the phone, perhaps refresing it at intervals (or for every session).
When 3rd parties query this server for information about you, they do so over a two-way authenticated SSL session. You either arrange in advance, or in response to the request, to allow these bits of data to be accessible to the requestor. Maybe exchange P3P-style policies first.
You could implement this in HTTP by storing different "units" of information in XML under different URI's, and apply different ACL protection over each URI. You could either explicitly whitelist certificates beforehand, or use a combination of certifiate + a password that the 3rd party provider passes through to pull the requested data.
Updates could be handled in a similar fashion. If you trust a 3rd party to update certain information on your behalf, perhaps using your own SSL certificate, you could let that happen too.
Just some thoughts..
Back in Netscape 4.x days I had my netscape profile roaming across three home computers, and several computers at work. It worked great. You could select certain items to roam ... for example, the actual browser preferences file, calendar entries, bookmarks, cookies, etc. I think it might have even let you roam certificates (but maybe not).
... probably in NS 7 though.
... instead just MS-bastardized standards designed to get you to purchase more of their software so that it will work together (hah).
I use Mozilla now and I didn't see the roaming functionality in there on a quick check
You could setup to Roam and store your info in either an LDAP database or on an HTTP server (much easier). You could then use SSL for those of you that are concerned with security to roam. Whenever you exited the browser, if you'd changed something (for example, new bookmark), it would update the central profile location with the new files. Nice feature, there were a couple of point releases where it would get confused and you'd wipe out your bookmarks on one system, but that was not a concern since you ended up with copies of everything on multiple computers.
Note that Netscape's roaming support extended to Unix systems too. It was sweet. Too bad Microsoft's browser monopoly killed it off. We won't see real innovation like that anymore
A lot of you said people wouldn't store their profile info on someone else's network. Most people would though. Most of you store your email on other people's network right now. In this case, I was using my own colocated server and also ran an IMAP server on it to keep my mail in sync.
The biggest problem they had w/roaming was the lack of documentation. You can go back into newsgroup archives and occasionally run across some poor soul trying to figure out what you had to do on the server. Once setup, though, it worked great.
Good to see that we're now going to try and reinvent the wheel. Of course, this wheel will only work with a Microsoft axle, transmission, engine, and body, and it will cost you every time it turns.
what it comes down to is if you can make money
boils down to if the retailers will accept it, not the consumers
this will only happen if you cant cheat them because after all they dont want to lose money because the system is insecure
visa cards are after all very insecure but reatilers put up with them because they make them money
the key is retailers and they are not about to sign up to a insecure system just to get ripped off
regards
John Jones
p.s. Visa are in http://www.projectliberty.org and are not in the habit of throwing money away or doing it for the good of mankind
Each device needs to be able to access what you store transparantly to make things easy. What can a Palm read as an address book?
My first suggestion would be set up your own server -- something cheap, because you won't need a lot of horsepower. Then, install OpenLDAP and use that for storing everything. This is what LDAP is for.
LDAP can be also tunneled thru SSL for devices that support it.
I'm in the middle of installing LDAP services for a big telco who is using it to store the roaming profiles of their new 3G wireless service users. Authentication is thru a RADIUS server tied into the LDAP server. (No, open source software is NOT used, but it could be on your part.)
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I want ubiquitous storage with strong encryption. By ubiquitous storage, I mean that I want the storage accessible by all of my devices; my various computers, PDAs, cell phones, set top boxes, TiVo units and everything else.
I want each of the above devices to be able to read/write a common format so I can share my various profiles phonebooks and calendars and they are all different views into the same large database.
I also want each of these devices to be able to use the same strong encryption algorithm. The encryption is performed at the application level within the device. That is, when a device writes a record, the record is encrypted, then sent to the central repository where it is stored in its encrypted form.
I believe that in this way, I can have ubiquitous access to my data, shares across multiple devices without requiring me to hand over my data to a trusted third party. All I need is a ubiquitous third party. I provide the trust using strong encryption and good keys.
-tpg
This is a bad idea all around, just ask .mac users :P
Do you really want to put yourself in a position to have your data taken hostage. And can they really guarantee privacy or does private just mean that it is protected from hackers, but they and the law enforcement can access it anytime?
I'd much rather see a sync over the internet from my systems to my systems using a pgp key.
"Note: I will be the one deciding who stores what. Think of it as like moving to a new place. You can choose your electricity, gas, phone, cable and Internet providers.""
kinda, the thing thats wrong with this is that an apartment is stationary. You do not get charged on *your* power bill when you go watch tv at your parents house. Or pay on your internet bill when you use some other machine to check email.
