Information Card Contest

I was still reeling from the latest chicken pictures posted by James McGovern when I stumbled onto news of a contest put together by my colleague Richard Turner

James was complaining that the contest would slow down adoption in his case since it would break corporate policy to accept a prize.  I added a comment to his blog saying I would try to figure out a way that someone who could not accept the prize could make a charitable donation instead. 

But I didn't know what the prizes were until I read the original posting by Richard:

Identifying yourself online is becoming increasingly difficult and dangerous. Most people who use the web have to maintain several usernames and passwords and have to remember which usernames and passwords to use at the various sites they use.

While usernames and passwords are a growing frustration to most users, this problem is dwarfed by the growing threat of phishing and other forms of malware and identity-related attack.

Follow the wrong link and try to sign-in to a malicious site masquerading as, for example, your bank, and you run the very real risk of suffering considerable loss. These potential losses may be financial but may also impact your reputation (e.g. credit score) that may take years to repair.

Microsoft, along with many partners in the IT Industry, is building a suite of technologies to help combat the phishing issue, whilst making it easier for users to authenticate safely online. Technologies such as Windows CardSpace enable users to identify themselves by presenting cryptographically strong identity tokens (represented visually as information cards) to supporting websites.

To help fuel the growth of sites supporting Information Cards, Microsoft is announcing a competition that is open to every website owner, regardless of your web platform of choice. We hope you'll join us in helping to protect your user's identities from abuse and make it easier for your users to sign-in to your sites! 

How to enter

  • Add sign-up and sign-in support for Windows CardSpace to your website
  • Email the following to identity@microsoft.com
    • Details of your site
    • Your details
    • Complete this statement: “We added support for information cards to our site because …”
  • All entries will be judged by the CardSpace product team and winners announced on August 17, 2007. The winner will be notified by email.

The prizes

  • Grand Prize:
    • 1 Round-trip ticket (from and to a single location within the United States)
    • Overnight accommodation in a hotel near Microsoft Campus
    • Meet the team – spend a day with various members of Microsoft's Federated Identity team
    • Dinner with Kim Cameron
  • Second prize:
    • XBox 360 Elite Games Console
  • Third prize:
    • Zune music player

[Please note that due to international gaming laws we are only able to offer these prizes to US Residents and that any taxes incurred from receiving a prize is the sole responsibility of the prize winner(s).]

Adding support for Windows CardSpace to your site

  • The following resources will be indispensible in guiding you how to add support to your website:
  • If you have technical issues, please post questions to the Windows CardSpace discussion forum on MSDN – we'll be monitoring this forum closely and responding as quickly as we can. Note – if you contact us directly with support requests and your request is generic in nature, we'll ask you to post your question to the forum. This is the help others who may be experiencing the same issue as you and so that we can better manage potential support issues.

Anyway, that sounds like a lot of fun, and I'll make sure the winner gets a really incredible evening at one of the top restaurants in the region. 

And as for James, now I know what the prize is, if he wins we can just make it a working dinner at the local pub, taking on the role of Information Cards in the enterprise environment and all the other things I'd like to discuss with him from a purely business point of view.

Published by

Kim Cameron

Work on identity.

One thought on “Information Card Contest”

  1. Hi Kim:

    I've not sent an email to identity@microsoft.com yet, but August 17th gives me ample time to play around with it. Here's a sneak preview on what I'm doing… http://hac.kers.us would this qulaify ?

    (what i'm working on is extremely porimitive, and has zillions of bugs, but hey !! august 17th !! is a long way off).

    Original intent of this site was “NOT” the contest, but AFTER reading the grand prize, there's ONE that interests me a LOT… ie: “Dinner with Kim Cameron”

    so… this is strong reason for me to play in this space again… after a long long break…

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