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Sxip News RSSBlogs
Sxipper becoming an essential Firefox Add-on
30 June, 2008 - 10:07am
We recently crossed over the 200,000th download from AMO (Firefox Add-ons site) and users continue to blog about Sxipper. Lifehacker wrote how Sxipper can help organize your life, Vaibhav Kanwal said "Sxipper completes Firefox", and Jessica Merritt considered Sxipper an essential add-on for librarians.Users have trained Sxipper for 100,000 websites
15 June, 2008 - 4:00pm
One of the more satisfying statistics we watch is the number of websites that users have trained Sxipper to work with. We’ve seen steady growth and just reached the 100,000th website! Unlike other form filling solutions that guess how to fill in a few fields, Sxipper is trained by the community of users which increases accuracy as well as a more comprehensive list of field types. The continued growth tells us that training Sxipper is not a fad -- users are continuing to train Sxipper as they come across new forms, making the web simpler and simpler for us all.Sxip completes restructure of business
2 June, 2008 - 9:00am
Sxip has completed restructuring our business and we are now focused on reducing the complexity of the web for users. With Sxipper, people can forget their passwords and have forms filled for them with the click of a button - plus we are working on new aggregation technology that puts information normally scattered throughout the web at their fingertips.Mozilla recommends Sxipper
4 May, 2008 - 2:51pm
Thanks to a lot of hard work by the development team and loads of helpful user feedback, we are proud that Mozilla is recommending Sxipper on AMO, their Firefox Add-ons site.OpenID Momentum
15 February, 2008 - 3:07pm
Following last week's exciting announcement of numerous tech heavyweights joining the OpenID Foundation, it's great to see the new board move so quickly with their first meeting this week (you can follow their activities on the mailing lists). New to the board are: Google's DeWitt Clinton, IBM's Tony Nadalin, Microsoft's Mike Jones, VeriSign's Gary Krall, and Raj Mata with Yahoo!. Sxip's founder and CEO, Dick Hardt is a community member of the board and is the treasurer as well as the co-chair of the marketing committee. With over 10,000 websites currently supporting OpenID and approximately 350 million OpenID log-ins, we look forward to seeing OpenID momentum build even faster with help from the new board members!
Identity 2.0 & Controlling Your Digital Representation
13 February, 2008 - 3:15pm
Interested in a forum for presenting and discussing state of the art thinking, research and practice around managing identity in the 21st Century? Hear Sxip's founder & CEO Dick Hardt at the Managing Identity in New Zealand Conference this spring. He and other internet luminaries will discuss the development and future directions of identity management (IdM), and its wider implications for users (with a particular focus on new digitized forms of IdM). Do you believe the future of IdM will be establishing user-centric IdM? Then join us in Wellington and contribute to the evolution of the Identity 2.0 discussion...
You are a directory entry? Why Identity 2.0 matters to MySQL
12 February, 2008 - 12:30pm
Are you just a directory entry? Much of the data in a database is about people, however with the lack of an identity system for the Web, it is very difficult for people to prove something about themselves online and hard for them to easily move their identity data. In this new version of Sxip CEO Dick Hardt's Who is the Dick on My Site? keynote, he will provide a background on Identity 2.0, discuss current roadblocks and future opportunities, and explore the potential impacts these will have on databases. Hope to see you at the MySQL conference in Santa Clara in April!
OpenID Gains Major Corporate Backing
7 February, 2008 - 2:53pm
It's great to see Identity 2.0 technologies like OpenID gain yet more traction with today's announcement by Microsoft, Google, IBM, Yahoo!, and VeriSign joining the board of the OpenID Foundation. The Foundation was formed last year by seven community members (including Sxip) with the goal of helping support and promote the technology developed by the OpenID community.
Cuesta College SSO to Gmail with Sxip
30 January, 2008 - 12:41pm
Cuesta College, a community college in the heart of California's scenic central coast, has solved their provisioning and single sign-on problem for Google Apps with Sxip Access. Janice House, Cuesta's Director of Computer Services stated, "we contacted some other identity management vendors, but Sxip was the only company that offered a simple solution for automation and SSO to Gmail, something we need for the constant overturn of 27,000 student accounts." Read more on Sxip Access' SSO, mobile support, and automated access control in the new Cuesta College Case Study.
Over half of North American Businesses to Use SaaS in 2008
25 January, 2008 - 4:13pm
Will this year be the tipping point for SaaS usage? New research from many analysts predict it. Saugatuck Technology states that by year end 55% of North American businesses will have deployed at least one Software-as-a-Service application. Similarly, by 2011 Gartner predicts SaaS will grow at double the rate of the total enterprise application market. And Forrester notes that the poster-child for SaaS, salesforce.com, is having a disruptive effect on the entire CRM market, suggesting that SaaS will comprise 25% of all new business software by 2011. With this growth however comes significant management and security challenges.
OpenID 2.0 Triples Adoption With Yahoo Support
17 January, 2008 - 5:47pm
Identity 2.0 got another boost today with Yahoo's announcement of support for OpenID 2.0. As one of the co-authors of the new OpenID 2.0 spec, we're delighted to see major internet portals like Yahoo with their 250 million user IDs, stand behind this emerging user-centric protocol. (For a great overview of OpenID 2.0's new capabilities see last month's ZDNet article, OpenID 2.0 Specification Released).
Identity breaches now over 200 million: losses doubled last year
9 January, 2008 - 4:44pm
The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse reports that identity data breaches as of January 5 have now reached over 215,000,000, more than double the amount reported as of January 5, 2007 of 100,000,000. Based on 2007 trends, it may well get worse. According to the Identity Theft Assistance Center, a non-profit coalition of major financial institutions, this year will bring more challenges for business and law enforcement with data security breaches growing in importance as a business issue. This is precisely why we need Identity 2.0, user-centric technologies that provide for greater privacy online.
Phishing for a decade: From Zero to $3 billion in 12 years
3 January, 2008 - 1:16pm
On this, the 12th anniversary of the first phishing attack it is dismaying to see phishing increasing not only in number to affecting in the US alone 3.6 million people at a cost of $3.2 billion, but also in new consumer and enterprise targets such as facebook and SaaS apps. This is precisely why we need Identity 2.0, with greater privacy and control for users online. Hopefully 2008 will see a reversal of this scary security trend, with the mainstream deployment of secure user-centric technologies such as Information Cards from identity selectors like Microsoft’s Windows CardSpace and Novell’s DigitalMe.
Trust 2.0: A Safe & Accountable Internet?
2 January, 2008 - 5:02pm
Identity, trustworthiness, a persistent reputation and accountability -- is it possible to have an online world that is safe? Sxip's founder & CEO Dick Hardt will discuss this in a new version of his infamously rapid fire keynote on "Trust 2.0" at the Second European Identity Conference. The IdM conference by Kuppinger Cole provides an unbiased source of new insights and ideas on a broad scale from business-oriented briefings to hands-on workshop sessions. Hope to see you in Munich in April!
OpenID 2.0 Finalized: User Centric Identity For Christmas
5 December, 2007 - 3:10pm
The internet community got an early Christmas present this morning, after more than 18 months of work the OpenID Authentication 2.0 and OpenID Attribute Exchange 1.0 were released today as final specifications (”OpenID 2.0") at the Internet Identity Workshop. Kudos to David Recordon, Josh Hoyt, and Sxip's Dick Hardt (three of the authors and editors)! There are already several open source libraries shipping these specifications with product support including Drupal and Google’s Blogger (via Sxip’s library). Multiple OpenID Providers including Sxipper also already have support for both of these specifications. Additional security extensions for phishing-resistant authentication are also available with PAPE. The finalization of the specs brings us one step closer to our Identity 2.0 vision of enabling individuals to create and manage their online digital identities. Find out more on OpenID.net.
