Saturday, April 30, 2005
What is Digital Identity?
"What is Digital Identity?
A Digital Identity is the representation of a human identity that is used in a distributed network interaction with other machines or people. The purpose of the Digital Identity is to restore the ease and security human transactions once had, when we all knew each other and did business face-to-face, to a machine environment where we are often meeting each other for the first time as we enter into transactions over vast distances.
Attributes of a Digital Identity
A Digital Identity only needs to be as complete as a particular transaction requires. That is to say, some transactions require a far more robust Digital Identity than others, since the degree of trust and information required can vary significantly based on the type of transaction. A Digital Identity consists of two parts:
Who one is (identity)
The credentials that one holds (attributes of that identity).
These credentials define a Digital Identity, and they can be quite varied, of widely differing value, and have many different uses. The full Digital Identity is quite intricate and has legal as well as technical implications (here is a MIT white paper on the subject that will give you the idea.) However, the simplest possible Digital Identity consists of an ID (such as a user name) and an authentication secret (such as a password).
In this simplest Digital Identity the user name is the identity while the password is said to be the authentication credential. As computerized systems become more networked and distributed, Digital Identity must become more robust to make complex distributed user interactions easy while achieving the required control and security. Ultimately Digital Identity will become as complex and flexible in use as a real-world human identity."
A Digital Identity is the representation of a human identity that is used in a distributed network interaction with other machines or people. The purpose of the Digital Identity is to restore the ease and security human transactions once had, when we all knew each other and did business face-to-face, to a machine environment where we are often meeting each other for the first time as we enter into transactions over vast distances.
Attributes of a Digital Identity
A Digital Identity only needs to be as complete as a particular transaction requires. That is to say, some transactions require a far more robust Digital Identity than others, since the degree of trust and information required can vary significantly based on the type of transaction. A Digital Identity consists of two parts:
Who one is (identity)
The credentials that one holds (attributes of that identity).
These credentials define a Digital Identity, and they can be quite varied, of widely differing value, and have many different uses. The full Digital Identity is quite intricate and has legal as well as technical implications (here is a MIT white paper on the subject that will give you the idea.) However, the simplest possible Digital Identity consists of an ID (such as a user name) and an authentication secret (such as a password).
In this simplest Digital Identity the user name is the identity while the password is said to be the authentication credential. As computerized systems become more networked and distributed, Digital Identity must become more robust to make complex distributed user interactions easy while achieving the required control and security. Ultimately Digital Identity will become as complex and flexible in use as a real-world human identity."
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