Wasn't this proposed several years ago, that everybody carry around a Smartcard with your security information and desktop environment? Unforunately, smartcard readers don't seem to have become ubiquitous in all computing devices. Still think it's a good idea, though. Functionally equivalent to the tiny USB disk drives, but smaller/cheaper/less memory.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Would you have your house, your car, your office, and your secret cash box all use the same key? It's all very convenient until someone else finds the key....
Got Rhinos?
I made one web page that looked nice with a set of nicely organized links that my wife and I use most often. It's got all the important links to place I visit on a weekly/daily basis, for shopping, banks, etc... Then wherever I go, I just make that my homepage and instantly I'm in a familiar environment that will take me wherever I need to go.
I still use bookmarks for something I find interesting, or something I only rarely visit. And if I need to remember what that is when I'm away, I can just telnet to my box at home, find the file mozilla uses to store my bookmarks and get it that way. Between those two methods, I've never needed a bookmark I couldn't get.
Looking for a computer support specialist for your small business? Check out
The obvious answer to this, is to load a unix on everything, and share your home directory via NFS to all of these things, or perhaps a secure version.
Honestly, think of it. A minimalistic NFS with a bit more bandwidth and you have it.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
The answer isn't to store your personal information somewhere new, but store it where you store it already - in your wallet. With flash cards and plug-in flash readers and the increased proliferation of USB buses, one would think it wouldn't be too big of a deal to sit down at your computer or open up your PDA, slide in your flash or whatever card, and have your preferences loaded, or when you leave, saved. If you're willing to have all the information you already do in your wallet, there's certainly no reason not to put the same information on a password-protected, access-location-limitted smart card in your wallet. You could even go so far as to have your card double as your car key.
paintball
Seriously, this is (IMHO) the perfect opportunity for another nice and easy application of strong cryptography. The idea is you want to store your own bookmarks, address book, and all sorts of personal information. And you want to be able to access it anywhere, right? So why not just store it somewhere reasonably decentralized (maybe a few redundant server farms) as a block of data encrypted with a symmetric algorithm? It wouldn't be more than maybe a couple of megs at the absolute MOST (that's a TON of addresses). I'd pay a few bucks a month for that service. In a sense, I already do, as I store a copy of my bookmarks, address books, and more on my Apple .mac iDisk in an encrypted disk image.
You're the only one who ever needs your own personal information, right? So this way you don't have to trust anyone with it. Your Mozilla will pull the block from the server, decrypt it with your pass phrase, and load it into the application. You'll could keep it locally cached if you like.
It doesn't require any new technology. The data could be served up by web servers. The back-end databases would use the usual replication and high-availability stuff.
If you could build it so Mozilla, Evolution, KMail, and all sorts of other applications can load the block or blocks (just an HTTP GET), decrypt (via the OpenSSL libraries), and parse (XML), you're done. When you make a change, you push the new versions back to the server.
The weak link, as usual, is the strength of the passwords.
In any field, find the strangest thing and then explore it. -John Archibald Wheeler
To an extent, Jabber already supports "roaming profiles" with your IM, through the use of a server-side contact list, and even any transports you might be using (AIM, ICQ, etc), along with their login info. This is more of a single-signon type thing, but it is along the same lines as a roaming profile.
But this could be taken much farther. The current protocol already offers arbitrary data storage on the server, and it could be beefed up if necessary (that's the wonderful part about an extensible protocol).
So then in your web browser (or in some global location on your OS), you could enter:
myusername@my-own-domain-nyah.com
and a password, and the browser could retrieve the necessary bookmarks and other data. And all of your data is safe at your-own-domain-nyah.com, instead of Microsoft HQ.
That pretty much covers all the bases. Time to hack this out.
-Justin
The PDA and the modern cell phones are designed to "sync" your data with your computer.
If we'd lived in an open standards world there'd be half a dozen plug ins for sending the data to and from your cell phone and/or PDA every time you sync up.
If managers didn't get paranoid becouse of a tech story on CNN (If your not able to check up on the story report every rummor... this is for tech and medical news alike.. swap storys with your doctor with the PS that passes for news)
Just sync your PDA and cell phone with your computer and you'll have nothing more than multi-redundent copys of the same data with no need to worry.
I like this anyway. I keep all my important files on my PDA and computer even if my PDA can't use em just to have a redundent copy.
(and then back up)
Muahahaha...
I don't actually exist.
Sounded good. I tried a demo of iPlanet a year or so ago, I couldn't get it working; *way* to complicated and fragmented. And I haven't heard much of Sun employees using it.
