Google's Open Web Advocate Talks White House Web ID Plan. As previously reported, the White House is working on a "National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace" or NSTIC, in which it has placed the Commerce Department in charge of an "Identity Ecosystem". The initiative has drawn a mixture of praise and criticism, and judging by our own readers’ comments, there is a whole lot of criticism.
More on this here. Share your thoughts on the White House’s strategy. We had a discussion on the subject with Chris Messina, Google’s Open Web advocate. Messina was there when the plan was revealed, and is rather knowledgeable in the subject of online identity (besides working for Google, he’s on the board of the OpenID Foundation, and has worked with Mozilla to produce a concept on implementing identity in the browser called "The Social Agent") , which is why we felt he would be a good person to share his views on the strategy. "The user’s concern is valid," says Messina. Comments welcome. Google’s Open Web Advocate Talks White House Web ID Plan.
Open identity for the government. Chris Messina is a community board member of the OpenID Foundation, long time advocate for citizens of the web, and prolific blogger on all things “open”. Today in collaboration with Vivek Kundra, the nation’s first CIO, we are announcing a pilot program intended to enable individual citizens to login to government websites with their existing accounts — without revealing their password or personally identifying information — using OpenID and InfoCard technologies. This is an important step in the Obama administration’s commitment to open, transparent, and participatory government.
First, it acknowledges and embraces existing, open technologies, rather than inventing their own (or worse, hiring independent contractors to do the same). Second, this comes at a critical time in the history of OpenID, of which there are now well over 500 million OpenID-capable accounts in the wild, (even if few people realize that they already have one!). Yahoo!, PayPal, Google, Equifax, AOL, VeriSign, Acxiom, Citi, Pr. Gov 2.0 Conference - Washington, D.C. — September 9, 2009 — Ten industry leaders — Yahoo! , PayPal, Google, Equifax, AOL, VeriSign, Acxiom, Citi, Privo and Wave Systems — announced today they will support the first pilot programs designed for the American public to engage in open government — government that is transparent, participatory, and collaborative.
This open identity initiative is a key step in President Obama’s memorandum to make it easy for individuals to register and participate in government websites — without having to create new usernames and passwords. Additionally, members of the public will be able to fully control how much or how little personal information they share with the government at all times. These companies will act as digital identity providers using OpenID and Information Card technologies. Dr. “It’s good to see government taking a leadership role in moving identity technology forward. “Open standards like OpenID create a better Internet for everyone. Government. When NIH, or NASA researchers and scientists wanted to publish a lot of information in a way that people could easily get to it and add to it, they simply built, posted and tested their ideas.
Because of the groundwork laid in social media technologies, like OpenID they did not have to ask permission, or make any changes to the core operations of the Internet. My guess is other agencies will soon copy them — hundreds of thousands of computer users, then hundreds of millions, creating and sharing content and technology. That’s the Social Web or Web 2.0 or Gov 2.0. Call it what you will — it’s on its way, today in federal, state and local agencies and around the world.
Put another way, we in the open identity community are trying to design each new protocol to be both useful in its own right and a building block available to others. We do not think of protocols as finished products, and we are deliberately exposing the internal architecture to make it easy for others to gain a foothold. Thread-Safe - Open Identity Pilot announced for US Government.
The project I have been working on for the last 6 months is no longer a secret. Secret Government Project Today the OpenID Foundation, Information Card Foundation, and the US General Services Administation (GSA) are announcing the pilot proram for US gov sites accepting Information Cards, openID, and SAML.
InCommon has been working with the GSA and NIH for a while now so may be less news worthy, but they are no less a participant. We have ten Identity Providers who are announcing today there participation in the pilot, and there intention to follow through with certification by one of the "Trust Framework Providers". GSA Pilot informationInfocard Pilot informationOpenID Pilot information Chris Messina post The GSA Information card profile is in the final approval process.The GSA OpenID profile was approved and released today.
I have been working closely with the Identity providers and the initial government RPs. Participation for Identity Providers is not limited to the ten announced today. TheSocialWeb.tv. The Social Web TV - Episode 43 - Uploaded by redgee. Connect With Interactive Video ® "Their API has been easy to work with and we are proud to be partnering with Viddler delivering videos all over the world. " - Erik Gjerde, Highlight Media Group "Viddler just works. It's a big improvement over Vimeo, where I had been hosting my videos, and it's hands-down better than YouTube. " - Tim Haines, Vericastne It's Way More Than Video Hosting ... Showcase your branded content Create a compelling experience on your website Engage with your audience with timeline commenting and tagging It's a True Partnership Clients rely on Viddler to develop new functionality, convert opportunities into solutions, and always explore the interactive potential of video.
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