Technology acquisition a step towards building end-to-end trust
By Craig H. Wittenberg, Architect, IDA Technical Strategy
Hi, I’m Craig Wittenberg, an architect for Microsoft’s identity and access technical strategy, and I was hoping to give you a little more information and context about the U-Prove technology and acquisition, Craige Mundie discussed in his keynote. Craig discussed that from a technology standpoint, establishing Microsoft’s vision of end-to-end trust will require strong authentication across hardware, software, people and data (when desired). We refer to this as a “trusted stack.” As Craig noted, when combined with the other attributes of I4A (identity claims, authentication, authorization, access, and auditing), this can lead to a safer online experience and enable greater Internet security and privacy for all users. In this context, you may have heard Craig talk about our recent acquisition of Credentica’s U-Prove technology as an example of the steps we are taking to align the elements of I+4A.
On March 6, 2008, we announced that we had acquired the privacy enhancing U-Prove technology from Credentica and hired Dr. Stefan Brands and his teammates, who developed the technology. Today, most online authentication and authorization solutions typically require individuals to provide too much personal information, posing a threat to privacy by increasing the potential for online identity theft and misuse of personal information. U-Prove technology helps to protect privacy by providing secure blind tokens that put users in control of their personal information by allowing them to disclose just the right amount of information required in any electronic transaction, including not revealing the token recipient to the token issuer. Blind tokens use cryptography to prevent systems involved in the transactions from aggregating information about users, even when those systems collude. Limiting the identity attributes needed for a transaction and avoiding the linking of transactions helps to ensure user privacy.
We plan to integrate the U-Prove technology into technologies such as Windows Communication Foundation and Windows Cardspace, enabling everyone from developers to consumers to utilize and benefit from these technologies.
For more information and opinions on this news, visit the Data Imperative blog, Kim Cameron’s blog, and Stefan Brand’s blog.
Sincerely,
Craig H. Wittenberg, Architect, IDA Technical Strategy
