The Concordia Project, a global cross-industry initiative formed by
members of the identity community to drive harmonization and
interoperability among identity initiatives and protocols, announced
its first interoperability event taking place at RSA Conference 2008
in San Francisco on Monday, April 7 from 9:00am - 12:30pm. The event
will include FuGen Solutions, Internet2, Microsoft, Oracle, Ping
Identity, Sun Microsystems and Symlabs demonstrating varying
interoperability scenarios using Information Card, Liberty Alliance,
and WS-* identity protocols. Over 500 RSA Conference participants have
registered to attend the Concordia Project interoperability event to
date. The April 7 demonstrations have been developed to meet use case
scenarios presented to the Concordia Project by enterprise, education
and government organizations deploying digital identity management
systems and requiring multi-protocol interoperability of identity
specifications. Since the formal launch of the Concordia Project in
June of 2007, deployer use case scenarios involving Information Card,
Liberty Alliance and WS-* identity protocols have been presented by
AOL, the Government of British Columbia, Boeing, Chevron, General
Motors, Internet2, theNew Zealand State Services Commission, the US
GSA and the University of Washington. Concordia members decided
collectively on what interoperability demonstrations should be developed
first based on identity management commonalities and priorities
identified by the majority of deploying organizations. During the RSA
Conference event, Concordia members will demonstrate multi-protocol
interoperability based on two of the fourteen use case scenarios
submitted to the project to date. The first includes Oracle, Internet2,
FuGen Solutions, Microsoft, Ping Identity, Sun Microsystems and Symlabs
and is characterized by a user authenticating to an identity provider
(IdP) using an InfoCard and communicating that authentication to a
relying party through either SAML 2.0 or WS-Federation protocols. The
second includes Internet2, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and Symlabs
demonstrating SSO flow between chained SAML and WS-Federation protocols.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
XACML Interoperability Demo for Health Care Scenario
At the RSA 2008 Conference, members of the OASIS open standards
consortium, in cooperation with the Health Information Technologies
Standards Panel (HITSP), demonstrated interoperability of the
Extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) version 2.0.
Simulating a real world scenario provided by the U.S. Department of
Veterans Affairs, the demo showed how XACML ensures successful
authorization decision requests and the exchange of authorization
policies. The XACML Interop at the RSA 2008 conference utilizes
requirements from Health Level Seven (HL7), ASTM International, and
the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). The demo features
role-based access control (RBAC), privacy protections, structured
and functional roles, consent codes, emergency overrides and filtering
of sensitive data. Vendors show how XACML obligations can provide
capabilities in the policy decision making process. The use of XACML
obligations and identity providers using the Security Assertion
Markup Language (SAML) are also highlighted. According to the
ANSI/HITSP announcement, the multi-vendor demonstrations "highlight
the use of OASIS standards in HITSP-approved guidelines, known as
'constructs,' to meet healthcare security and privacy needs. The
Panel's security and privacy specifications address common data
protection issues in a broad range of subject areas, including
electronic delivery of lab results to a clinician, medication workflow
for providers and patients, quality, and consumer empowerment. HITSP
is a multi-stakeholder coordinating body designed to provide the
process within which affected parties can identify, select, and
harmonize standards for communicating health care information throughout
the health care spectrum. As mandated by the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services (HHS), the Panel's work supports Use Cases defined
by the American Heath Information Community (AHIC). 'This is the first
time the RSA Conference will highlight in an Interop demo the healthcare
scenario, the Electronic Health Records (EHR), and associated
interoperable terminologies of clinical roles, patient consent
directives, obligations, and business logic,' said John (Mike) Davis,
standards architect with the VHA Office of Information in the Department
of Veterans Affairs, and a member of the HITSP Security, Privacy and
Infrastructure Technical Committee."
consortium, in cooperation with the Health Information Technologies
Standards Panel (HITSP), demonstrated interoperability of the
Extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) version 2.0.
