In a recent email one of my colleagues in the group (Juan Jose) commented the recent announcements from Yahoo and CNN to support OpenID login in their sites. In the case of CNN he tried to use his OpenID Identifier from myopenId and became frustated that he has to sign in again with CNN. He then meditated about it (free translation from spanish)

• User's profile will always remain in possesion of CNN's and alike sites


• There will be data duplicity: users will be forced to manage in website not ,as it will be desirable, in OpenID provider.


• OpenID Identifiers will only be used in non-critical applications or services.


• Sites like e-mails providers on-line shooping centers etc (those somewhat concerned with security/privacy) will emit their own OpenID dentifiers.


• In spite of that as there are miriads of small websites OpenID use will increase exponentially.


• Sites like banks, on-line payments sites more related to critic application will probably never use OpenID
  
  
  The above make me think: There seems to be two mixing things into his reflection worth to separate:
• Security issues of OpenID: I think that OpenID will further increases its security features and it can, then, probably be adopted for critical applications.
• OpenID as way to re-unificate Internet User's profiles: Here the problem is Internet caotic dinamycs. I don't think that OpenId by itself (nor anything or anyone else will do) will change the fact that for many years users in the fact that we as Internet users have fragmented our profile in dozens of sites before we think how valuable it is.

It seems to me that this is a matter of critical assets -profiles- for many web companies (webcos) for them to easily open it up or be confident in other web companies (Identity provider role) to manage it.


Guillermo.

It is known that all telecom operators are facing what one of my colleagues has named in a previous post a "shift in the paradigm". We are now facing the crash of to "galaxies": Internet and Telecom ones. In this dangerous situation, What a Mobile Operator can do with respect to identity management not to get severe injured in it?.

It seems that two main positions arises from our colleagues in R&D:

• One that comes from people with expertise security technologies and bound to GSM/UMTS technologies. The idea behind is to leverage current Mobile Operators assets and in particular the fact that the SIM could be seen as a high security vault and the handset is carried by millions (billions?) of people nowadays. Is this is so why not to turn the SIM+Mobile handset into a highly secure personal Identification token used for transactions beyond talk or send SMS ?. We could think this tied to current mobile network architectures and services.


• The second one says that our customers beyond having a mobile handset to speak and texting also uses the Internet. It shares with the first one the idea of using the mobile handset as a vault (maybe in ways that not guarantee security as much as in the first case) to manage potential identities and profiles our customer may use in the Internet. This turns the Operator in a kind of Identity Hub in which the operator provides tools for our customers to manage their Internet identities potentially with a plus in security. The mobile operator needs then to provide means for integrate current Internet Identity management protocols. One issue is that current mobile architecures didn't take into account that Internet was here.

Guillermo.

It is not the first time, and it will not be the last one, someone has asked me why digital identity management could be a success in the Internet or mobile communications in a near future. Many expectations regarding potential applications of Identity management vanished in the past when market didn’t adopted them as a tool for doing tangible business or expanding the number of features available for the users. I am usually given the example of PKI. However, Was PKI created to solve the problems that the players in the market claimed? Was the market ready for that?

PKI was a success solving the problem of securing intra-domain communications (companies, public administrations, etc…). It relies on a hierarchical organisation of Certificate Authorities. One Certificate Authority only trust on an upper level Certification Authority, so any interaction between entities is bound to a hierarchical relationship. The PKI’s strength is its own weakness: the lack of flexibility in open environments since it needs a closed ecosystem to set up a trust relationship. The world is moving towards open ecosystems with flexible and non-hierarchical networks. Therefore, what is needed is a way to articulate an environment where the points of decision are not bound to any hierarchies. It is the age of federated networks and PKI systems and the like cannot fit these needs.

But, What are the reasons Identity Management has not succeed in the market? There are both business and technological reasons for that.

