Federated Identity Management

Well ok. Not the most interesting subject.... But nevertheless here i was, sitting on the train on my way to work... and guess what... im listening to these folks from IBM, Microsoft, Sun and HP talking about Federated ID Management... What the heck!

I have not payed much attention in this space for some time... well not since the days of Microsoft Passport and Sun's Liberty Alliance (if it wasn't an alliance then.. it sure is now).

Anyhow... I got thinking that i'd actually forgotten what it was like to listen to people talk. You know that kind of chatty... comfy... night time radio chat ... Ovaltine moment... Right now most forms of communications rely on me actually writing or reading something... we use IM, SMS Messaging, e-mails, blogs... so it was pretty refreshing to hear these folks talk on my iPod.

I got to hear these legends who are responsible for others things including the WS-* specs talk about:

• SAML, WS-Security, Liberty, Oasis.
  
• Microsoft and Sun's differing view on how standards should be created.
  
• Convergence between Liberty and WS-Security.
  
• Why ID management is important enough that there aren't differing standards.
  
• I liked Microsofts idea of a more informal trust management solution (Infocard) that meets the needs of ad-hoc/social/personal/collaborative situations, much like what is used in Groove and PGP) - Although the Liberty folks thought that Enterprises weren't interested in that... (i think thats an old skool security mindset.)

Anyhow getting back to Ovaltine... I like idea of an online directory based - offline radio broadcasting data cache. This time round the revolution will be Podcast.... right?