We'll start with the exciting: PCWorld is reporting that Microsoft is currently in talks with the developers of both Firefox and Safari -- IE's two biggest threats in browserland -- in the hope of getting them to integrate its new identity meta-system technology, named InfoCard, into their platforms.
Why is this exciting?
Well, for one, Microsoft is formally recognising Firefox. And Mozilla, and other browsers in general. This is good. Actually, this is great; one of MS's favourite tricks is to stifle all competition with a mix of wide & varied monopolies, and multitudinous bits of proprietary garbage in previously standardised landscapes.
But this brings us neatly to the not-so-exciting part of the picture: Microsoft is yet again trying to dominate in the personal identity & security market. (Remember Microsoft's Wallet, anyone?)
Ok, ok. Yes, I am jumping to conclusions, given that InfoCard technology is potentially not even going to be in IE 7, once it is finally released. And yes, there are others playing in the security sandpit with MS on this product.
The open source scheme InfoCard is based on is a new security protocol, WS-Trust, still being developed. Sun is another contributor to the new standard, and security firms across the globe are incorporating WS-Trust compatibility into their offerings already.
Head on over to the main base for all this exciting development, SourceID, and we find a couple of extremely pertinent quotes from Bruce Schneier, security guru, featured on the home page:
In the cryptography world, we consider open source necessary for good security; we have for decades. Public security is always more secure than proprietary security. It's true for cryptographic algorithms, security protocols, and security source code. For us, open source isn't just a business model; it's smart engineering practice.So what is Microsoft doing in the mix then?
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