Gartner: Phishing Attacks are Targeting SaaS Applications
4 December, 2007 - 4:54pm
Gartner has just published new research with similar findings to Sxip's Security Bulletin stating, "Targeted phishing attacks will increasingly focus on software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings that store large quantities of customer and business information" and that "users still are falling for phishing attacks, and the most dangerous of these are focusing on high value targets, like sales force automation and CRM systems." They recommend strong enterprise security programs for SaaS providers. We agree, however we suggest more advanced measures with no web form login by users, such as authentication with emerging Single Sign-On technologies like Information Cards, to substantially reduce the the phishing risk.
CRM Phishing - Brand Theft
30 November, 2007 - 2:51pm
Sxip's founder & CEO, Dick Hardt, has just published on his Identity 2.0 blog a posting on a disturbing new trend concerning enterprise phishing and on-demand applications. He notes, "Previously considered a threat for consumers, phishers are now targeting an enterprise’s customer list and using it to launch attacks against the enterprise customer - exploiting the enterprise brand." The effect this has on the compromised brands alone, (aside from the data and financial losses), is cause for concern -- as cited in a survey published earlier this week that found public confidence in consumer brands is dramatically affected by phishing attacks. Fortunately new phishing-resistant security measures can be undertaken using user-centric technologies such as Information Cards. Read our new Security Bulletin (pdf) to find out more, or join us as IIW next week, where this will be a topic for discussion.
Trust, Identity & Accountability On the Internet?
29 November, 2007 - 10:48am
A persistent reputation and accountability -- is it possible to have this online? Sxip's founder & CEO Dick Hardt will discuss this in a new version of his infamously rapid fire Identity 2.0 talk at the Internet Identity Workshop next week. He'll be speaking on trust and how user-centric technologies like OpenID, are necessary to bind identity to past behaviors to create an online world that is accountable, trustworthy and safe, and with users in control of their digital identity. The talk is Monday afternoon at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. Hope to see you there!
SaaS Under Attack: Phishing for Your Customers
28 November, 2007 - 11:45am
The rise in enterprise on-demand application deployments has become a new and attractive target for phishers. As recently covered by CNET, Washington Post, eWeek and many others; phishers are employing multi-phased attacks that acquire enterprise customer contact data in order to launch further sophisticated assaults that exploit the trusted relationship between the enterprise and their customers. Thus, if you're using popular software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications for corporate email such as Google Apps, or for CRM such as Salesforce, you may be a target. Download our security bulletin (pdf) to gain a better understanding of the risks and the appropriateness of additional security measures.
Sxipper at Launch Party with a Twiist
21 November, 2007 - 6:17pm
Be among the first to see the latest release of Sxipper with his new privacy and security bells and whistles. We're demoing Sxipper at LAUNCH Party next month. Organized by the Valley's Twiistup and several Vancouver entrepreneurs, the event features local new media companies strutting their stuff and sharing their ideas with the community. Hope to see you at this fun-filled tech mixer on December 5!
Sxip on citizen-centric identity: IT Conversations podcast
19 November, 2007 - 12:57pm
Sxip's founder & CEO Dick Hardt recently had an in-depth discussion with Jon Udell of IT Conversations' Interviews with Innovators covering a host of digital identity issues including: the BC government's citizen-centric identity initiative, PKI, trust, privacy, biometrics, RFID, and more... Download this informative 45 minute technical overview of the Identity 2.0 vision and discover how phones will become the identity agents of the future.
Yahoo videocast on user-centric identity, Perl & Sxip
14 November, 2007 - 12:54pm
This 15 minute videocast with Sxip's founder and CEO and Yahoo Developer Network's Jeremy Zawodny at Defrag covers a lot of ground from Dick's open source roots to advocacy of user-centric identity. They discuss Dick's innovations over the past decade from leading the port of Perl to Windows in the mid-1990s with Microsoft, to being the first to build on the Mozilla platform with the Komodo IDE at ActiveState, to the creation of Identity 2.0 at Sxip. They concur on the state of user-centric identity being very much like the early days of the web (at the edge) with consumers just starting to become educated about the digital identity problem and solutions such as OpenID and CardSpace.
Defragging Identity 2.0
6 November, 2007 - 5:39pm
Our founder & CEO's latest Identity 2.0 keynote has generated some great comments regarding identity, trust, accountability and user-control on the web. Phil Windley of IT Conversations states, "much of what's he's saying is right in line with the reputation work my students and I have been working on. He makes a critical link to identity: identifiers bind personas together to increase trust." Dan Farber of CNET remarked, "His main thesis is that solutions, like OpenID, are necessary to “defrag” identity and bind it to past behaviors to create a world that is accountable, trustworthy and safe, and with users in control in a granular way of their online presence. Dick said the video would be available in a few weeks. Don't miss it." You bet! We'll post it as quickly as possible...
SSO to SuccessFactors Now Possible with Sxip Access
26 October, 2007 - 11:32am
Sxip Access now provides single sign-on and centralized user management for SuccessFactors in addition to other popular software-as-a-service applications such as Google Apps and Salesforce. This past summer, Sxip enabled a major North American energy producer with over 6000 employees to have secure and easy authentication for their users to SuccessFactors with our Virtual Appliances. Sxip Access was chosen over Microsoft ADFS, CA SiteMinder and RSA Federated Identity Manager as the only solution able to deliver a simple and proven identity management product for on-demand applications. Read more in our new SuccessFactors case study.
The Future of Facebook: Portable Social Networks
19 October, 2007 - 11:37am
Interested in seeing a more user-centric approach towards the identity data that Facebook stores? Could Facebook be the next killer app on the web if they were more than only somewhat open? Join us at the Facebook Developer Garage next week here in Vancouver. Our lead OpenID developer, Johnny Bufu will be on a panel with Boris Mann and others discussing how the extensions and protocols built around OpenID such as the attribute exchange in OpenID 2.0, can help with specific problems of data portability and user control that need to be solved by the social networks.
Identity 2.0 & Social Networks at PICNIC
11 October, 2007 - 2:00pm
Looking for some good videos on user-centric identity? Check out this "home movie style" video shot by Gabe McIntyre at the PICNIC conference last month in Amsterdam. The video is a panel on Portable Social Networks with discussion from the heads of Twitter, Jaiku, PeopleAggregator, Sxip, Hyves.nl, LinkedIn, XING and many others. They explore OpenID, user-centric identity, the problem of closed data silos and social media, how to lower the friction to participation on the web, Sxipper, and much much more. It's a bit long, but very informative. There's also a new iteration of Dick's infamous presentation (starts at 11 minute point). Catch up on the latest in Identity 2.0!
Identity 2.0 & Microsoft Developers
9 October, 2007 - 5:29pm
Join Sxip's founder & CEO Dick Hardt for a 30 minute podcast interview on digital identity with Microsoft's John Bristowe on the MSDN Developer Connection. Learn how user-centric identity enables developers in building Web 2.0 apps, improving conversions, limiting spam, and more! They also discuss the benefits of Identity 2.0 technologies such as OpenID, CardSpace, and Sxipper.
CBC TV on BC government, citizen-centric ID & Sxip
27 September, 2007 - 4:13pm
CBC TV reported yesterday that the BC government will early next year test virtual identity cards enabling citizens to more safely and easily connect with the government's online services. Ian Bailey, director of application architecture for the province's Office of the Chief Information Officer, notes that "it will give us better privacy protection for individuals." He also stated that it would be done in accordance with the Seven Laws of Identity by Microsoft's identity architect Kim Cameron. The CBC concludes that the project includes identity companies CA, Microsoft and Sxip.
