It will try to lock up digital ID in much the same way, he argues.
The trustworthiness of a digital certificate ultimately depends on how the issuer has safeguarded their digital ID.
CNN: Technology - E-Signature Act may drive demand for authentication technology
Titans like Sun, Microsoft and IBM are already pursuing the business, treating digital ID as part of software security.
Without digital ID, we are stuck with the greatest friction point in Web commerce: that redundant typing in of passwords and filling out of home address fields for the umpteenth time.
Particularly with Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) involved: The Redmond, Wash. monopolist made a big early move to try to impose a standard for digital ID, offering a crude version of its Passport service in 1999. (Novell had the digital identity idea even earlier but couldn't find customers).
NeuStar, the 1999 management buyout from Lockheed Martin that acts as a third-party administrator of 160 million North American phone numbers (so one phone can reach another), is angling to be a digital-ID custodian.
The card will likely take the place of your driver's license and will store at the very minimum your name, birthdate, sex, ID number, a digital photograph and address, with the possibility of additional data such as a fingerprint or retinal scan.
Biometric ID methods are being built into digital cameras, and as costs fall they will proliferate into every nook and cranny of America.
On the first day out, he loaded it with his wallet, keys, BlackBerry, digital recorder, notepad, pen, bifocals, work ID card, newspaper and a tin of mini Altoids.
Once inside the building, suited WEF officials diligently check ID badges to ensure delegates -- or digital producers for that matter -- don't walk into the wrong areas.
"Digital certificates are required for connection to the RRP service, but user ID and passwords are required to initiate a session, " explains Rick Wesson, an IETF member and a senior software engineer at Alice's Registry Tools.
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