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Microsoft's wanted a really good federated identity scheme ever since the early 2000s, when it gave the world Project Hailstorm, aka ".Net My Services", to let a web of online services know a little about you and the information you are happy to share with others.
Hailstorm passed, swept back years later as Geneva Server and now seems to have found its way into a blockchain-powered conceptual heir that Microsoft's now named "Decentralized Digital Identities".
Alex Simons, director of program management in Microsoft's Identity Division has revealed that "Over the last 12 months we've invested in incubating a set of ideas for using Blockchain (and other distributed ledger technologies) to create new types of digital identities, identities designed from the ground up to enhance personal privacy, security and control."
Microsoft's identity ambitions, he wrote, now centre on user-controlled-and-owned Decentralized ID schemes so that a single data breach can't give crooks the keys to your kingdom.
(Score: 5, Informative) by MostCynical on Thursday February 15 2018, @09:18AM (5 children)
blockchains are all about trust.
Trust is not something anyone really associates with Microsoft.
Maybe this will phone home with "telemetry", too?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 15 2018, @11:55AM
Phone home? The telemetry will be built right into the block chain "to enhance your digital experience".
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday February 15 2018, @03:52PM
Unless I missed something about block chains. The whole idea behind block chains is that they have built-in tracking functionality, so you don't need a central control system.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1) by davidjohnpaul on Thursday February 15 2018, @10:07PM
I thought blockchains were all about a lack of trust - you don't trust the people you're communicating with, nor the network you're communicating over, so have the blockchain to keep things straight.
There are typically better solutions if there's some trust in there.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday February 16 2018, @03:11AM (1 child)
They are about preventing bad actors from acting badly
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday February 16 2018, @03:23AM
Well, in this case, if the bad actor has *built* the thing, there can be no trust.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex