Where web and enterprise meet on user-managed access

Phil Hunt shared some musings on OAuth and UMA recently. His perspective is valuable, as always. He even coined a neat phrase to capture a key value of UMA’s authorization manager (AM) role: it’s a user-centric consent server. Here are a couple of thoughts back.

In the enterprise, an externalized policy decision point represents classic access management architecture, but in today’s Web it’s foreign. UMA combines both worlds with the trick of letting Alice craft her own access authorization […]
Read more

SMART UMA application: call for testers

The SMART project (Student-Managed Access to Online Resources) at Newcastle University has issued a call for user experience testers for the smartam component of the UMA-based applications they have been building. Participation should take less than a half-hour; if you’re interested, check out the flyer for instructions. To keep up with general news on the project (there’s lots), follow the SMART JISC blog.

This is an exciting milestone in UMA development. Congratulations to the SMART team! […]
Read more

Tofu, online trust, and spiritual wisdom

At the European Identity Conference a little while back, Andre Durand gave a downright spiritual keynote on Identity in the Cloud. His advice for dealing with the angst of moving highly sensitive identity information into the cloud? Ancient Buddhist wisdom.

All experiences are marked by suffering, disharmony, and frustration.

Suffering and frustration come from desire and clinging.

To achieve an end to disharmony, stop clinging.

(I can’t wait to hear his pearls of wisdom at the Cloud Identity […]
Read more

OpenID and OAuth: As the URL Turns

In Phil Windley’s initial IIW wrap-up, he alluded to the soap-opera nature of the OpenID wrangling that went on last week. It’s an apt description.

In the spirit of real ones:

Margo wanted Parker to get an attorney before making a confession but he insisted on telling the truth anyway. Margo quickly called Jack with the latest development so he and Carly rushed to the station. Jack ordered his son to keep quiet but Parker said he was

 […]
Read more

Comparing OAuth and UMA

The last few weeks have been fertile for the Kantara User-Managed Access work. First we ran a half-day UMA workshop (slides, liveblog) at EIC that included a presentation by Maciej Machulak of Newcastle University on his SMART project implementation; the workshop inspired Christian Scholz to develop a whole new UMA prototype the very same day. (And they have been busy bees since; you can find more info here.)

Then, this past week at IIW […]
Read more

Data portability and wagon-circling

One of the breakout tracks at EIC last week was Cloud Platforms and Data Portability. Dave Kearns had asked me to speak for a few minutes on the subject of social data portability before joining Drummond and Christian for a panel discussion.

I brainstormed a bit and suggested that I could comment on the notion of data statelessness, and the continuum of individuals’ data portability on the web. That somehow turned into a boldface uppercase talk called […]
Read more

Munich fuel

To get through the intense European Identity Conference last week in Munich (thanks, Kuppinger Cole folks!), I had to make sure to drink lots of fluids. I’m referring, of course, to coffee, beer, and one extraordinary whisky (thanks, Ping Identity folks!).

Bavarian coffee cup – gift from a local friend

The 2010 edition of the conference was lively and valuable. Here are just a couple of stories about encounters I had there, with more thoughts and info […]
Read more

Paleo-empiricism, or: carbgrrl alunda ool

A chance encounter in a blog comment thread a few months back led to my discovering an incredibly rich vein of metabolism/nutrition research, commentary, and community known as “Paleo”. Since then, I’ve spent a lot more time reading, and pondering, and trying-out, than writing (sorry it’s been so quiet around here).

What is paleo (or the paleo diet, or the primal diet, or the evolutionary metabolic milieu, or…)? Below I’ll provide links to what have become favorite sources, but […]
Read more

Quick thoughts on XAuth

It’s the “common domain cookie” trick from Liberty ID-FF and SAML2, except without the notion of a circle of trust. (Thanks to Praveen for forging the CDC connection in my brain.)

Heh.

It’s yet another thing you have to opt out of instead of into. (To disable it, visit XAuth.org from each browser you use.)

Pamela is wise.

I was already getting tired of the “social web” about the end of 2009. Does that make me anti-social?

Ugh […]
Read more

You are cordially required

…to check out the new Gluecon conference to be held in Colorado in late May. Early-bird registration closes this Friday — use code spkr12 for an extra 10% off.

It’s all about “the new technologies that are forming around web applications in a post-cloud world”. Since I’m on record as predicting we’re going to see more consumerization of IT rather than more ITization of consumers (cracking myself up here), this theme definitely appeals. I will be there to discuss […]
Read more