{"id":433,"date":"2006-04-17T12:40:45","date_gmt":"2006-04-17T20:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=433"},"modified":"2006-04-17T12:43:58","modified_gmt":"2006-04-17T20:43:58","slug":"adam-on-demystifying-infocards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/?p=433","title":{"rendered":"ADAM ON DEMYSTIFYING INFOCARDS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adam at Emergent Chaos<\/a> has taken a stab<\/a> at demystifying InfoCards:<\/p>\n

For every product, there are thousands of sentences which result in the reply “well, why didn't you just say that?” The answer, of course, is that there are thousands, and often its not clear which is the right one. For me, the useful sentence is that ‘Infocard is software that packages up identity assertions, gets them signed by a identity authority and sends them off to a relying party in an XML format. The identity authority can be itself, and the XML is SAML, or an extension thereof, and the XML is signed and encrypted.’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hmmm.  Thanks Adam.  No cigar, but we're getting closer.<\/p>\n

Actually, the relying party states what assertions it wants, the Identity Selector allows the user to control what identity provider to use, and the identity provider packages up the identity assertions, signs them and sends them to the relying party in a token format.  The identity authority can be something local to the identity selector, or something reachable over the internet, and the token format can be XML, including SAML, or anything else.  The whole visual metaphor and user experience is called InfoCard, the protocols are WS-Trust, and the mesh of interoperating parties and technologies are the Identity Metasystem.<\/p>\n

It feels like together we have put together a pretty good definition.  Comments?<\/p>\n

Why didn't you just say that? (Actually, Kim Cameron says just about that in the video linked to in “The Infocards For PHP Tutorial<\/font><\/a>.”)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

True.  Why didn't I just say that?<\/p>\n

More seriously, I'm unsure if Infocard is the software, the protocol, or some combination thereof. But I do have a much better understanding of how it works, so I'm glad to have watched the short movie demo.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, I've been sloppy about all of this, and the fact that InfoCard is just a code name doesn't help either.  Anyway, InfoCard is really the visualization and experience that represents an identity within an identity selector. <\/p>\n

A couple of thoughts:<\/p>\n