An Identity Interoperability Catalyst
24 September, 2007 - 10:01am
Interested in learning how the industry can move forward with identity interoperability? Join our founder & CEO Dick Hardt at Catalyst Europe, where in addition to his talk on the State of User-Centric Identity, he will be participating in a panel on Protocol Preferences: How All this Stuff is Going to Work Together led by the Burton Group's Bob Blakely. Then stop by the Interop session that evening to see the technologies in action. Contact us for a free pass to the Interop hospitality suite.
Sxipper Wins People's Choice for Best Web 2.0 App
23 September, 2007 - 8:31am
Sxipper, our internet identity manager, was voted Best Web 2.0 App in the PopVox awards last evening. The people’s choice awards for the Vancouver International Digital Festival, PopVox recognizes all major sectors of the digital media industry and celebrates its creativity, talent, and achievements. Sxipper was nominated in two categories, the Homegrown Best of BC and Best Web 2.0 App. See the New Media BC press release for more details. Our sincerest thanks to everyone who voted for us!
Brilliant Identity 2.0 Media
19 September, 2007 - 12:40pm
This identity video remix is just absolutely brilliant, kudos to Dominic Sayers and of course Bob Dylan! (If you haven't seen the original video, check it out on our Identity 2.0 blog.) Other great recent posts on user-centric identity include this thoughtful examination by Sam Curry at CA "The Significance of Identity 2.0" and this detailed summary by Brian Schmitt "Research Post on Identity 2.0".
Vote for Sxipper in New Media Awards!
13 September, 2007 - 10:09am
Sxipper has been nominated in two categories for the Popvox awards, the people’s choice awards for the Vancouver International Digital Festival. The Popvox awards recognizes all major sectors of the digital media industry and celebrates its creativity, talent, and achievements. Please vote for your favorite identity *retriever* in the Homegrown Best of BC and Best Web 2.0 App. Note that you need to register in order to vote, which is a snap since the site has naturally been trained by Sxipper!
NY Times on OpenID, Phishing & ID Theft
11 September, 2007 - 4:18pm
Melissa Lafsky in her New York Times blog, recently queried whether OpenID is the solution to online identity theft. She suggests that many internet giants like AOL, Microsoft and VeriSign have announced support and cites Sxip's founder & CEO Dick Hardt's perspective that OpenID is the next generation of managing ID on the web. She also, however, expresses some concern with possible phishing issues. We agree there are some security issues, which is why Sxip has worked with others in the community on phishing-resistant technologies for OpenID such as Pape and Sxipper. Check them out and tell us what you think!
Vancouver Voted #1 Yet Again by the Economist
24 August, 2007 - 12:51pm
We really are the Best Place on Earth! Vancouver was chosen for the fifth straight year in a row as the most livable city on the planet by the Economist. Their annual survey assesses living conditions in more than 125 cities around the world based on the following categories: stability; healthcare; culture and environment; education; and infrastructure. Vancouver was deemed the most attractive destination due to our low crime rate, little threat from instability or terrorism and a highly developed transport and communications infrastructure. Sxip is naturally headquartered here and we're hiring. Check out our careers offerings and come join us!
ID Theft Prevention & User-Centric Identity
21 August, 2007 - 1:36pm
Interested in ID theft prevention and management and how Identity 2.0 technologies will help address many of the issues plaguing the web today? Join Sxip at the IDSP Plenary meeting in Washington DC next month, our founder & CEO Dick Hardt is giving the keynote address. The IDSP is a coordinating body of the Better Business Bureau and American National Standards Institute who are working on various identity fraud-related problems. The September meeting will focus on the issuance, exchange and maintenance of identity data. Learn more and make sure to register by the September 10 deadline!
Identity 2.0 is a Picnic
16 August, 2007 - 1:21pm
Interested in learning more about Identity 2.0? Find out why we need these simple, secure, and open user-centric technologies to realize the full potential of all those great new and not so new Web 2.0 apps. Sxip's founder & CEO, Dick Hardt, will be giving a keynote at the Picnic conference this fall in Amsterdam on Identity 2.0: Who are we now, as well as on a panel with Marc Canter and other internet luminaries discussing Portable Social Networks.
Gartner: SaaS market to surpass $5 billion this year
15 August, 2007 - 10:52am
New research from Gartner predicts that the Software-as-a-Service market will increase 20% this year over last to $5.1 billion and that by 2011 it will more than double to $11.5 billion. The drivers they list for this growth over traditional software include, "Ease of use, rapid deployment, limited upfront investment in capital and staffing, plus a reduction in software management responsibility.” With multiple SaaS application usage however comes traditional enterprise IdM needs, such as securing user access, managing users, and of course web single sign-on. Our on-demand identity management solution, Sxip Access, addresses these issues and more for the majority of popular SaaS applications including Salesforce and Google Apps.
Gartner: Identity 2.0 On the Rise
13 August, 2007 - 3:50pm
Gartner's 2007 Hype Cycle Report on Identity & Access Management Technologies published earlier this summer positions user-centric, Identity 2.0 technologies such as OpenID, CardSpace and Higgins as "technology triggers" that are "on the rise", though two to five years away from mainstream adoption. They recommend that consumer facing organizations monitor the evolution of these "Personal Identity Frameworks".
Sxip: a hot Vancouver start-up
9 August, 2007 - 2:31pm
Two recent articles by Montreal Tech Watch and Tech Confidential name Vancouver as Canada's greatest startup city and suggest that Sxip is one of a handful of tech companies to watch. Victoria Revay, editor at NowPublic.com, states "Vancouver is currently the place to be for anyone wanting to be involved in a booming startup and tech scene." She cites a host of factors on why Vancouver rules, such as: gorgeous scenery, mild climate, great quality of life, investor confidence, proximity to Silicon Valley, unique educational programs, talent pool, thriving arts and culture, and Whistler and the 2010 Olympics. Find out for yourself why it's so awesome here and join Sxip. Check out our careers page for openings. (Monopoly prowess not required, but is an asset!)
The State of User-Centric Identity In Europe
3 August, 2007 - 10:30am
Missed us at the Catalyst conference in San Francisco? Sxip's Founder & CEO, Dick Hardt, is giving a new version of his State of User-Centric Identity talk at the Burton Group Conference this fall in Barcelona. Amidst all the hype surrounding user-centric identity, he'll separate fantasy from fiction and leave you with what's really happening in this emerging set of technologies. Hasta luego en España!
Defragging Identity
2 August, 2007 - 10:37am
Sxip's founder & CEO, Dick Hardt, will be giving a new Identity 2.0 keynote at the Defrag conference this fall. Similar to PC Forum, Defrag is about turning the loads of information on the web into layers of knowledge and accelerating your "aha" moment. Join the community of builders, implementers and evangelists working around the technologies we're all familiar with (wikis, blogs, search) and many new, developing technologies (context, relevance, next-level discovery) and view them all through a new prism. Hope to see you in Denver in November!
The Next Identity: The Hardt Way
30 July, 2007 - 11:10am
Our founder & CEO, Dick Hardt's Identity 2.0 keynote from the Next Web Conference last month in Amsterdam is now online. Double it's usual length at a whopping 800 slides in 30 minutes, he covers the spectrum of digital identity issues such as: user-centric identity vs federation; emerging user-centric technologies such as OpenID 2.0, CardSpace, and Sxipper; the IdM issues faced by the burgeoning software-as-a-service market; six identity predictions for the future of the web; and why Identity 2.0 will happen. Find out why and how Identity 2.0 will make the internet simple, safe and secure and watch the video for yourself.