First of all, there has not been a technological trigger able to push the market towards models where Identity Management could enable new enriching types of businesses. Microsoft’s Passport intended to create a ‘one party’ dominant model; entities and technology providers in the word refused it. Then, technologies like Liberty Alliance specifications tried to provide a flexible and open enough alternative; however, this technology is being, by the time being, hardly adopted because it is complex and disruptive enough to be acquired the technical knowledge easily. Ultimately, it is not cheap to introduce and maintain.

Additionally, despite the hyping on these technologies in the market, there has been a ‘not-to-be-the-first-one’ effect because these technologies have not hit real problems in the market and have not enabled the tools to solve them. To give an example, the payment procedures and the means to reach real time deals with the customers in a standard and simple way. It is important to highlight that the potential businesses enabled by these technologies are very disruptive; it means that it is needed to break the inertia of the current businesses: new investments, explore new business areas, legal issues with identity, etc… Of course, there is not a market demand to cover; instead, what we have is an opportunity to create out there.

So, Why it can be a success now? In the last five years, there are many evidence that demonstrate the old paradigm is shifting:

· For network operators, the pressure of regulators is reducing business margins. They need to find alternative ways to capitalise the added value they can bring to other potential businesses.
· Web 2.0, and in general, the Internet is capturing more and more user information. There is user information in places they didn’t know existed. The lack of control of this information is becoming a treat for them. The role of OpenID as an open identity management standard is to provide a tool to the Internet players to manage this information.
· The Internet is a mean where many potential small companies could offer added value to the users. It is not capitalized by the users because of their lack of trust on them. The long tail companies could be, in some cases, the 50% of the potential business.

In summary, Identity management could provide the way big and small companies articulate new businesses by reaching other customers they would not be able to reach using current paradigms. The network operators, and in general, any entities hosting and managing safely user information, could bring additional added value to these businesses, being part of the value chain. Users would see that are able to access a big set of new services in a private and safe way; they would control their own personal information.

It would be a ‘all win’ situation. So, When will it happen?

Paco Marin

What is identity? This simple question can be answered from different points of view: philosophical, technical…artistic. In this post, I am interested in giving you an answer from the art side by the hand of one of the most promising Spanish photographers, Oscar Latorre-Bosch.

Óscar Latorre-Bosch (born in Lleida, Spain, in 1971) studied drawing and painting during several years at the School of Fine Art Serrando in his born city and later on studied a degree at the School of Photography EFTI in Madrid as Professional in Digital Photography and a Master in Photography.

His artworks are mainly focused in the individual and his own interaction with himself, isolating him from the environment. The identity has been a matter of obsession to him since many years ago. His last project, ID , was born as an internal need of the author to search his
identity and essence as well as to understand how the change in the individual affects both. Based on that, he mainly considered subtle daily events.

His reflections, compiled in a separate notebook, suggest that each individual has not one but several identities, one at each moment of his lifetime which are hardly distinguishable between them. According to him, the essence cannot be considered as such. The change itself is the responsible of its destruction and, at the same time, it is the true essence of the individual. To the author, the real wonderful thing about the human being is that he is absolute change, a difficult to understand evolution to somewhere.

Here we are again, back in the same place where we were some days previously. We may think we are the same person we were then and yet, we are somehow different. The events we lived through during this period have provoked changes in us.

We have become a new individual.

Some events produce so abrupt changes that it is easy to notice the personal traits that have been affected. Others, such as insignificant daily events, alter our traits in such a subtle and imperceptible way that even we ourselves may not be aware of it.

But each change alters our traits and grants us a new identity.

During our lifetime we embrace different identities. With so many identities that we are, we should wonder which of our traits define us as individual; we should find the unchangeable ones. What is true is that we are individuals in permanent evolution. What always remains unchanged in us is the change itself.

All of us are, in essence, change.

Thank you very much to Oscar for his contribution to this blog. I recommed you visit his his complete work in this link.

