What is the Liberty Alliance Project

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Asks saskia

A. The Liberty Alliance Project is an organisation that has recently been formed to create an open, federated, single sign-on identity solution for the digital economy via any device connected to the Internet (PC, phone, TV, etc) - which means it will work to create a common technology for identifying users on the Internet. It is a membership organisation - with all its members working towards achieving one solution, instead of many competing ones.

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Q. What are the objectives of the Liberty Alliance Project

A. It has three main objectives, these can be outlined as follows:

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1) To enable consumers and businesses to maintain personal information securely - this will enable a decentralized approach to garnering personal or proprietary information, and promote interoperability or service delivery across networks.

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2) To provide a universal, open standard for single sign-on with decentralized authentication and open authorization from multiple providers - Internet single sign-on will allow users to log in once, and be authenticated for a spectrum of network services supporting the Liberty standard, between and among web sites, as well as network services even if those services are provided by different businesses.

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3) To provide an open standard for network identity spanning all network-connected devices - this allows providers of network services, and the infrastructure that enables them, to adopt a neutral, open standard, available wherever the Internet is available, to enable secure and reliable identity authentication across handsets, automobiles, credit cards - literally any device attached to the Internet.

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Q. Why is one solution for Internet identity needed

A. In a recent press release issued by the Liberty Alliance Project, Tim O'Reilly, CEO of technology publisher O'Reilly & Associates, and a member of the project sums up the need for the Project and its objectives: "It's recently become clear that the software for managing user identity and authentication is one of the key building blocks of the emerging Internet operating system. It's so fundamental that a widespread consensus has emerged that this is a technology that shouldn't be owned or controlled by any one player. Instead, we need an open, distributed system with implementations available from multiple technology providers and identities issued by many parties operating in a web of trust."

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Q. What does the Project mean by identity

A. Identity refers to a single person and any personal information associated with them such as phone numbers, social security numbers, addresses, credit records, payment information etc. - the Liberty Alliance Project will work towards a system that will carefully guard your personal information on the web, making it extremely difficult for it to be accessed by hackers for example, providing you with more security when using the Internet.

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It will also provide a universal, open standard for "single sign-on," which will allow users to log in once, and be authenticated for a spectrum of services - from movies on demand, to banking and electronic commerce - even if those services are provided by different businesses.

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Q. Who are the members of the Liberty Alliance Project

A. The following organisations are among those that have become members: American Express, AOL Time Warner, Bell Canada, France Telecom, General Motors, Global Crossing, Hewlett-Packard, MasterCard International, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Openwave Systems, RealNetworks, RSA Security, Sony Corporation, Sun Microsystems, United Airlines and Vodafone.

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Q. Are there any company's that are conspicuous by their absence

A. There has been quite bit of press coverage lately highlighting the fact that Microsoft has yet to join the Alliance, although it is believed to be in talks with representatives of the group. However, the project will in fact be a competitor to Microsoft's Passport authentication service, which allows its subscribers to visit participating websites without signing on to each of the sites. Microsoft has also positioned Passport as the sign-on service for its .Net My Services web initiative.

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Q. When does the Alliance expect to produce this open standard

A. As yet it has not released any information on planned dates for the implementation of any standards, but it is expected to do so in the spring (2002). In the meantime, it is addressing business practices, privacy, consumer adoption and technology evolution.

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If you would like to obtain any further information on the Liberty Alliance Project, their website address is: http://www.projectliberty.org

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By Karen Anderson