Liberty Alliance Unveils Phase 2 Specifications

The announcements, made at the recent RSA Conference 2003 here, represent a major step forward for the alliance, said Michael Barrett, vice president of Internet Strategy for American Express and management board president of the Liberty Alliance, a group of about 150 vendors formed to deliver and support a "federated" network identity solution for the Internet that enables single sign-on for users. "Last year we stood here as a fledgling operation and growing rapidly, but we said little about what we were going to do. Since then, we have done a great deal," he said.

Phase 2 of the Liberty Alliance specifications for creating a common and trusted way of building and managing identity-based Web services builds on the Phase 1 specifications,also known as the Liberty Identity Federation Framework,released in July 2002. Phase 2 also includes affiliations, which allow a user to choose to federate,or create a simplified sign-on for,a group of affiliated sites, as well as anonymity features, which enable a service to request certain user attributes without needing to know the user's identity.

In addition, Phase 2 introduces the Liberty Identity Web Services Framework, which outlines the technical components necessary to build interoperable, identity-based Web services, and the Liberty Identity Service Interface Specifications, designed to offer companies a standard way to build interoperable identity-based services.

The Liberty Alliance also demonstrated four examples of "Liberty-enabled" products at the RSA Conference. Twenty member companies took part in a mobile business-to-consumer scenario, a financial services business-to-business scenario, a business-to-employee portal scenario and a broadband/ISP business-to-consumer scenario demonstrating the federated sign-in model and opt-in account linking.

Barrett said some of the products and services demonstrated are currently available, while others will be available soon.

Solution providers see a future in the technology. "From the standpoint of having a mechanism to store [your sign-on] information online, it makes sense. But the big question is, when will the fear factor pass?" said Brian Okun, vice president of marketing at CHIPS, Lake Success, N.Y.

LIBERTY AND SIMPLE SIGN-ON FOR ALL
Included in Phase 2 of the Liberty Alliance specifications

> Liberty Identity Web Services Framework: Outlines the technical components that are necessary to build interoperability, identity-based Web services.
> Liberty Identity Service Interface Specifications: Series of specifications that are designed to offer companies a standard way to build interoperability, identity-based services.