Simulating a real world scenario provided by the U.S. Department of
Veterans Affairs, the demo showed how XACML ensures successful
authorization decision requests and the exchange of authorization
policies. The XACML Interop at the RSA 2008 conference utilizes
requirements from Health Level Seven (HL7), ASTM International, and
the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). The demo features
role-based access control (RBAC), privacy protections, structured
and functional roles, consent codes, emergency overrides and filtering
of sensitive data. Vendors show how XACML obligations can provide
capabilities in the policy decision making process. The use of XACML
obligations and identity providers using the Security Assertion
Markup Language (SAML) are also highlighted. According to the
ANSI/HITSP announcement, the multi-vendor demonstrations "highlight
the use of OASIS standards in HITSP-approved guidelines, known as
'constructs,' to meet healthcare security and privacy needs. The
Panel's security and privacy specifications address common data
protection issues in a broad range of subject areas, including
electronic delivery of lab results to a clinician, medication workflow
for providers and patients, quality, and consumer empowerment. HITSP
is a multi-stakeholder coordinating body designed to provide the
process within which affected parties can identify, select, and
harmonize standards for communicating health care information throughout
the health care spectrum. As mandated by the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services (HHS), the Panel's work supports Use Cases defined
by the American Heath Information Community (AHIC). 'This is the first
time the RSA Conference will highlight in an Interop demo the healthcare
scenario, the Electronic Health Records (EHR), and associated
interoperable terminologies of clinical roles, patient consent
directives, obligations, and business logic,' said John (Mike) Davis,
standards architect with the VHA Office of Information in the Department
of Veterans Affairs, and a member of the HITSP Security, Privacy and
Infrastructure Technical Committee."
Web Security Context: Experience, Indicators, and Trust
Members of the W3C Web Security Context Working Group have published
a revised version of the Working Draft specification "Web Security
Context: Experience, Indicators, and Trust." It defines guidelines
and requirements for the presentation and communication of Web security
context information to end-users; and good practices for Web Site
authors. To facilitate access to relevant background, various sections
of this document are annotated with references to input documents that
are available from the Working Group's Wiki, and to pertinent issues
that the group is tracking. The documents in the wiki include background,
motivation, and usability concerns on the proposals that reference them.
They provide important context for understanding the potential utility
of the proposals. The W3C Web Security Context Working Group focuses on
the challenges that arise when users encounter currently deployed
security technology, such as TLS: While this technology achieves its
goals on a technical level, attackers' strategies shift towards
bypassing the security technology instead of breaking it. When users
do not understand the security context in which they operate, then it
becomes easy to deceive and defraud them.
a revised version of the Working Draft specification "Web Security
Context: Experience, Indicators, and Trust." It defines guidelines
and requirements for the presentation and communication of Web security
context information to end-users; and good practices for Web Site
authors. To facilitate access to relevant background, various sections
of this document are annotated with references to input documents that
are available from the Working Group's Wiki, and to pertinent issues
that the group is tracking. The documents in the wiki include background,
motivation, and usability concerns on the proposals that reference them.
They provide important context for understanding the potential utility
of the proposals. The W3C Web Security Context Working Group focuses on
the challenges that arise when users encounter currently deployed
security technology, such as TLS: While this technology achieves its
goals on a technical level, attackers' strategies shift towards
bypassing the security technology instead of breaking it. When users
do not understand the security context in which they operate, then it
becomes easy to deceive and defraud them.
XML Schema for Media Control
IETF announced that a new Request for Comments "XML Schema for Media
Control" is now available in online RFC libraries. The specification
has been produced by members of the IETF Multiparty Multimedia Session
Control (MMUSIC) Working Group. The RFC 5168 document defines an
Extensible Markup Language (XML) Schema for video fast update in a
tightly controlled environment, developed by Microsoft, Polycom,
Radvision and used by multiple vendors. This document describes a
method that has been deployed in Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)
based systems over the last three years and is being used across
real-time interactive applications from different vendors in an
interoperable manner. New implementations are discouraged from using
the method described except for backward compatibility purposes. New
implementations are required to use the new Full Intra Request command
in the RTP Control Protocol (RTCP) channel. The Multiparty MUltimedia
SessIon Control (MMUSIC) Working Group was chartered to develop
protocols to support Internet teleconferencing and multimedia
communications. These protocols are now reasonably mature, and many
have received widespread deployment. The group is now focussed on
the revisions of these protocols in the light of implementation
experience and additional demands that have arisen from other WGs
(such as AVT, SIP, SIPPING, and MEGACO)... The MMUSIC work items
are pursued in close coordination with other IETF WGs related to
multimedia conferencing and IP telephony (AVT, SIP, SIPPING, SIMPLE,
XCON, MEGACO and, where appropriate, MIDCOM and NSIS).