I have dreamed of a portable virtual desktop for years. Unfortunately, it doesn't exist yet; but for each specific application, there are some solutions (and some general solutinos). The best I have come up with is the following arrangement:
A little rough around the edges, but 90% of what I do (and probably 98% of what typical users do) revolves around email, the web, and a couple of specific applications, it goes a long way towards the ultimate solution, which hopefully will be available some day.
The true solution to this is a unversal open *protocol* for applications. IMAP lets universal email be *very* portable. There is no equivalent for calendaring. This is no equivalent for TODO lists. There is no equivalent for most other important applications. If there were, then mutliple vendors could implement it on different platforms, giving true portability.
Until this happens, there will be fragmented proprietary solutions, which by definition, will not be the universal solution. Sigh.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Why don't we pay say $50 to FSF for them to host my data forever? For that money they would store my bookmarks, my address list, etc etc etc, and I would get it from their servers once or twice a day.
That way we could sponsor them, which is good, and I also think we could all trust them.
Mats
P3P is notable in that it allows computing an unforgeable proof that the company did in fact give you agreement X about what they were going to do to your data.
P3P can't force people not to break their agreements, true. But it means that companies that do break them that use P3P will easily be sued in court. And for reputable companies (who waver at the thought of expensive litigation), this is more than enough.
May we never see th
Keep it simple, keep it text (XML) and that's that. The problem is that every company wants to be the only company who works with their own stuff. Look at the hoars at Sony that butcher FireWire and their MemoryShaft^H^H^H^H^HStick. Look at MS and their protocals (MS-TCPIP, MSXML, MSHTML, MSJava!).
The answer is simple. Text. XML. The problem is the corporate hoars behind the product.
Hell I'm just waiting for someone to (re)invent a centralized bookmarks/cookies database for web browsing. I use Konq, Mozilla, and Lynx across two Linux machines, and Chimera, OmniWeb, and Lynx on a Mac OS X machine. I want them to share cookies, bookmarks, and wherever possible, auto form fill-ins, cookie blocking preferences, etc. Right now, I have one be the "master" browser (konq) and a bunch of homemade scripts duplicate the data on demand. How awful! What if I'm on Chimera and I want to add a bookmark?
I remember Netscape's roaming profiles but who knows where that is now. And I hear a future version of Mac OS X is going to use LDAP heavily throughout (dropping NetInfo), but that's uncertain. I think OmniWeb on OS X lets you use an arbitrary URL for your bookmarks file (but I haven't tried it, and it's probably read-only).
Maybe now that the browser wars seem to be starting up again, someone will think this through. I definitely DON'T want it on somebody else's machine, I just want to click a "share with other browsers" button somewhere on my own machine(s), and I want it to work across architectures and browsers.
Of course I'm hoping you're just a troll that I was careless enough to respond to. Either that or you don't know what the fuck you're on about.
Like you can trust your machine at work! Where I work we click through the most outrageous agreements before we log in to the NT network. Essentialy all our data is our boss's, no personal use, that kind of thing.
Surely Microsoft could give it a stab, and then extend it beyond usefulness.
Most things Microsoft does are beyond usefulness and into rapicious. Have you read your EULA? Neither has my boss, or he would have realized that M$ owns all the data he thinks he owns.
All my information is available through ssh and ftp. Sensitive stuff gets no where near a computer at work, regardless of protocal.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
...but iSync offers the convergence, allowing syncing of contacts and calendar information between a Sony Erickson phone, Palm, and iPod (which can hold contacts) in conjunction with Mac OS X Jaguar's iCal and Address Book.
(dot)Mac is merely an Internet-based services package. It's useful, but not wholly collaborative.
I'm sure that Windows developers can generate something for themselves, but I bet the Linux/OSS group can figure out a similar tool faster since Mac OS X is just a BSD variant.
I don't think I like the idea of storing my personal data on networks that Apple or Microsoft create, but iSync wouldn't be a problem with me since the data remains local to my devices.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
Netscape used to have something on their website, where you could store your bookmarks and address book, and then import them into any Netscape running on any other computer. It was totally cross-platform and everything. I used it to sync my address books between my Linux and Windows machines- way easier and more reliable than exporting/importing database files. Microsoft also had this for Outlook users.
All this is good, but what would be most useful is a cross-platorrm, cross-browser, cross-everything standard for bookmarks and address books.
I have struggled with this same problem in the past. Especially when I had a desktop computer at work. All my data was split between several places, and multiple computers at each place.
