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Friday, January 07, 2005

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Saturday, January 01, 2005

I.T. Vibe - Microsoft to abandon Passport service


Passport dropped


Dinosaurs become extinct in a semiotic sense, due to an inherent flaw, a lack of adaptability, a lack of a certain sophistication actually required to survive the dangerous changing world.


It is like that with operating systems. If we called them operating universes, it would be more accurate. Security is the sum of the weakest links in the chain. Most feel that security is the strength of the encryption, but it is more often the exposure of the plaintext that is the problem that leads to update mayhem. Security is not provided by a sum of parts, or a combination of features. It is provided by everyone knowing the same rules, and those rules being fundamental to the operativeness of the environment.


Passport was always a difficult product. With the security concerns provided by that most major bit of Microsoft middle-ware fudge - Windows being exposed to the Interet - one must ask carefully, why invest one's identity with a company who's products are under daily attack?


Linux is not so strong, either. But it's fundamentals is that it has a security model and when it is implemented properly it is harder to find cracks. So the mighty seek legal cracks rather than simply embracing technology and moving ahead.


But Microsoft have taken an enlightened step, and abandoned Passport. Realising it has no claim to our identities - without opening up all sorts of legal problems as our souls appear on its balance sheet.