identity

New technical preview of U-Prove, February 2011

2011-02-15T16:48:00Z

Microsoft is releasing a second Community Technology Preview (CTP) of U-Prove and related software innovations to help put users in control of how their identity information is shared on the internet. Microsoft is pleased to announce this preview during RSA 2011, and to enable policymakers, end-users, and members of the Internet Identity community to try out the concepts, evaluate the capabilities and provide feedback.

U-Prove is an advanced cryptographic technology that, combined with existing standards-based identity solutions, overcomes the long-standing dilemma between identity assurance and privacy. U-Prove technology offers the same level of security as X.509 certificates, with additional privacy protecting features. These capabilities unlock a broad range of scenarios that have historically been out of the reach of both the private and public sectors - cases where both verified identity information and privacy are required.

At the core of Microsoft’s vision are U-Prove Agents—software that acts as an intermediary between websites and explicitly represent the users’ interests in choosing to share (or not to share) their personal information with sites on the Internet. In this Preview, Microsoft offers a U-Prove Agent running as an online service, accessible from any computing device with a web browser. Optional client-side software delivered by this service provides enhanced security and privacy capabilities. This Preview also includes several sample websites, representing organizations in public and private sectors that can issue verified information or consume this information.

Download white papers, specifications and developer toolkits at http://microsoft.com/u-prove.

Industry Working Group for a Claims Agent

To further the practical collaboration on privacy protecting solutions among open source and commercial partners, Microsoft is working within the Identity Commons helping to form a new working group. The charter for the Claims Agent Working Group includes sponsoring open source variants of a U-Prove Agent, testing for interoperability among common browsers and platforms, and testing specific scenarios in an end-to-end manner in order to build confidence in the identity and privacy ecosystem.

Learn more about how Gemalto is integrating U-Prove with Smart Card Technology: http://www.gemalto.com/php/pr_view.php?id=945

Testing the Microsoft U-Prove Agent

For testing purposes, Microsoft has created several sample websites, representing organizations in public and private sectors that can issue verified information or consume this information. These sample sites have been setup with fictitious user accounts and fictitious user data.

You can try:

Selling or buying a car at an auction site, with verified information about your car or yourself
Applying for unemployment benefits with verified identity claims

Instructions for using these sample websites is available on the sample websites page.

Internet Identity Workshop XI - November 2-4, Mountain View, CA

2010-10-22T18:12:43Z

The Internet Identity Workshop focuses on “user-centric identity” and trying to solve the technical challenge of how people can manage their identity across the range of websites, services, companies and organizations that they belong to, purchase from and participate with. Participants work on trying to address social and legal issues that arise with new tools and technologies. This year's conference will also focus some attention on business models that can make this ecosystem of cloud and Web services thrive. There will be several Microsoft participants at the workshop and registration is still open at: http://iiw11.eventbrite.com/

The emerging themes for IIW #11 include:

Personal Data Ecosystem & Privacy
Federated Social Web
User-Centric Identity applied (OpenID, OAuth, XRD, SAML, Information Cards)
Vendor Relationship Management
Active Clients (add-ins in Web browsers and other client side software)
Identity in the Cloud

Microsoft goes international with new U-Prove concept and privacy

2010-10-08T21:40:00Z

During ISSE on October 5-7, 2010 in Berlin, Germany Microsoft showed a new proof of concept with our partners in Germany, Fraunhofer FOKUS. As part of our keynote and break-out session, the concept explores privacy-enhanced identity experiences with U-Prove technology. A video featuring how privacy-preserving techniques such as minimal disclosure with U-Prove can be achieved by leveraging trustworthy credentials--the German eID card, which is scheduled to roll-out later this year. The scenario demonstrated involves citizen eParticipation with the City of Berlin online survey. Watch the video online at EndtoEnd Trust to learn more.

On October 6, 2010 during the TeleTrusT Innovation awards, Fraunhofer FOKUS was honored with the Technology Innovation Award for their work with Microsoft on privacy-enhancing identity systems. The "TeleTrusT Innovation Award" is an annual award given to applicants that have developed an innovative and trustworthy information technology, software or online service for use in industry, government or research and embodies characteristics such as integration, interoperability and transparency.