OpenID Code Bounties Awarded: Congrats Drupal, Plone & DotNetNuke
26 July, 2007 - 10:57am
Congratulations to the open source projects Drupal, Plone and DotNetNuke for their integration of OpenID, a user-centric digital identity framework. Announced at this year's O'Reilly Open Source Conference, each project will receive $5000. The OpenID Code bounty program was introduced last year at OSCON with the goal of raising awareness and increasing adoption of OpenID. These three winning projects are the first of ten which will be awarded by the newly formed OpenID Foundation. Sxip Identity is proud to be a part of the Foundation's Board and looks forward to continuing our role in helping manage all of the legal and infrastructure details that come with a large open source project like OpenID. For more details about the bounty program and how you can participate, visit http://iwantmyopenid.org/bounty.
Mitigating Business Identity Theft: SaaS Anti-Phishing & Sxip Access
25 July, 2007 - 10:31am
Analyst James Van Dyke expressed concern in the Javelin Research blog last week about recent phishing emails where a popular software-as-a-service application was being impersonated. He worries about the ramifications of a company with such a huge database being the target of ID theft and recommends a "prevention, detection and resolution" model for battling criminals and keeping customers. Our on-demand identity management solution, Sxip Access, can assist with the prevention component of that battle. We provide enhanced phishing protection for SaaS apps through a number of methods including: two-factor authentication, CardSpace access support, and single sign-on with SAML tokens.
The Most Compelling Reason to Install Firefox as Your Primary Browser
19 July, 2007 - 10:56am
We've been continuing with Sxipper's improvements and greatly appreciate the extensive input from beta testers and their semantic mapping contributions to the community. Some of the comments we've recently received, Dave Kearns of Network World, "for me, it's the most compelling reason to install Firefox as your primary browser" and "I’d be severely impacted if it were no longer available to me. It’s really the best, if not the first, user-centric identity tool." Tod Maffin's first todbits.tv podcast (go to episode one, 18-28 minutes in) says that he likes Sxipper's password management and web form fill functionality, "Sxipper automatically fills that kind of stuff out for me, which is very clever indeed." Check out the latest release (including OpenID anti-phishing, disposable email addresses, and more) for yourself and tell us what you think!
How Companies Swiftly Deploy Apps
18 July, 2007 - 12:45pm
CIO Insight recently wrote an in-depth article on why businesses are turning to software-as-a-service citing "fast software implementation with reduced upfront investment and minimal IT staff resources". They examine a number of SaaS uses cases such as Optimus Solutions, who needed a new CRM system that was a short ramp to implementation and simple to use for employees. They selected Salesforce along with several integrated applications, including Sxip Access, for its authentication and ability to synchronize IDs and passwords from their corporate Active Directory. Optimus' satisfaction has lead them to look at "the SaaS market to see if there is an appropriate solution each time we open the books on a new business challenge".
Vancouver: the Next Outsourcing Hotspot?
12 July, 2007 - 2:57pm
eWEEK has just published an interesting article, Uh-O Canada: The Newest Nearshore Threat? on why U.S. IT companies, like Microsoft, are opening shops in Canada. They highlight Vancouver in particular, citing a host of factors on why the city is so desirable such as: it's beauty, #1 quality of life ranking, ease of immigration, and diversity of the population. We agree that this is the most awesome place on earth to live and work! Find out for yourself -- we're hiring developers -- check out our careers page for openings.
New Sxipper release with anti-phishing security for OpenID
27 June, 2007 - 10:55am
In fulfilling the commitment we made this past February at RSA with Microsoft, JanRain, and VeriSign, to make the internet safer and easier, we are happy to announce the addition of new anti-phishing technology for OpenID. Our digital identity manager, Sxipper, now provides phishing-resistant OpenID authentication. Sxipper uses the OpenID Provider Authentication Policy Extension (PAPE), which is supported through our OpenID4Java library. See the demo and download a new free version of the Sxipper beta!
Sxip Delivers Phishing Resistant Access to Google Apps & Salesforce
27 June, 2007 - 3:00am
Sxip Identity today released support for information cards with Sxip Access, the leading on-demand identity management solution. Sxip Access now enables remote users to employ phishing-resistant identity agents to authenticate to Salesforce and Google Apps with user-centric, Identity 2.0 technologies such as Microsoft Windows CardSpace and the Bandit Project's DigitalMe from Novell. Read the press release for more details or stop by the Interop or Microsoft hospitality suites at the Catalyst Conference for a demo.
Sxip Access & Information Cards at Interoperability Event
22 June, 2007 - 2:57pm
At the Catalyst Conference next week, we will be demoing Sxip Access support for user-centric, Identity 2.0 technologies such as CardSpace by Microsoft and the Bandit Project from Novell in the Burton Group/OSIS (Open Source Identity System) User-Centric Identity Interoperability suite. The event will demonstrate the viability of a user-centric model for use within the enterprise infrastructure. Join us in this important milestone! Contact me if you'd like a complimentary guest pass to the Interop suite on Wednesday night.
An Identity Catalyst: User-centrism & Identity 2.0
14 June, 2007 - 1:48pm
Interested in learning what's really happening with user-centric technologies? Think you know the state of identity a decade from now? Sxip's founder & CEO, Dick Hardt, will be exploring these issues at the upcoming Burton Group Catalyst conference in his talks The State of User-Centric Identity and 2017: Where's Identity?. Join us in two weeks in San Francisco and find out what the future world will look like when viewed through the lens of identity management.
CardSpace & Sxip Access SSO to Google Apps & Salesforce
13 June, 2007 - 12:19pm
See how you can use CardSpace to securely authenticate to your Salesforce and Google Apps account at the Burton Group Catalyst conference later this month! We've added CardSpace support to Sxip Access, our on-demand identity management solution. We're demoing the new release in the Microsoft suite on June 28. Come learn how you can have secure single sign-on to the most popular software- as-a-service applications using CardSpace and Sxip Access. Please contact us if you'd like a complimentary guest pass to the Microsoft suite on Thursday night.
eWeek on the IdM advantages of Sxip Access for Google Apps
12 June, 2007 - 1:57pm
eWeek Labs published a great product review by Cameron Sturdevant today of using Sxip Access for SAML-based single sign-on to Google Apps. Cameron states, "There are a number of advantages to using an identity management system such as Sxip Identity with an on-demand service such as Google Apps. For one, with user authorizations piped through our in-house directory, we felt more certain about who was and wasn't using Google Apps than we did when we used the Google Apps administrative console as our sole authentication gatekeeper." Read more on ease of Active Directory integration, enabling access control to Google Apps without having to maintain a separate authentication store.
The Cost of Online Fear: $2 billion and counting
6 June, 2007 - 2:14pm
Today's report by analysts eMarketer finds that the undermining of consumer confidence in online security has resulted in a substantial decrease in e-commerce activity. American internet users are adjusting their online behavior to avoid identity theft by visiting fewer sites, ceasing to bank online and purchasing less online. The study claims that approximately 3/4 of Americans are concerned about identity theft and 1/4 are now limiting their e-commerce use. Ben Macklin author of the study states, "not even counting the actual losses to fraud and theft suffered by internet users and businesses, which are not insubstantial, the loss of potential online revenue is enormous."
Manage Your Identity With Sxipper: New Videocast
30 May, 2007 - 2:30pm
Our recent demo of Sxipper at the Internet Identity Workshop, was described by ZDNet's Phil Windley in his blog as "I've come to use Sxipper since the last IIW and have come to rely on it," and on ZDNet as "tools like Sxipper do a good job at solving that [SSO] problem". A great video was captured at IIW of Sxipper that demonstrates why having control of your online identity is important and how Sxipper enables this.
