Archive for January, 2010

Ping Identity Joins OpenID Foundation Board

Posted at 11:48 am on January 19, 2010 by jfe

Ping Identity^®, the leader in Internet Identity Security, today announced it has joined the OpenID Foundation to help develop, promote and extend digital identity and choice on the Web.   Pam Dingle, a senior technical architect in Ping Identity’s Office of the CTO, will represent the company on the OpenID Foundation’s board of directors.

“The marketplace is increasingly looking for open, multi protocol identity solution sets that Ping and other members of the Foundation have innovated,” said Don Thibeau, Executive Director of the OpenID Foundation.  “Ping Identity’s decision to help shape the strategy of the OpenID Foundation signals a phase shift in the evolution of the open identity infrastructure.”

Ping Identity is committed to extending the functionality of Internet Single Sign-On across a growing number of critical corporate and consumer communication channels.  As a sustaining member of the OpenID Foundation’s board of directors, Ping Identity joins a distinct group of digital identity thought leaders to accelerate open options for securely managing digital identities.

“Protecting digital identities including securing user access is quickly becoming a business and personal imperative,” said Ping Identity CTO Patrick Harding.   “As an OpenID Foundation member, Ping Identity brings almost a decade of Internet SSO experience together with a broad range of security disciplines to help overcome the security and interoperability barriers to long term success.”

The OpenID Foundation represents the open community of developers, vendors, and users. The organization assists the community by providing needed infrastructure and help in promoting and supporting expanded adoption of OpenID. This entails managing intellectual property and brand marks as well as fostering viral growth and global participation in the proliferation of OpenID.

Ping Identity joins nine other OpenID Foundation corporate board members including Booz Allen Hamilton, Facebook, Google, IBM, Microsoft, PayPal, VeriSign, Yahoo! and LexisNexis.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 11:48 am and is filed under News, Press Releases. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Mobile Services in Japan begin OpenID experiment

Posted at 11:11 am on January 4, 2010 by jfe

22 companies including NTT docomo, KDDI, Sony, NEC, etc. have formed “ID Platform Federation Forum”. With JPY12 billion (approx. US$1.3M) in funding from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication, the forum members will initiate the experiment, based largely on OpenID, by the end of the year. The forum itself is operated by Nomura Research Institute (NRI).

Mobile content and commerce has flourished in Japan after the deployment of mobile browser communication for the mobile phones in Japan. As of 2008, it amounts to JPY1,352,400,000,000 (approx. US$15M) and showing 17% growth even under stagnant market conditions [1]. It has become so important that it is often said that a service will not be viable without mobile web support.

One of the key factors of its success has been attributed to the ability to identify the user reliably in the mobile carrier network. This characteristic combined with the micropayments provided by the mobile carriers enable a zero-hassle login and payment user experience. However, these features have only been available via mobile browser and not on the PC and other internet-connected devices. The forum aims to expand the success of the identification and payment service capability from the mobile arena into the wider internet, using OpenID as the underlying technology. The forum will provide insights on the implementation and recommendations obtained from the experiment back to the international community through bodies such as the OpenID Foundation. Currently, the forum expects the feedback to impact the Mobile Profile of OpenID, the Attribute schema, and Level of Protection of the Relying Parties.

Chairman
Prof. Aida, Tokyo University

Vice-chair
Prof. Morikawa, Tokyo University

Secretariat
Nomura Research Institute, Ltd.

Members
Access Co. Ltd.
KDDI Corporation
Nextwave Co. Ltd.
NEC Corporation
Nihon Unisys Ltd.
Nomura Research Institute, Ltd.
NTT Comunications
NTT docomo Inc.
Fujitsu
Hitachi Ltd.
Softbank BB Corp.
Sony Corporation
Willcom Inc.

in addition, there are observers.

[1] Source: Ministry of Internal Affaires and Communication (http://www.soumu.go.jp/menu_news/s-news/02ryutsu04_000016.html)

This entry was posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 11:11 am and is filed under Foundation, government, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Payment Working Group started at OpenID Foundation Japan (OIDF-J)

Posted at 11:08 am on by jfe

In response to the newly enacted “Fund Transfer and Payment Services Act of Japan”, the OpenID Foundation Japan has announced the formation of the “Payment Working Group (WG)” on December 8, 2009. The Payment WG consists of 14 member companies and aims to create whitepapers on ”Guidelines for Secure Management of Information”, “Guidelines for Outsourcing” and “Guidelines for Identity Verification and Authentication” as well as the best practice and profiling document for implementing fund transfer and payment service built on OpenID.

Currently, only depository financial institutions such as banks are allowed to provide fund transfer service. The situation is going to change by this act taking effect in 2010. After that time, anybody who complies with certain conditions can start providing funds transfer service. The aim of this WG is to promote OpenID as the foundation for such services by establishing industry backed recommendations on profiles of OpenID.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 11:08 am and is filed under Foundation, government, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.