Getting a laptop helped with having my files available wherever I am. But, I still use multiple systems, so keeping all my data on my laptop wasn't good enough. The best solution for me was to keep everything in a network accessible location.
For some, a My Yahoo! account might be good enough. Online e-mail, address book, notes, pictures, bookmarks, all www accessible. But, only somewhat configurable, advertising based, and limited to what they implement.
I have instead centralized my data on my Linux server, which is remotely accessible via my DSL connection.
Some simple PHP scripts, and a MySQL back end make a great searchable bookmark storage. A WWW frontend to a calendaring system also stored in MySQL. WWW/PHP accessible e-mail accounts (with Spam Assassin filtering out the garbage, and the ability to create many e-mail addresses - one for each service I sign up for, so I can determine who gives my address to spammers), To-Do list in PHP/MySQL. Files could be centrally accessible via Samba or HTTP.
Add a firewall to control access, and VPN if you're really ambitious,and it works like a charm.
The only time I don't have my data is when I have no net access (which is becoming increasingly rare). For those occasions, I need to improve my data synch-ing processes for my Zaurus.
If you look at our website you'll find a web-based Contact Manager software accessable from (virtually) all the devices you mentioned above.
/Shameless Plug
It's tested with Konqueror, IE, and Mozilla, and is known to work with a number of Palm-based devices, including the Handspring Treo cellular phone.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
That, rather than the Soviet-style centralized identity management that Microsoft and Sun envision, is likely to be how identity information gets passed around: from a variety of source on a variety of devices.
The easiest way to do this is to run a website on your how server. Slap on SSL and you're pretty much good to go. I have:
Centralized Webmail
Centralized Calendaring that I can share with my wife and theater company
Steaming Music that is granted by music profile, so I only share my music with people whom I would normally loan CDs to.
Centralized bookmarks with a convienant javascript link in my toolbar to add sites at home and at work.
The question is why did I have to develop this myself. I think this is the future. Why not take the idea of one of those router/webserver/firewalls a step further and make an all in one information box. You plug it into the network. You patch it. Why doesn't this exist?
I heard it got dropped
No, I did not read the f***ing article!
Database people do this sort of thing all the time, by making the data superior to the application and forcing apps to work through a very rigid interface. The way to do this is probably to store the preferences in a relational database. Those things are well understood, scale up, and can be replicated. Apps would get to the database via SQL, as usual. It's not the latest buzzword-compliant technology, but it's well-understood.
In college I used to keep a Zip disk with me that had a mail client that left the mail on the POP server (Eudora) - you could also use IMAP for that. It also had a browser and a regularly updated set of bookmarks.
As others have pointed out, USB pocket drives are also a solution.
If nothing else, a 1.4 meg floppy is pretty universally accepted and can easily store more bookmarks than any normal person has.
These solutions are a little more difficult to work with than simply logging onto a server, but do allow for more security. Netscape, at least, allows you to find a profile on start-up.
The only question is if all version of Netscape will read different profiles (will the Mac version read one written in Windows)
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
I'm surprised that /. isn't all over this...
Check out http://www.xns.org
"XNS is an open, XML-based protocol for identifying and linking any resource participating in any kind of digital transaction. You'll find the complete technical specifications on this site.
XNS provides a flexible, interoperable method for establishing and maintaining persistent digital identities and relationships between these identities. The protocol provides services for registering and resolving identity addresses, defining and managing XML identity documents, conducting and protecting identity transactions, and linking and synchronizing identity attributes."
Basically, store what you want, where you want, in an open format. As a public trust organization, they don't store your identity, they only proxy it. Store it with MS, with Apple, with your work, at home.
Leave it to nerds to bicker over a problem that country music has already solved. The song you want is called "God is my Palm Pilot".
Can't recall who sang it though. Let me check with my personal organizer, and I'll get back to you.
Democracy. Whiskey. Sexy. Pick any two.
I appreciate your desire for being able to centralize all your data, but I'm afraid in the real world, it doesn't work like we might like.
So, in my attempts to centralize all my data, I used Netscape 4.5+'s Roaming profiles, along with a website that provided roaming-profile service for free (hey, it's only a few kb for each user, why not a free service?)
So, this worked fine from my home system... It would save the settings, and I'd just have to type in my password when I opened Netscape for the first time.
So, then I try it from work... It's a bit of a hassle because I have to got to the commandline, then launch netscape with a commandline option, then type in all the account settings (server, path, type, username, password) each time I was going to use a browser... You never know when you're going to want to bookmark something.
