Identity, security - and children

Security: Identity Management This newsletter is sponsored by Aveksa Implementing Roles-based Access Governance Experience with RBAC has been mostly disappointing. Discovering roles, defining new roles according to business need, ensuring compliance requirements are met, and managing role lifecycle has, until now, proved to be too cumbersome to be practical. However, a new policy-based approach to roles-based governance has evolved that overcomes these problems. Network World's Security: Identity Management Newsletter, 11/14/07 Identity, security – and children By Dave Kearns Last issue I warned, er, told you about Mattel’s “Barbie Girls” identity token device, designed to protect your child from on-line predators – and only $60 per user. But someone else wants to do something similar – and they don’t want to charge you. Uniloc USA, (whose motto is “the computer is the password”) has been active in the multifactor strong authentication market with reasonable success. But now, they’re trotting out the “protect our most valuable resource, our children” mantra, and hope to corner the market in child-protection for social networking sites. Uniloc’s technology is similar to that used by Microsoft for it’s licensing. It calculates a hardware footprint from the various subsystems in your PC, then uses that calculation as part of the authentication process when you log on to the network. Simply changing a network card, or a hard drive, won’t invalidate the calculated value so it’s going to be difficult to alter the hardware signature of your PC. That’s the selling point for the social networks. Executive Guide The Security Treadmill This Executive Guide offers interviews with leading, real-world security experts who tell you how to get inside users' heads, fight for a bigger security budget, and whether VoIP security issues are overstated or underrated, and much more. Review this informative guide today. Click Here for More Information Let’s say there’s a social networking site called Kids Place. They license the technology from Uniloc. Users of Kids Place then register with pcandme.com (Uniloc’s Web site for the “protect the children” technology) and install the signature software (at no charge). When the child goes to Kids Place, they can only interact with others who are registered at pcandme.com. Further, if any registered user misbehaves, their PC can be instantly removed from the Kids Place environment. And because Kids Place knows the digital signature of that PC, it can be permanently blocked from establishing a new account with Kids Place. It’s not as inane as the “Barbie Girls” idea, but it’s also not foolproof. It is possible to reconfigure the PC so that a different digital signature would be created. How often someone could do this I have no idea, but it can be done. Still, the protection offered by pcandme.com is certainly better than nothing. Coupled with good parenting, it might very well prevent any untoward incidents from occurring. Remember, though, that the good parenting is the most important part – as we often say here, the technology is easy – it’s the people that are the hard part. Editor's note: Starting Monday, Nov, 19, this newsletter will be renamed "Security: Identity Management Alert." Subscribers to the HTML version of this newsletter will notice some enhancements that will provide you with access to more resources relevant to identity management. You will still receive Dave Kearns' analysis of this market, which you will be able to read in its entirety online at NetworkWorld.com, along with links to relevant news headlines of the day. We hope you enjoy the enhancements and we thank you for reading Network World newsletters.   What do you think? Post a comment on this newsletter

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Contact the author: Dave Kearns is the editor of IdM, the Journal of Identity Management as well as a consultant to both vendors and users of IdM technologies. He's written a number of books including the (sadly) now out of print "Complete Guide to eDirectory." His other musings can be found at the Virtual Quill, an Internet publisher which provides content services to network vendors: books, manuals, white papers, lectures and seminars, marketing, technical marketing and support documents. Virtual Quill provides "words to sell by..." Find out more by e-mail. Comments to this newsletter can be e-mailed to Dave here.  This newsletter is sponsored by Aveksa Implementing Roles-based Access Governance Experience with RBAC has been mostly disappointing. Discovering roles, defining new roles according to business need, ensuring compliance requirements are met, and managing role lifecycle has, until now, proved to be too cumbersome to be practical. However, a new policy-based approach to roles-based governance has evolved that overcomes these problems. ARCHIVE Archive of the Security: Identity Management Newsletter. BONUS FEATURE 90% of IT Managers are leaving their company at risk for a DNS ATTACK. Get the tools and resources you need to keep your DNS healthy and secure. Run a DNSreport on your domain today - 56 critical tests run in 8 seconds. Visit www.dnsreport.com to learn more. (apply coupon NWW2007NLA for a 25% membership discount) PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE You've got the technology snapshot of your choice delivered to your inbox each day. Extend your knowledge with a print subscription to the Network World newsweekly, Apply here today. International subscribers, click here. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES To subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World newsletter, change your e-mail address or contact us, click here. This message was sent to: security.world@gmail.com. Please use this address when modifying your subscription. Advertising information: Write to Associate Publisher Online Susan Cardoza Network World, Inc., 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772 Copyright Network World, Inc., 2007