Liberty Alliance Project Unveils Single Sign-on Spec

The Liberty Alliance Project unveiled the 1.0 specification that will let business users and consumers log on once and access credentials such as credit card information and specific data without having to input those credentials. Members of the Liberty Alliance include American Express, AOL Time Warner, Citigroup, General Motors, Mastercard International, United Airlines and other business users, as well as vendors such as HP, IBM, Sun Microsystems, Novell and RSA Security.

Microsoft, which has its own single sign-on product and digital wallet--Passport--did not announce support for the spec, though the company in the past has not dismissed the possibility of either supporting it or interoperating with it.

The Liberty Alliance, announced at the Burton Group Catalyst Conference in San Francisco, will let solution providers develop applications that allow individuals to log into multiple linked accounts from one device or Web site. Several companies including Sun, RSA, Novell and Entrust said they will release products based on Liberty 1.0.

The spec is based on the Security Assertation Markup Language (SAML), a standard for exchanging credentials. The Liberty Alliance 1.0 spec paves the way for solution providers to develop applications for businesses that require integration with other business partners, says Ed Anderson, Novell's director of product management for its Identity Services Group, whose eDirectory and iChain products will support the Liberty Alliance spec by year's end.

"In terms of single sign-on, it means our partners will be able to take to market more customized and integrated solutions," Anderson says. He believes customers will initially deploy single sign-on within their enterprises.

Novell's Liberty Alliance support software, code-named Saturn, will ship by year's end, though the company did not disclose any pricing or programs. Novell did not announce support for Microsoft's Passport, though Anderson says "we expect to make announcements about support for Passport later."

The Liberty Alliance 1.0 spec supports single sign-on, opt-in account linking, global logout and support for authentication. Details of the spec are on the Liberty Alliance's Web site, www.projectliberty.org.