So, then I check my e-mail! Of course my service was pop3, so it would only exist on the machine where I had downloaded it, so there were serious problems there. Even with the option to keep the message on the server, there was a serious ammount of inconsistency...
Additionally, because of the firewall settings, I had to use a different SMTP server when I was at work, than I used at home. So, the roaming profile didn't work too well if I wanted to reply at work, but I could at least read it in my spare time, and reply when I got home right?
So I found an IMAP e-mail service, and began using that. It was much less reliable, had a smaller quota, etc. Did I mention that IMAP was blocked by our firewall? So no roaming e-mail for me.
We're just getting started. After using the roaming profile server for a few week, I opened a sub-folder of my bookmarks to discover a bookmark called "Transfer Interupted"... I realized that upon one of the sync attempts, the bookmarks were half-transfered, when the connection dropped. The server and Netscape didn't complain, so that corrupted copy was then synced up, and eventually overwrote all my backup copies (I had apparently been using the corrupt bookmarks for some time).
Then the next problem came along... Mozilla was not going to include roaming profile support. So even if I had wanted to continue, I couldn't.
So, my solution was simply to send copies of all my reasonable important data to my home server on a weekly basis (from my workstation at work, from my handheld, etc). When there is a problem, it isn't too much of a hassle to copy it back manually.
First you need to force each company to use the same format for all the settings that matter. Then you need to make it forward compatible, so things you can't even imagine right now, can be accomodated as needed. Then you need some way to automatically keep all the devices in sync (a server) that everyone will be happy to all use.
Some times you just have to do these things manually.
Of course, don't quite understand what you want, or why you want it.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
If the information would be encrypted on the servers, and only readable by me on my devices (with the right certificate), I could probably use such a service.
Well I guess what yer asking for is Easier then World Peace :)
Just a word of caution if you use a "personal homepage" to do this.
Remember that the HTTP referrer header that is written to the web logs of sites you visit will reveal your "personal homepage" URL, so be careful if you store other information (such as friends email addresses or contact numbers etc.)
Well, at least not anytime soon. Trust me. I'm in the sync business. The solution is to have a multipoint sync feature that allows all your 'devices' to sync to a central point. Where that central point is should not matter. Trust your ISP? Host it there. Trust Yahoo!? Leave it there. Want to stick it on your home network? No problem.
/b
The next problem is getting the devices to talk with each other in a standard langauge...but that is not going to happen. you have to have an engine that can translate between the different devices. Take recurring appointments. Palm can handle certain features, Lotus Notes others and Outllok still others. What happens when you try and keep them all in sync? You have to allow for all the different capabilities. Not easy.
Then you have supported platforms. Just how many contact lists do you keep? For me I have the following...Palm, PocketPC, SyncML Phone, Outlook, Yahoo!, Hotmail, Evolution. That's seven different places to keep in sync. Then there are the bookmarks. I use Mozilla, IE, PocketIE, Konqueror and AvanteGo on several machines. I have bookmarks scattered about all of them.
Then there is filtering. Do you really need all of that information on one device? No. I only want my personal stuff on my home PC but both on my work PC.
PS: When I say device I mean a data point. I.e Outlook is a device Lotus Notes is one, A Palm is one, etc.
PPS: If someone says just stick it all online and access when you need it; Wake up. When you are 100 miles from the nearest cell tower and you don't have coverage...thats when you want access the data that you have only stored online.
[Please type your sig here.]
You can find a list of web based bookmarking systems here.
This is a protocol for storing application configurations centrally. All you need to do is get your cellphone and PDA companies to support it. Hmm yeah. Not sure what the status of the project is at the moment though. Google for it, or read this white paper.
First you should solve the problem with Slashdot, which does not allow you to delete your account for example - and does not even mention this during the registration process. Next time when you decide to accept a submission related to YRO, first fix your own violations.
For instance, lets say that I want your medical records. I would go to the central registry and make a request. The central registry would reply that the information is stored at, say, the Mayo Clinic. I would still have to go there and jump through whatever hoops they present to actually get the data.
The definite good thing about this is that if you decide that you don't want to use the Mayo Clinic for some reason (poor security policies, impersonal staff, whatever), then you can designate John Hopkins, and future requests will be transparently routed there instead.
The potentially good thing is that the central redirector could implement its own security policies. For example, medical info requests should only be forwarded if they come from someone with a certificate signed by an appropriate authority (i.e. ama-assn.org and/or amerchiro.org).
The process would work a lot like DNS. In fact, I don't see any reason why the central server couldn't be distributed in a manner similar to DNS servers.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?