Microsoft proposes online ID system

Elinor Mills
cnet
Tuesday, Sept 3, 2008

Microsoft has an idea for keeping children safe online: create “digital playgrounds,” sites where visitors have to prove their age using digital identity credentials.

The idea was detailed in a paper Microsoft was set to release early on Wednesday as part of its Trustworthy Computing initiative. The concept builds on a notion called “End to End Trust” that Microsoft first proposed in April at the RSA Security conference.

The company is tackling the challenge of how to make the Internet safer not just for children, but also for adults wanting to conduct business, make transactions, and communicate with the confidence that the people they are interacting with really are who they say they are. A big concern is how to add more identity authentication without compromising the privacy of the people involved.

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“I started thinking about how we identify people in the physical world three years ago, when my wife had a (baby) boy,” Scott Charney, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for Trustworthy Computing, said in a recent interview. “I was in the delivery room, and out he came, and the doctor said, ‘What’s his name?’”

“It occurred to me that all identity is based on social custom and derivative identity. Parents name the child, and the name is put on the birth certificate,” which then becomes the irrefutable proof of that person’s identity, he said. “We haven’t done that on the Internet.”

Microsoft proposes using existing identity verification systems, such as schools that register children for classes, post offices that verify identities for passports, and motor vehicle agencies that issue drivers’ licenses, to help create digital credentials that people would use online.

Full article here

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4 Responses to “Microsoft proposes online ID system”

1. WarLoPO Says:
   September 4th, 2008 at 9:14 am

   well there goes the Internet

2. T Moore Says:
   September 4th, 2008 at 9:54 am

   “A big concern is how to add more identity authentication without compromising the privacy of the people involved.”

   That’s like saying, “A big concern is how to add more black to white with out compromising the purity of the white.” How can you protect one’s privacy on the internet when there is an attempt to add more identifiers, especially when MS is trying to build “confidence that the people {we} are interacting with really are who they say they are”?

3. Coal Says:
   September 4th, 2008 at 10:19 am

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErFOsoKzpD0
   2:50, slow mo towers collapse- stunning

   still think it was muslim lowriders driving jets?

   God Bless

4. Claudia Says:
   September 4th, 2008 at 12:26 pm

   Now we wont even be able to use the internet without a chip! Yay!!!!!! Thanks Microsoft!