On October 8-9, in Berlin, Germany the First International Privacy Standards Conference is being held at the DIN, the German Standardization Institute. Microsoft’s submission paper titled: Levels of Protection (LOPS) was accepted for presentation to the ISO/TMB Privacy Committee. Download the whitepaper.

Abstract: A common source of distrust in online interactions today stems from people’s lack of confidence that their identity information will be treated with care. This white paper proposes the development of levels of protection (LOPs) to enable a person disclosing identity information (a Discloser) to have assurance in advance that it will be treated with appropriate protection by the party to whom it is disclosed (the Receiver). The term “levels of protection” as used here refers to degrees of data protection applied to identity information, with progressive levels allowing parties who disclose or receive identity information to know in advance how it is to be treated.

Microsoft receives the Privacy Innovation Award for Technology 2010

2010-09-30T21:29:00Z

On September 30, 2010 Microsoft received an award at the annual International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) Privacy Innovation Awards ceremony in Baltimore, MD. The award acknowledges Microsoft’s release of U-Prove, a privacy-enhancing security technology, which helps address people's need to protect their identity-related information. U-Prove makes it possible for people to disclose minimal amounts of identifying information when accessing Web applications and services.

A key part of the release was the publication of the U-Prove specification under the Microsoft Open Specification Promise (OSP). Additionally, two software toolkits —C# and Java editions—were made available under an open source license to enable broad access to the technology by both commercial and open source software developers.

Earlier this year, on May 5, 2010, Microsoft received additional industry recognition for U-Prove. Microsoft won the in European Identity Award in the "Best Innovation" category from German-based analyst firm, Kuppinger Cole & Partners.

As we look ahead into October, the ISSE 2010 conference is being hosted in collaboration with the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, ENISA, TeleTrusT, and will join forces with GI-SICHERHEIT, the biannual congress on safety and security of the German Informatics (GI) Society. Microsoft’s VP of Trustworthy Computing, Scott Charney, will unveil a new proof of concept featuring the U-Prove technology as part of his keynote speech.

To learn more about U-Prove releases, visit: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/twc/endtoendtrust/vision/uprove.aspx
To download U-Prove software and whitepapers, visit: http://www.microsoft.com/uprove
To learn more about the IAPP, visit: https://www.privacyassociation.org/about_iapp/iapp_annual_awards/

Microsoft at Burton Group's Catalyst Conference 2010 – San Diego, CA (USA)

2010-07-12T22:11:31Z

On Wednesday, July 28, 2010, we are participating in an Open Identity for Business Interop being held by OSIS at Catalyst in San Diego. This multi-protocol interop event includes exercising the US Government identity profiles developed as part of the Open Identity Solutions for Open Government initiative. Microsoft [Mike Jones] is hosting testing endpoints using AD FS 2.0 and the Card Issuance CTP.

A Guide to Claims-Based Identity and Access Control (2010)

2010-06-15T23:40:38Z

A Guide to Claims-Based Identity and Access Control: claims provide an innovative approach for building applications that authenticate and authorize users. Imagine a world where you don't have to worry about authentication. Imagine instead that all requests to your application already include the information you need to make access control decisions and to personalize the application for the user (a citizen accessing public services).

In this world, your applications can trust another system component to securely provide user information, such as the user's name or e-mail address, a case manager's e-mail address, or even a procurement authorization limit or access to a health care record. The user's information always arrives in the same simple format, regardless of the authentication mechanism, even if someone in charge of your security policy changes how users authenticate, you still get the information, and it's always in the same format.

Learn more: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff423674.aspx

Codeplex: http://claimsid.codeplex.com/

How will the cloud impact Digital Identity?

2010-05-27T22:34:00Z

Microsoft will keynote on the topic: How will the cloud impact Digital Identity? at the European e-Identity Management Conference in London, UK on June 9-10. “Cloud computing will accelerate the move away from ad-hoc identity solutions toward an Identity Metasystem based on a converging suite of standards such as SAML, WS*, OAuth, OpenID,” said Kim Cameron, Distinguish Engineer and Chief Identity Architect at Microsoft. “In my presentation, we will look at the reasons and issues, and examine the implications for citizens, governments and enterprises,” he added.

