I recently wrote a post for Accenture on how industry support for social federation will revolutionize the industry. More to come on this topic.

USA Today reported on the growing trend for hackers to hijack people’s iTunes accounts:
They typically buy iTunes gift card codes, usually in $50 to $200 amounts. They then sell the codes — which can be used like cash to buy music and videos — at a steep discount, openly on the Internet.
If only [...]

John Fontana recently posted on the burgeoning interest in the topic of trust. One his links includes a discussion with two people I know and whom respect on this topic, Hilary Ward and John Clippinger (whose book “Crowd of One” I reviewed back in my Burton Group days). I highly recommend checking out all these [...]

My friend and security-industry-great, Gunnar Peterson gave a fantastic keynote presentation at the Cloud Identity Summit last month. During his speech, he used a series of images to show show some absurdly feeble attempts at security. One in particular caught my eye:

Given the subject of my presentation two days later—”trust” in the cloud—I couldn’t resist [...]

Just wanted to let everyone know about another blog I’m involved in: I recently helped Accenture (where I now work) launch a Security Blog.
Accenture has been involved in some of the largest and most complex security deployments of our time. So I believe the blog will be a great opportunity for senior people at Accenture [...]

In reviewing my last several posts, I was beginning to wonder whether I’m cynical by nature or simply running low on happy pills. But then I found something really positive to write about: Microsoft announced at RSA that it would open source its U-Prove technology. This is really good news.
I hope the development community takes [...]

The word “trust” appears 32 times in the press release announcing the official launch of the Open Identity Exchange (OIX). Normally, I’d be enthusiastic about such dense coverage of a critical topic, but in this case I question the group’s understanding of the term.
A Governance Template, Not a Trust Framework
OIX is a kind of standards [...]

Interesting tidbit in the NYT yesterday about how developers can use public information to get the remaining 5 numbers of your SSN:
The Carnegie Mellon researchers used publicly available information from many sources, including profiles on social networks, to narrow their search for two pieces of data crucial to identifying people — birthdates and city or [...]

Imagine a friend invites you to a dinner party. This year, the invitation goes, the party will be catered so you’ll need to pay $40 per guest. Maybe you’re not too excited about the catering idea, but you figure you want to support your friend, so you decide to attend and bring your spouse. At [...]

Anyone who read Frank Partnoy’s book F.I.A.S.C.O will immediately appreciate the context of this story: The NYT reported today how Wall St. banks Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan assisted the Greek government in hiding hundreds of billions of dollars in debt, while collecting over $300 million in fees for themselves. According to the Times:
Wall Street [...]