Vote for Sxipper! Identity 2.0 App Nominated for CNET's Webware 100
23 May, 2007 - 2:48pm
Sxipper, our free internet identity manager currently in beta, has been named a finalist in the Webware 100 Awards for 2007 by the CNET Editors and Web 2.0 user community. For the Webware 100 Awards, 250 Finalists were selected by the editors from over 2,000 qualifying Web 2.0 services. The Awards recognize the best Web 2.0 sites, services, and applications that are leading the next wave of innovation. Voting is open to the public through June 11, where the top 25 finalists in each category will be listed. Please vote for *man's and woman's best internet friend*, Sxipper, in the Browser category.
CBC TV on the Quest for Identity 2.0
16 May, 2007 - 1:39pm
CBC Television recently covered the problems associated with web identity in a story last week at the WWW 2007 Conference in Banff. They discuss with Sxip's founder & CEO Dick Hardt, the problem of who controls your online identity and state that the quest now is for Identity 2.0. They describe Identity 2.0 as a secure login which works anywhere on the net, with no need to remember scores of passwords. Download the video and see what else they say about CardSpace, OpenID, user control, privacy and online commerce.
Sun joins OpenID user-centric community
7 May, 2007 - 2:21pm
We're delighted to see Sun announce they intend to support OpenID. After being a proponent of old school federated identity technologies for so long, it's good for the user-centric community that another large player in the identity space has declared support for this emerging Identity 2.0 protocol. Earlier this spring Sxip announced we would collaborate with Microsoft and others in the community on interoperability between OpenID and Windows CardSpace to make the internet safer and easier to use. We hope all of our combined efforts further industry convergence to one simple identity protocol.
IDC on how Employers Direct & Salesforce.com use Sxip for Identity Access
27 April, 2007 - 11:59am
IDC has just published a report examining how salesforce.com and its customer, Employers Direct, utilized Sxip Access identity management technology to provision/ deprovision new employees and to provide secure single sign-on (SSO) for the insurance company. Sally Hudson, research director for Identity and Access Management at IDC states, "For small and medium-sized companies, or for divisions of larger companies, software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers and IAM-focused appliances are proving effective from both a security and a cost-effective perspective. Companies such as Sxip and salesforce.com are demonstrating that IAM technologies can be adopted and utilized for standards-based Web interactions and services."
Sxip Chosen One of Canada's Top 25 Up & Coming IT Companies
26 April, 2007 - 8:53am
Sxip has been selected amongst this year's Top 25 Up and Comers by the Branham Group, who they believe could be the next who's who in Canadian technology. Their selection criteria was determined by the following: established after December 31, 2002, and show great promise within the IT industry based on creativity and innovation whether it be in a new technology area or optimizing existing technology in an innovative manner. See the full list in the current issue of Backbone Magazine.
Vote for Sxipper! Identity 2.0 solution nominated for Next Web Awards
18 April, 2007 - 2:20pm
Sxipper, our free digital identity manager, has been nominated for most promising service in the Beta & Stealth category of the Next Web Awards. Sxipper is a Firefox extension that manages passwords, fills forms, provides OpenIDs, and gets more accurate the more it's used. The public awards are for upcoming disruptive services, that will change the internet. Make your voice heard and vote for your favorite user-centric identity *retriever*, Sxipper...
A Post Password World
17 April, 2007 - 11:42am
Are we transitioning to a post password world? You bet! Sxipper is enabling this by managing your online identity, passwords, and usernames. Plus a whole lot more. Thomas from The Command Line describes our free Firefox plugin last week in his podcast with Sxip's founder and CEO Dick Hardt as "a great extension. I use it daily and enjoy it very much." They discuss this as well as a number of other Identity 2.0 topics such as OpenID, better privacy through the granularity of claims, current and future identity services, and how e-government could help drive adoption.
Sxip Releases New Java OpenID Libraries
16 April, 2007 - 3:22pm
We have a new version of the OpenID4Java library: v0.9.2 that is a full featured and configurable OpenID implementation licensed under the Apache 2.0 open source license. Our library supports every feature in OpenID plus the attribute exchange and simple registration extensions for transfering identity data. It's now simpler for developers to transfer data on their site and much easier to OpenID-enable a website or become an OpenID provider, which will be great for interoperability with other relying parties and OpenID providers.
Identity 2.0 & the NSA
13 April, 2007 - 2:00pm
Sxip's founder & CEO, Dick Hardt, is giving the opening keynote on Identity 2.0 at next week's Identity Protection and Management Conference. Organized by the US National Security Agency, the conference is focusing on “Piecing Together Policy With Technology To Safeguard Our Most Vital Assets – People, Information, And Equipment”. In addition to user-centric identity, other topics under discussion will include: identity and access management, PKI, biometrics, and ID cards for the Department of Defense. We look foward to exploring issues of security, privacy, and identity for government and its' citizens.
Sxip Provides Essential SSO Solution To Salesforce for Cox Media
11 April, 2007 - 11:05am
Cox Media has deployed Sxip Access for single sign-on and centralized user management of their employees to Salesforce. Rolando Castellanos, National IT Manager for Cox Media, stated "Our users access all applications at Cox with the same login credentials. We therefore view Sxip Access as an essential solution in extending our single sign-on capabilities to Salesforce. Plus with nearly 1000 users in 20 markets, it's imperative for our Operations Group to have one place to manage IDs and passwords." Read more in our new case study.
A Post Shared Secrets World
5 April, 2007 - 2:29pm
Wouldn't it be great to have a programmatic way to present data online? To have digital credentials to prove something about yourself, akin to a digital drivers licence? To not fear identity theft due to the compromise of your personal information such as your mother's maiden name, your social security number, or other "shared secrets"? Sxip's founder and CEO Dick Hardt discusses these and other Identity 2.0 issues in the first of a two part podcast on the Command Line. In this 20 minute segment, Dick explains how he moved from programming tools to identity services, he defines some terms, and he starts discussing how these new tools interact with and enhance privacy online.
Vancouver Ranked Best City in North America
2 April, 2007 - 4:53pm
Vancouver was voted the best city in North America and third best in the world for overall quality of life by UK-based, Mercer Human Resource Consulting, in their annual global survey. Mercer's study is based on detailed assessments and evaluations of 39 key quality of living determinants, including: political, social, economic and socio-cultural environments; schools and education; recreation; and natural environment. Find out for yourself why it's so awesome to live here! Sxip is hiring. Check out our careers page for more details...
IIW: Moving User-Centric Identity Forward
21 March, 2007 - 3:26pm
Sxip is proud to be a sponsor of the upcoming Internet Identity Workshop this May in Mountain View. The IIW is organized using open space principles and is about moving user-centric identity ideas and technologies forward. As they aptly describe, "User-centric identity starts with the individual... It is not about a centralized solution, or anybody's silo. As such it solves different problems than the familiar ones of providing authentication and authorization services within a single organization, or federation between different organizations." Join us there to find out more and for the latest on OpenID and on our Identity 2.0 technologies such as Sxipper.
Cognos Securely Authenticates to Salesforce with Sxip Access
13 March, 2007 - 4:10pm
Cognos has solved their Salesforce authentication security needs with Sxip Access, implementing our on-demand identity management solution in under a day. Cognos' Chief IT Architect George Ellis stated, "Our Salesforce deployment is a global application with sensitive data. It was critical that we have the same extensive security controls in place for our on-demand applications as we do for those that are internal. Sxip was the only solution able to provide secure access for our users that was both simple for our employees to use and easy for IT to install and deploy." Learn how Sxip Access enabled their: IT team to centralize user management, internal web services authentication, and employees to login with two-factor authentication in our new Salesforce case study.
