Google, PayPal, Equifax, VeriSign, Verizon, CA, and Booz Allen Hamilton have formed a nonprofit company to oversee the development and exchange of online identity credentials on Web sites as a way to help with the user ID and password problems we all face.
The goal of the Open Identity Exchange (OIX) is to create a “trust framework” and certification program that lets organizations and individuals exchange digital credentials and know what identity, security, and privacy assertions are behind them. In addition to the single sign-on convenience, the credentials could be compelling because they let people be authenticated without being identified.
Separately, Microsoft is also working on creating a better way to implement online IDs. These initiatives are helpful and timely, because the current method of identifying individuals through IDs and passwords needs to change. It is too complex to manage—and when complexity increases, security decreases.