The European e-Identity Management Conference is Europe’s leading forum for this critical security application - tackling the key issues surrounding e-identity as a core enabler of today's personal, business and government processes. For 2010, eema and OASIS will host a uniquely interactive two-day event in London on the 9-10 June 2010 and will comprise thought-provoking keynotes, panel discussions, round table sessions and focused workshops on the key challenges and strategies for effectively managing Government, employee, citizen and private identities.

Open Identity Summit EU 2010 on June 8 (London, UK)

2010-05-27T22:17:00Z

The OpenID Summit (EU) is an important outreach opportunity for the foundation and a chance for developers, identity providers and relying parties to exchange information in Europe. Topics are expected to include: use cases, issues and problems encountered, solutions proposed, the OpenID v.Next effort, and EU trust model framework topics.

The summit will be held on Tuesday, June 8th at the Microsoft Offices at Cardinal Place, 100 Victoria Street, London SW1E 5JL, UK. This is the same location as the European e-Identity Management Conference, which follows it June 9th and 10th. The summit and the conference are not affiliated with one another. This summit builds upon the recent 2010 OpenID User Experience (UX) Summit and the 2010 OpenID Technology Summit West.

RSVP at http://openid-eu-summit-2010.eventbrite.com -- there is no fee to attend.

Availability of the Information Card Issuance Preview

2010-05-24T22:21:00Z

Today, Microsoft is announcing the availability of the Information Card Issuance Community Technology Preview (CTP) to enable the following scenarios with Active Directory Federation Services 2.0 RTM:

Administrators can install an Information Card Issuance component on AD FS 2.0 RTM servers and configure Information Card Issuance policy and parameters.
End users with IMI 1.0- or IMI 1.1 (DRAFT)-compliant identity selectors can obtain Information Cards backed by username/password, X.509 digital certificate, or Kerberos.
Continued support for Windows CardSpace 1.0 in Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP SP 3 running .NET 3.5 SP1.

We have also adding two new mechanisms for interaction and feedback on this topic, an Information Card Issuance forum and a monitored e-mail alias ici-ctp@microsoft.com.

Microsoft shines at the European Identity Conference 2010

2010-05-06T13:11:00Z

In the category “Best Innovation”, the European Identity Award went to Microsoft for U-Prove. The U-Prove technology, which enables minimal disclosure of identity-related information is considered to be a pioneering effort in enhancing online privacy and security, by analyst firm Kuppinger-Cole & Partners.

We are very appreciative to be acknowledged by the industry for the U-Prove software and specification releases we recently made available to the community. Privacy and multi-party security are important issues for government and businesses particularly with respect to moving to the cloud.

In the category “Best Project”, the University of Washington was honored for its identity federation solution in research and education which was developed together with Microsoft and “Live@Edu”.

The University of Washington is delighted to have its work with Microsoft on federation services honored by Kuppinger Cole, said RL "Bob" Morgan, Identity Architect for UW Information Technology and Shibboleth Project core team member. At UW, we are committed to standards-based federation to extend the value of UW identity to the services our users need. It is great to partner with Microsoft since they too are making a commitment to federation for Windows Live and Live@edu. Live@edu's support of higher-education federations including InCommon is a key differentiator. Making it all work has many challenges, but it's essential so the higher-ed community can collaborate seamlessly and securely in cloud environments. Nathan Dors, manager of Identity and Access Management for UW Information Technology, added that the partnership with Microsoft has been very positive. We agree with Microsoft on the importance of being both standards-oriented and pragmatic. Choice of federating technology is key and we appreciate Microsoft's striving to reach parity between AD FS 2.0 and Shibboleth solutions.

Also in the category “Best Project” Thomson Reuters was honored for its solution enabling users to easily and securely access various application services, which is based on Microsoft’s Windows Identity Foundation and Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS 2.0).

We are delighted to be acknowledged by international analyst firm Kuppinger Cole & Partners for our identity project with Treasura. Being able to provide a standards-based solution from Microsoft has enhanced application security and offered greater access control for our identity infrastructure project,” said Jason Shantz, Architect, Thomson Reuters.

And finally, in the category “Best Project” BMW was honored for its identity management solution covering more than 100,000 dealerships and other external users, replacing existing legacy systems. The project was a co-development with Omada and Microsoft.