Identity as a service

All of the major web 2.0 services are hamstrung because they can't federate identity. At best there is a username/password provision, but how is that going to work if an "application" is an aggregation of 10 other services? More to the point, identity is something that individuals should be able to control more directly as opposed to something that is locked up in some vendors website. It goes way beyond the simple convenience of having a single signon capability...

Link: LCblog | Identity as a service | Oct 27th 2005 4:02pm.

That's why identity as a service is the killer app. Not as a service offered in its own right to individuals, but as a service to websites and providers that have no workable identity management infrastructure of their own to offer their users. Restricting access on a named-user basis to individual URLs — RSS feeds, screencasts, PDF files or web service URIs — is the key that would enable such sites to realize value from those assets. At present it's not a viable option because of the cost and/or hassle of maintaining their own secure identity management system.

Comments

[Marty Heyman]

Well, the underlying technology for identity management is around 10 years old (ancient by Internet standards) and well proven for authentication and authorization. The problem is not necessarily technological. Look to the paranoia of marketeers and others afraid of sharing their customers with each other or to the obsession of technologists to invent yet another solution to a long-solved problem.

Just my $0.02, as a Founder in a Directory Services company ...

[jeff]

we invested in a federated identity company because we believe we're at an inflection point where it becomes possible, both technically and culturally.

[Johannes Ernst]

Hi Jeff,

we missed you at IIW, I'm sure you would have liked it. Everybody I've talked to said that they learned a lot, and some well-defined action items and initiatives like YADIS have come out of it already.