Posted 2:39 PM (0) comments

How NOT to plan an event

The dates for the Internet Identity Workshop have shifted once again according to Identity Woman, who writes: "Sorry we shifted it again the other way the Internet Identity Workshop will be October 26-27th."

Evidently if you want to go, but the date is a conflict, just ask and they'll inconenience everyone else so that you can show up! Now that's personalization. But it isn't organization. Do I really want these people deciding how to validate (and protect) my identity?

Fortunately Berkeley isn't that far away, so I'll be there.

Posted 9:54 PM (0) comments

New Blood for InfoCard

I just learned that Microsoft's InfoCard is getting a new Senior Product Manager and he's an old friend - Howard Ting, formerly at RSA Security where he was the chief instigator for their Identity Managment practice. He spent a short time at Identity Engines but evidently decided that startups weren't for him. This is good news for both Howard and for Microsoft - it's about time they let a non-Canadian play with the new Identity Metasystem!

Posted 9:47 PM (0) comments

The Wheat - UPDATE

I do believe I read more into Phil Windley's post which I commented on in Wheat and Chaff then is actually present, as he reminds me. "Boy, I hope it didn't sound like this was a call for *more* systems," is the way he put it. And I'll admit that on re-reading it does actually say that the IIW will simply discuss existing proposals (although I'm sure new, existing but not yet universally known ones may also emerge. Windley went on to say that "I'm actually hoping that this can start the winnowing process..." Something we all can hope for.

Well, I've registered. Have you?

UPDATE: Note that the dates of the IIW have changed, to Oct 25/26. Remark your calendars accordingly.

Posted 2:00 PM (1) comments

Moving day?

Over the next month or so I'll be moving all of my jottings on Identity, Identity Management, Identity and Access Management, etc., etc. over to a new site. IdM is a new venture which I hope will garner a wider readership than the Virtual Quill site.

Vquill.com will still be here, but it will contain musings and ramblings on other-than-identity issues.

The Network World newsletters on Identity, Windows Networking, and Novell Networking will remain as is. So Will the Wired Windows column in the print edition of Network World.

IdM will also contain news headlines and links, white paper listings (and links), event listings (and links) and - over time - all things which make IdM (the technology) so interesting (and links!).

Until the move is finalized, the Virtual Quill blog posts will be duplicated at IdM - but you have had fair warning!

Posted 10:26 AM (4) comments

Wheat and chaff

Phil Windley (along with Kaliya Hamlin, Drummond Reed, and Doc Searls) is organizing the Internet Identity Workshop (IIW) 2005 at the University of California in October. The goal, according to Windley, is "...to provide a forum to discuss architectural and governance proposals for Internet-wide identity services and their underlying philosophies." Specifically, he mentions:

* The Liberty Alliance
* Microsoft's InfoCard system
* Identity Commons
* SXIP
* OpenID
* LID
* XRI/XDI (i-names)
* Passel

And therein lies the problem. There are simply too many proliferating and competing architectures, governance proposals and philosophies to ever hope to arrive at some sort of world-wide scalable identity metasystem! To invite people to step forward and present new ones simply creates more problems.

Of course, each of these systems has pros and cons, pluses and minuses. But each also has creators, inventors and evangelists who believe that their way is the right way to create the new identity paradigm.

Just as in a business there comes a time when the visionary entrepreneur must give way and bring in new leadership or face the business becoming an afterthought or a footnote, so too must those visionaries, idealists and "identity entrepreneurs" now give way to the pencil-pushing, spreadsheet wielding, bean counting administrators, accountants and maintenance workers who can distill the best of these schemes and craft them into something that's both workable as well as palatable to the great majority of potential users.

It's time to start the winnowing process.