Identity 2.0 in Europe
5 March, 2007 - 3:07pm
Sxip's founder and CEO is giving a keynote on "User-centrism: The Solution to the Web Identity Crisis?" at the First European Identity Conference this spring in Germany. Following the keynote, Dick will be on a User-Centric panel with several Liberty Alliance / Federation advocates including Andre Durand and Conor Cahill in what will no doubt be a very lively debate. Hope to see you in Munich!
Sxip & Google on Integrated Security for Collaborative Computing
26 February, 2007 - 12:35pm
The move to on-demand "desktop" applications will profoundly alter how individuals retrieve, share and manage business-critical information. This trend offers businesses tremendous cost savings, improves efficiency and enhances productivity. However flexible access and integrated security requirements mean that IT departments must choose the right technologies to manage the security of online applications. Sxip's Founder & CEO Dick Hardt and Google's Enterprise Specialist Jeff Keltner will be presenting on "Integrated Security: Keeping Pace with Shifts Towards Collaborative Computing" at the Software-as-a-Service Conference this spring in Santa Clara. Find out why on-demand is in demand and join us there!
Sxip Identity Delivers On-Demand Identity Management for Google Apps
22 February, 2007 - 6:25am
Sxip today announced the availability of Sxip Access for Google Apps. The only identity and access management solution for Google Apps, Sxip Access extends the access privileges, security policies and manageability of the corporate network to the online world.
Identity 2.0 for the Next Web
19 February, 2007 - 5:50pm
Sxip's Founder & CEO, Dick Hardt, is speaking on user-centric identity at the Next Web Conference in Amsterdam this summer. Join him and other internet visionaries in a discussion on the future of the web and how new technology, business models, innovation and culture affect the web's direction and the way we do business.
Vancouver firm major force in OpenID collaboration
13 February, 2007 - 8:36am
There's been a lot of great press coverage of the OpenID / Microsoft CardSpace announcement last week. The Vancouver Sun wrote a piece today stating, "The problem of having multiple Internet identities -- being forced to employ user names and passwords for every website that requires a sign-in -- may become a lot easier to handle. And that's thanks, in part, to Vancouver-based Sxip Identity." Another excellent article from last week's ITPRO said of the collaboration, "two of the most prominent technologies come together to deliver a phish-proof internet."
How to create a user-centric website using OpenID and PHP
8 February, 2007 - 10:28am
Want to make it easy for your users to login and easily provide you up-to-date data, while ensuring their privacy is protected? Join us at the upcoming Vancouver PHP conference where Sxip's OpenID tech lead, Johnny Bufu, and Bryght co-founder, James Walker, will give a joint session for PHP developers on how simple it is to get up and running with OpenID 2.0.
Microsoft to Work With the OpenID Community, Collaborating With Sxip, JanRain, and VeriSign
6 February, 2007 - 9:01am
Sxip, JanRain, Microsoft, and VeriSign will collaborate on interoperability between OpenID and Windows CardSpace to make the internet safer and easier to use.
Sxip Audit Named "Essential" Application in AppExchange
29 January, 2007 - 4:27pm
Sxip Audit, our free security dashboard for Salesforce, was recently chosen by salesforce.com as an essential tool in AppExchange. Listed in AppExchange Essentials, these are tools that are popular with users, quick to deploy, and easy to use. The apps on these hand-picked lists are good bets for test driving and installing. Sxip Audit allows administrators to monitor their organization's security status and activities. If you're a system administrator either using or test driving Salesforce, find out how secure your data is and download it for free!
Sxip is "Ready to Rocket"
25 January, 2007 - 11:46am
We're delighted to be selected as one of 25 BC companies "Ready to Rocket" by Rocket Builders. Published annually, Ready to Rocket is a unique business recognition list that profiles technology companies with the greatest potential for revenue growth. The "Ready to Rocket 25" list is the only predictive list of its kind in North America. In past years, the list has accurately chosen companies that have significant revenue growth, that are more likely to receive investment and that are more likely to get acquired.
Sxipper - Man's Best Friend for 2007
19 January, 2007 - 3:04pm
A new beta release of Sxipper, our identity manager for the web, is available. Sxipper is more accurate with thousands of more maps completed and enables you to do more semantic mapping (if you so choose!) You can now edit the map, Sxip the form or reload the map by right clicking in a text field, and forms not recognized by Sxipper can be mapped and reported. Read what others have to say in some great posts: such as "Sxipper - Man's Best Friend for 2007" Chuck writes, "pushing the envelope with their theories on “identity 2.0, but now they are putting it to good use. I downloaded Sxipper today and it doesn’t disappoint." And "Firefox plugin the gap that Microsoft fails to fill", Sam writes "a great new add-on from Sxip which provides “federated” OpenID login credentials to participating websites."
Committed to OpenID enabling your site?
18 January, 2007 - 5:43pm
Last night's OpenID Vancouver Mash Pit was a lot of fun, informative and quite productive! After a round of lightning talks on OpenID, Drupal, Federation, Open Search, Attribute Exchange, and the Java/Perl libraries, the serious hacking got underway in the PHP/Drupal room. A large group committed to OpenID-enable their sites as well as reciprocal testing/QA. Tres cool! Read more about the evening on James Walker's blog and check out some of the photos on my and Richard Eriksson's flickr sites.
Identity & Web 2.0
17 January, 2007 - 10:29am
Sxip's founder & CEO, Dick Hardt, is giving the closing keynote at the Web 2.0 Kongress this spring in Germany. Find out why Web 2.0 needs Identity 2.0 and how these disruptive technologies can resolve the current online identity problems.
On the Vanguard of Identity 2.0
11 January, 2007 - 12:44pm
Join us at the upcoming TTI/Vanguard Identity & Trust Forum. Sxip's founder & CEO Dick Hardt is speaking on Identity 2.0. Other luminaries presenting include Kim Cameron, Scott Cantor, and Jamie Lewis, to name a few! TTI/Vanguard is an advanced technology forum for senior executives. They introduce, discuss, and evaluate emerging tech on the two-to-five year horizon with corporate and government leaders, entrepreneurs, researchers, and academics, to envision the future's future technologically. In highly interactive sessions, led by a world-class Advisory Board and today's most influential thought leaders, debate is stimulated and breakthrough ideas flourish. Register online by January 29...
Start the New Year with OpenID 2.0 in Vancouver
8 January, 2007 - 10:09pm
Join us for the only Canadian OpenID Mash Pit evening next week at the Sxip offices in downtown Vancouver. Learn more about OpenID 2.0 or come and share what you're already doing, and spend an evening hacking on the new code. We'll do a brief introduction on OpenID 2.0 and the new stuff you can do with it such as attribute exchange with the email verification service, followed by 5 minute lightening talks on whatever you want to demo or discuss, and then break out into small groups to help people actually dig into the "doing" of OpenID enabling their site. We'll also have a live webcast with the folks in Portland holding their Mash Pit event at the same time. More information and sign up is on the wiki. See you on the 17th!
User-Centric Identity: The Holy Grail to E-Commerce?
8 January, 2007 - 4:02pm
Sxip's Founder & CEO, Dick Hardt, was featured today on the front page of the new Entrepreneur section of the National Post. The article, A Massive Opportunity, notes that for "companies, governments and virtually anyone who uses the Internet for business, how you prove who you are is turning into one of the biggest hurdles yet to be solved. It's the holy grail of e-commerce". We couldn't agree more and are engaged in the search! Stay tuned for more Identity 2.0 development coming soon...
