Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Stick to what you know... Updated 3:15 PM

Kim Cameron mentioned Shelley Powers in his blog today. Coming on the heels of mentions by both Jamie Lewis and Johannes Ernst, it seemed that I might be missing something by not reading Ms. Powers.

I wasn't.

She starts a discussion of federated identity by saying "Well, frankly, Liberty Alliance isn't for the likes of you and me..." Then proceeds to savage the usage scenario laid out in an early version of the ID-FF specification by wondering why "Joe User" needs to frequently be asked "You may federate your Airlines, Inc. identity with any other identities you may have with members of our affinity group. Do you consent to such introductions?" when with a single button press he could book a hotel and car along with his plane ticket at Expedia, Travelocity or Orbitz right now.

She fails to mention that this would only occur once, and only to people who have existing accounts - not some newbie trying to buy his first plane ticket! The difference is that none of these travel sites would have the personalization information that might be in Joe User's existing accounts with American Airlines, Hertz and Marriott! Federation allows these vendor accounts to be associated with Joe User quickly and efficiently. The Liberty Alliance is about much more than Single Signon, I know that - as do Cameron and Lewis, but evidently Powers couldn't take the time to learn that much. She may know ASP and Unix (she's written books on both) but she shows a clear misunderstanding of identity issues.

Further proof that she not only doesn't understand identity, but also has trouble realizing the needs of the average user. She complains about existing IdM schemes as: "They weren't for the likes of me, people who come in all muddy from a hike, and who sit down at their computer to read an article at the Washington Post, but don't want to have to register for yet another online newspaper." But fully expects Joe Sixpack to spend hours installing LID with vCard and FOAF files, cgi scripts and perl! Even LID's creator doesn't expect Joe Sixpack to do that!

When you want to read about Identity, stick to people who "do" identity.

UPDATE:

Powers and I now agree that we both were a little cranky in our respctive posts. And we both think UDDI sucks big time. It's a start, and she does actually have a few decent ideas (he says grudgingly). I'll keep reading her.

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