The iPhone identity selector Apple won’t care about
By Simon Bisson & Mary Branscombe in Editorial
Posted in Identity, smartphone, Security, Internet, Microsoft, Mobile, Apple on
On a smartphone, passwords are even more irritating than ever, especially on a soft keyboard that’s so sure it knows what you want to type that the default is to correct what you actually wrote. That’s only a trimester if the phone has as big a vocabulary as you do.
For instance, when I started writing this on my Samsung Blackjack II with xt9, what I typed in the previous sentence was ‘timesaver’ - before xt9 ‘ corrected’ it… xt9 gives you the option to stick with your actual typing as long as you notice the change and the equally aggressive correction on the iPhone does the same (though I’ve never managed it myself), but it’s one more way that passwords are more likely to trip you up than keep you secure. Let alone that the UK now has the worst information theft figures in Europe, even though the French have the least secure passwords.
Switching to information cards where claims like who I am and whether I’m over 18 are encrypted, hashed and sent on demand to replace simple username and password makes logging on simpler and more secure, and makes it possible to add extra authentication. After complaining about Microsoft not issuing secure ‘managed’ cards I’ve been told to wait a few days for a major announcement; it might be the Equifax over-18 I-card service https://equifaxicards.com/imover/overview.do (only for the US at the moment, but it’s the first major public verified information card and it will soon be followed by cards to prove your credit rating, contact details or membership).
So that leaves getting sites and services to accept information cards - and being able to use them on any computer. They’re built into Vista, Windows 7 and any PC with IE7, plus there are open source plugins for Firefox and Safari.
Rated: 100% (1 votes)
Loading ...Comment by - May 1, 2009 on 6:58 pm
Apple may not care about InfoCards, but on the iphone, the browser is controlled by Apple, and there is no way currently to download an identity selector without ‘jailbreaking’ the iphone, which effectively voids the warranty. Apple will need to make a stand on this at some point.
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