Identity Breaches Tops 100 Million: US President Seeks Public Input
4 January, 2007 - 11:56am
The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse recently reported that there have now been over 100 million incidents of compromised identity records in the US. As of today, the security breaches containing sensitive information totaled 100,453,858. In response, the Federal Identity Theft Task Force announced that they are seeking public comment on ways to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of federal government efforts to reduce identity theft. The Task Force was established last summer and will accept comments on their website until January 19.
New Sxipper Beta Now Available
22 December, 2006 - 3:50pm
Just in time for Christmas, a shiny new version of Sxipper, version 0.9.6.16558, is available. Sxipper is a free Firefox plug-in that saves you time on the web enabling you to easily control the release and management of your identity data. Besides general polishing, you can now tell Sxipper not to bother you on forms where you don't want help, and edit forms that need some tuning. Check it out over the holidays and tell us what you think!
OpenID 2.0 Vancouver Mash Pit at Sxip
18 December, 2006 - 5:40pm
Want to learn more about OpenID 2.0 and spend an evening hacking on the new code? Join Sxip at an OpenID 2.0 Mash Pit evening in the New Year in Vancouver. There will be simultaneous events that night in Portland and other locations, with a live webcast amongst us. OpenID is an emerging Identity 2.0 standard for exchanging identity data on the internet. This is for people to come and hack on OpenID 2.0 and figure out how to make it work for their sites or applications.
A New Sxipper User Every Two Minutes!
7 December, 2006 - 7:55am
Wow! We're delighted with the interest shown by the Firefox community in Sxipper, our free new plugin that saves you time on the web by keeping track of all of your user IDs, passwords, and personal data. The beta was released at IIW on Tuesday and within 24 hours we were averaging a new user every two minutes.
Sxipper Enables You to Forget Your Passwords On the Web
5 December, 2006 - 12:09pm
Forgot your passwords? Good! Sxipper, new beta software from Sxip Identity released at the Internet Identity Workshop today, lets you log into any website with a single click. A free plug-in to the popular web browser Firefox, Sxipper saves you time and brainpower by keeping track of all of your user IDs, passwords, and the personal data you share every day online. Sxipper logs you in securely and helps to prevent you from being victimized by phishing sites and phony logins.
Sxip contributes Java and Perl libraries to OpenID 2.0
4 December, 2006 - 2:02pm
Licensed under an open source Apache 2.0 license, Sxip has released the OpenID4Java and OpenID4Perl libraries. The libraries are easy-to-use and well-documented, allowing you to add full support for OpenID 1.x, 2.0 and Attribute Exchange into your Java and Perl based applications. We invite you to try them out and would appreciate your feedback! We also welcome and encourage community participation around the ongoing development of these libraries.
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4 December, 2006 - 10:31am
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3 December, 2006 - 1:12pm
Doc Searls' Linux Journal article, "Let's go bust some silos" does an excellent job of highlighting the issues of identity on the web and the need for identity services that are centered on individuals rather than organizations.
Identity 2.0 at the Internet Identity Workshop
29 November, 2006 - 2:48pm
We're delighted to see the progression of so many Identity 2.0 technologies, which will be demoed next week at IIW in Mountain View. Sxip will be taking the wraps off of a free new IdM technology we've been developing, Sxipper. We along with the other authors of the OpenID specs will also hold numerous workshops on OpenID 2.0. And Microsoft identity guru Kim Cameron will feature their latest release of CardSpace.
EC Threatens War on Spammers and Phishers
27 November, 2006 - 12:50pm
The European Commission today warned member states to better their efforts to "address 'professional' spammers, phishers and the spreading of spyware and malware" or they would face legislative controls to combat it. The warning follows publication of a study that found up to 85% of all email received in the European Union is spam.
Phishing Attacks Almost Double in Two Years Costing Billions in Losses
17 November, 2006 - 9:54am
A new study from Gartner Research found that over 100 million US adults have received phishing scams this year, almost twice the number of attacks in 2004 of 57 million. They estimate that financial losses from the attacks have amounted to more than $2.8 billion for 2006.
The Globalization of Personal Data and Surveillance
15 November, 2006 - 11:23am
Queen's University published a fascinating study yesterday, on the effects of surveillance by governments, employers, and the private sector via technologies such as personal computers, biometrics, and GPS. The largest international survey of its kind, they found a high level of concern in many parts of the world about the intrusiveness of post 9/11 laws. The issues covered include: control over personal data, consumer surveillance, national ID cards, workplace privacy, knowledge of privacy regulations, and public trust in government.
Canadians protect data privacy best
3 November, 2006 - 8:12am
It's great to be a Canadian company, eh? Canada received the highest score of five for its legal limits on the keeping of private data in a study released yesterday on privacy protection. The report by London-based Privacy International, ranks countries on various privacy-related issues. Overall, Canada placed second in the world (behind Germany) with signficant privacy protections and safeguards in place. The only two countries to receive that ranking.
Kudos to Jotspot and Google for Supporting User Data Privacy
1 November, 2006 - 5:20pm
I just read that following Jotspot's acquisition by Google, they sent an email out to customers offering to not transfer their data over to Google if so desired, and offered to help them export it if they want. Otherwise, the data, which in an application wiki like Jotspot could be anything from a collaboratively edited family site to a small business's internal communication hub, would be sent to Google. They stated, "Your data is yours — that doesn't change at Google... we want to provide you with the opportunity to retrieve your user information and cease usage of the JotSpot service before the transition." Kudos to both companies for providing this type of proactive privacy protection!
Vancouver Named Best City in the Americas
1 November, 2006 - 11:19am
For a third consecutive year, Vancouver was chosen "Best City in the Americas" in the Conde Nast Traveler Readers' Choice Awards. City ratings were based on ambience, friendliness, culture/sites, restaurants, lodging, and shopping. Find out for yourself why it's so awesome to live and work here. Sxip is conveniently located in downtown Vancouver and is hiring! Check out our careers page for openings.
Tired of logging into stuff?
31 October, 2006 - 2:30pm
Darren Barefoot and the rest of us need Identity 2.0. He discussed the problem of web single sign-on in his blog posting earlier today. He shows the tedium of repeated username and password login into the many sites he accesses on a daily basis in this entertaining short video. He states, "I don’t know much about identity management, but it isn’t high time somebody solved this problem? Smart people have been working on this issue for, like, a decade and I still don’t have a ID that I can even transfer between a few sites." Darren, it's coming! Identity 2.0 technologies like Whobar allow websites to offer web SSO for login with user-centric solutions such as OpenID and Microsoft CardSpace. Tell the websites you use to end the identity silo madness and support us.
Employer's Direct SSO to Salesforce with Sxip Access
30 October, 2006 - 11:49am
Employer's Direct CIO Greg Schueman recently spoke at the Dreamforce conference along with Sxip's founder & CEO Dick Hardt on why his company uses Sxip Access for single sign-on to Salesforce. He emphasized that because they use multiple ASPs they require SSO across their core applications as well as need access to be easy and secure. With Sxip they can accomplish employee SSO to external applications now. And in the future they intend to leverage Identity 2.0 technologies for customer SSO from their extranets to ASPs and partner SSO to their partner extranet applications. See his portion of the presentation online on the Salesforce blog.
Identity 2.0 at W3C annual conference next year
27 October, 2006 - 2:15pm
Sxip's founder & CEO, Dick Hardt, will be giving the closing plenary keynote at the 16th International World Wide Web Conference next May. He will discuss Identity 2.0 in the context of E-Applications. The final day (Saturday, May 12) focuses on the implications and applications of the web. The main umbrella theme will be The WWW and You, with sub-themes on Web Security, Web Applications, and E-Learning.