Miguel Angel Touset




¿Qué es identidad? Esta sencilla pregunta puede contestarse desde distintos puntos de vista: filosófico, técnico,… artístico. En este post, quiero dar una respuesta desde mundo del arte de la mano de uno de los más prometedores fotógrafos españoles, Óscar Latorre-Bosch.

Óscar Latorre-Bosch (nacido en Lleida, España, en 1971) estudió varios años dibujo y pintura en la Escuela de Bellas Artes Serrando en su ciudad natal y después cursó en la Escuela de Fotografía EFTI de Madrid un curso de Fotografía Profesional Digital y un Master de Fotografía.

Sus trabajos de autor se centran principalmente en el individuo y en la interacción de éste consigo mismo, aislándolo del entorno. Obsesionado con la identidad desde hace años, este proyecto, ID, nació como una necesidad intrínseca del autor de buscar su propia identidad y esencia y entender como afecta el cambio del individuo a ambos. Para ello reflexionó sobre los sutiles sucesos diarios.

Sus reflexiones, recogidas en un cuaderno aparte, sugieren que el individuo no tiene una sino múltiples identidades, una para cada momento de su vida, siendo difícil discernir dónde acaba una y empieza la siguiente. Según él, la esencia como tal no existe, el cambio es el responsable de su destrucción y, precisamente por ello, es el propio cambio la verdadera esencia del individuo. Para el autor, lo verdaderamente maravilloso del ser humano es que es puro cambio, una evolución incomprensible hacia alguna parte.

Estamos aquí en el mismo lugar donde estuvimos unos días atrás. Podemos pensar que somos el mismo individuo que éramos entonces y, sin embargo, somos distintos de algún modo. Los acontecimientos vividos durante este tiempo han provocado cambios en nosotros.

Nos hemos convertido en un individuo diferente.

Algunos acontecimientos producen cambios tan bruscos que resulta sencillo percatarse de los rasgos propios de nuestra identidad que se han visto afectados, pero otros, como los insignificantes sucesos del día a día, alteran nuestros rasgos de manera tan sutil e imperceptible que ni siquiera nosotros mismos somos conscientes de ello.

Pero cada cambio altera nuestros rasgos, nos otorga una nueva identidad.

A lo largo de nuestra vida adoptamos distintas identidades. Con tantas identidades que somos cabe preguntarnos cuáles de nuestros rasgos propios nos definen como individuo; encontrar aquellos que son invariables. Lo cierto es que somos individuos en constante evolución, aquello que siempre permanece en nosotros es el propio cambio.

Todos nosotros somos, en esencia, cambio.


Muchas gracias a Oscar por su contribución a este blog. Os recomiendo visitar su página web en este enlace.

Miguel Angel Touset

Since the creation of the telephony, numbering plans and, user authentication Identity has been part of both IT and Telephony worlds: Identity in Telecommunications world has always been there since the beginning.

In our case, a Mobile Operator, Identity is built around the IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity), MSISDN (telephone number) and IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity). Not all of them Identify the User as IMEI identify mobile handsets, for instance. Beyond these Identity tokens, there is an architectural element within the network -the HLR- that hosts information about what services a mobile subscriber is able to execute among other things like the mentioned IMSI, MSISDN (one or several), current location etc. There are others identity elements related to data services and even others more in new generation 3G networks. In 3G networks, the newly created domain – the IMS: IP Multimedia System- adds new features about Identity: Users are allowed to have several Identities. One of these Identities is private while the others are public. The concept of Identity has thus become a little more complex in the new 3G networks. It is true that there are still no commercially deployed IMS systems so these new concepts have not yet been exposed to the market reality. We do not simply know how they will be integrated in future product portfolios.

Being this a complex world the later elements are not the only one that nowadays defines the Identity of our mobile users; In current 2G networks, above data transport services, many services are being built and commercialized: chats, e-mail systems (real Mail, Blackberry) location services and similar that are yet to come. A popular way of identifying users in these services is using the login/password tuple usually one for each service.

Guillermo.