Why 79% of enterprises will need delegated authentication
26 October, 2006 - 10:53am
According to IDC, enterprises are increasing investments in SaaS solutions more than 20% annually. They expect SaaS to be a $10 billion market within three years and say that 79% of enterprises are currently purchasing or reviewing SaaS solutions. Erin Traudt, IDC's SaaS Research Analyst, notes that security concerns are continuely cited when they conduct their surveys. However, Sxip believes the security issues surrounding on-demand applications can be lessened through the use of delegated authentication.
Identity 2.0 Progress: Technorati & Province of Ontario Endorse Emerging User-Centric Technologies
20 October, 2006 - 4:11am
We're delighted to see recent reports regarding the Ontario Privacy Commissioner, Dr. Ann Cavoukian's active support of Kim Cameron's Seven Laws of identity. She believes that once a universal method to connect identity systems and ensure user privacy is developed, that there will be an “Identity Big Bang.” Progress is also being made with OpenID, with the Technorati announcement yesterday that bloggers will now be able to claim ownership of their blogs with OpenID credentials and that more work in support of OpenID is on the way.
Sxip the Passwords & Use Delegated Authentication
18 October, 2006 - 9:12am
At last week's Dreamforce conference we demonstrated how easy and safe it is to use delegated authentication for Salesforce login. ITPro covered this in their article today on Sxip the passwords, get an identity, noting that with delegated authentication Salesforce users can login with their standard account system thus not requiring yet another set of accounts and passwords to manage and store in case users forget them. Thus the option to use your existing tools will be welcome to larger companies.
SaaS Delivery Challenges On-Premise Software & Why They'll Need IdM
6 October, 2006 - 12:45pm
Gartner Research recently reported that last year Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) accounted for 5% of all business software revenue. This amounts to approximately a $7 billion market this year. They predict that SaaS will reach 25% of new business software revenues in 2011, and roughly a $30-40 billion market. Given this massive increase in on-demand usage, businesses need to consider the identity management and security implications of using all these hosted applications.
Salesforce & Identity 2.0: Sxip at Dreamforce
5 October, 2006 - 11:33am
Interested in a simpler and safer Salesforce deployment? Do you use one or more ASPs and want to make access and management more convenient, secure, and cost effective? Curious to learn how Web 2.0 companies like salesforce.com benefits from Identity 2.0? Join Sxip Identity at Dreamforce! Hear our founder & CEO, Dick Hardt, as he speaks on Monday afternoon in the IT Executives Track on "Identity 2.0 & The Future of Salesforce Identity and Access Management".
BC Government Citizen Centric Identity 2.0 Initiative Popular at DIDW
25 September, 2006 - 3:16am
Kudos to the BC government for their presentation on the BCeID initiative at the Digital ID World conference. A great deal of interest was expressed in their Identity 2.0 citizen-centric efforts by others in the identity community.
On-Demand Identity Management to Salesforce Now Available for SMBs
22 September, 2006 - 1:48am
Sxip Access Workgroup Edition makes Salesforce simple and safe to deploy. Simply plug Sxip Access Workgroup Edition into your network and turn it on. A secure channel is automatically established with Sxip's data center, with Sxip undertaking any configuration, maintenance and updating. Sxip instantly and securely directs all the authentication requests to Salesforce on your behalf. The convenient Identity Gateway form-factor of the Workgroup Edition delivers affordable authentication to Salesforce on a per user, subscription based pricing model, bringing all the power of an enterprise-scale solution without the associated IT overhead and costs. Find out more in our talk "Managing Identities in an Outsourced World" at the Software-as-a-Service Conference next week or contact us for a free trial!
How Software-as-a-Service Makes Identity Management a Challenge
19 September, 2006 - 3:54pm
Computerworld's Paul Gillin recently interviewed Sxip's CEO Dick Hardt for a frank 15 minute podcast on the importance of identity and access management in an outsourced world. They also dicussed trends in the digital identity space and compared the user-centric model of Identity 2.0 technologies like Microsoft InfoCard and why they will be successful versus former attempts at web single sign-on and digital identity such as Microsoft Passport failed.
Who What? Whobar previewed at DIDW
11 September, 2006 - 1:52pm
Sxip is demoing a preview of Whobar, new Identity 2.0 technology at Digital ID World and the Future of Web Apps this week.
Vancouver Again Voted Best City in Canada
29 August, 2006 - 11:27am
Travel and Leisure, the world's leading travel magazine, recently announced that Vancouver was voted best city in Canada for the second year in a row. Winners of the Annual World's Best Awards are selected by the magazine's readers. Cities were rated on the following criteria: sights, culture/arts, restaurants/food, people, shopping, and value. We wholeheartedly agree and are looking for others to join our team here! Check out our careers page for positions currently open.
Doppelgangers & ID Theft -- Why We Need Identity 2.0
22 August, 2006 - 10:10am
I recently came across a disturbing post about a professor who was the unfortunate victim of online identity theft with an unusual twist -- not for the intention of financial gain -- but rather to discredit him. Regardless if you agree with Dr. Myers' personal beliefs, activities by imposters like this are wrong and could be prevented with Identity 2.0.
Who are you? I really want to know (and can now easily find out)
14 August, 2006 - 4:20pm
Is your digital identity your personal intellectual property? Is your Google identity yours or someone elses? Mary Hodder posits these important questions in her Napsterization blog in response to the recent release by AOL of 19 million internet search queries by more than 600,000 of its members. This "Data Valdez" incident as coined by Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in the New York Times, brings to light the broader issues surrounding online identity aggregation, privacy, and anonymity.
Identity and Identification in a Networked World
14 August, 2006 - 5:20am
Increasingly, who we are is represented by key bits of information scattered throughout the data-intensive, networked world. Online and off, these core identifiers mediate our sense of self, social interactions, movements through space, and access to goods and services. There is much at stake in designing systems of identification and identity management, deciding who or what will be in control of them, and building in adequate protection for our bits of identity permeating the network. Join us at the NYU School of Law's symposium next month, where Sxip's founder and CEO, will be giving the opening keynote on Day 2 on the "Emerging Age of Who".
My Federation? On user-centrism, federation & identity
13 August, 2006 - 9:43am
For the past few months there's been a heated dialogue amongst members of the ID Gang about the definitions of user-centrism and federation. The conversation started in earnest at the Burton Group Catalyst conference, continued at the Identity Open Space meeting, and many have weighed in on the issue since then. Why is a seemingly mundane discussion of semantics important? Issues of the user's role in identity exchanges, trust, freedom, and choice have significant implications for how the emerging identity architectures such as OpenID and InfoCard are designed. And correspondingly affects matters of privacy, liability, and scalability on the Web. The following is a brief overview of some of the key points:
Gartner Finds Identity 2.0 Not Ready for Mainstream Until 2008: We disagree
10 August, 2006 - 2:54am
Gartner Research's new report "Identity 2.0 is Too Ill-Defined for Imminent Deployment" is correct in stating that the different technical approaches will hinder adoption until standards are adopted. However, we believe there are a number of recent factors leading to widespread usage soon, including: current activity underway in the identity community for interoperability between protocols (including discussions with the Liberty Alliance); Sxip's involvement with OpenID along with a host of other companies; the OpenID bounty program; Wikipedia's intention of adopting OpenID; and the efforts being made by us and others over the past year for a user-centric standard; all of which are indicators to the start of an Identity 2.0 tipping point.
Choice of Identity 2.0 login options to sxore: SSO with InfoCard, OpenID or i-names
9 August, 2006 - 5:56am
Authentication is now even easier on sxore, Sxip's free identity and reputation solution for blogs, that is also proving to be a great Identity 2.0 R&D sandbox. You can no