Control" is now available in online RFC libraries. The specification
has been produced by members of the IETF Multiparty Multimedia Session
Control (MMUSIC) Working Group. The RFC 5168 document defines an
Extensible Markup Language (XML) Schema for video fast update in a
tightly controlled environment, developed by Microsoft, Polycom,
Radvision and used by multiple vendors. This document describes a
method that has been deployed in Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)
based systems over the last three years and is being used across
real-time interactive applications from different vendors in an
interoperable manner. New implementations are discouraged from using
the method described except for backward compatibility purposes. New
implementations are required to use the new Full Intra Request command
in the RTP Control Protocol (RTCP) channel. The Multiparty MUltimedia
SessIon Control (MMUSIC) Working Group was chartered to develop
protocols to support Internet teleconferencing and multimedia
communications. These protocols are now reasonably mature, and many
have received widespread deployment. The group is now focussed on
the revisions of these protocols in the light of implementation
experience and additional demands that have arisen from other WGs
(such as AVT, SIP, SIPPING, and MEGACO)... The MMUSIC work items
are pursued in close coordination with other IETF WGs related to
multimedia conferencing and IP telephony (AVT, SIP, SIPPING, SIMPLE,
XCON, MEGACO and, where appropriate, MIDCOM and NSIS).
Unicode Consortium Announces Release of Unicode Standard Version 5.1
The Unicode Consortium has announced the release of Unicode Version 5.1,
containing over 100,000 characters, and provides significant additions
and improvements that extend text processing for software worldwide.
Some of the key features are: increased security in data exchange,
significant character additions for Indic and South East Asian scripts,
expanded identifier specifications for Indic and Arabic scripts,
improvements in the processing of Tamil and other Indic scripts,
linebreaking conformance relaxation for HTML and other protocols,
strengthened normalization stability, new case pair stability, plus
others given below. The Version 5.1.0 data files and documentation are
final and posted on the Unicode site. In addition to updated existing
files, implementers will find new test data files (for example, for
linebreaking) and new XML data files that encapsulate all of the Unicode
character properties. A major feature of Unicode 5.1.0 is the enabling
of ideographic variation sequences. These sequences allow standardized
representation of glyphic variants needed for Japanese, Chinese, and
Korean text. Unicode 5.1 contains significant changes to properties and
behaviorial specifications. Several important property definitions were
extended, improving linebreaking for Polish and Portuguese hyphenation.
The Unicode Text Segmentation Algorithms, covering sentences, words,
and characters, were greatly enhanced to improve the processing of Tamil
and other Indic languages. The Unicode Normalization Algorithm now
defines stabilized strings and provides guidelines for buffering.
Standardized named sequences are added for Lithuanian, and provisional
named sequences for Tamil. Unicode 5.1.0 adds 1,624 newly encoded
characters. These additions include characters required for Malayalam
and Myanmar and important individual characters such as Latin capital
sharp s for German. Version 5.1 extends support for languages in Africa,
India, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Vietnam, with the addition of the Cham,
Lepcha, Ol Chiki, Rejang, Saurashtra, Sundanese, and Vai scripts. The
Unicode Collation Algorithm (UCA), the core standard for sorting all
text, is also being updated at the same time. The major changes in UCA
include coverage of all Unicode 5.1 characters, tightened conformance
for canonical equivalence, clearer definitions of internationalized
search and matching, specifications of parameters for customizing
collation, and definitions of collation folding. The next version of
the Unicode locale project (CLDR) is also being prepared on the basis
of Unicode 5.1, and is now open for public data submission.
containing over 100,000 characters, and provides significant additions
and improvements that extend text processing for software worldwide.
Some of the key features are: increased security in data exchange,
significant character additions for Indic and South East Asian scripts,
expanded identifier specifications for Indic and Arabic scripts,
improvements in the processing of Tamil and other Indic scripts,
linebreaking conformance relaxation for HTML and other protocols,
strengthened normalization stability, new case pair stability, plus
others given below. The Version 5.1.0 data files and documentation are
final and posted on the Unicode site. In addition to updated existing
files, implementers will find new test data files (for example, for
linebreaking) and new XML data files that encapsulate all of the Unicode
character properties. A major feature of Unicode 5.1.0 is the enabling
of ideographic variation sequences. These sequences allow standardized
representation of glyphic variants needed for Japanese, Chinese, and
Korean text. Unicode 5.1 contains significant changes to properties and
behaviorial specifications. Several important property definitions were
extended, improving linebreaking for Polish and Portuguese hyphenation.
The Unicode Text Segmentation Algorithms, covering sentences, words,
and characters, were greatly enhanced to improve the processing of Tamil
and other Indic languages. The Unicode Normalization Algorithm now
defines stabilized strings and provides guidelines for buffering.
Standardized named sequences are added for Lithuanian, and provisional
named sequences for Tamil. Unicode 5.1.0 adds 1,624 newly encoded
characters. These additions include characters required for Malayalam
and Myanmar and important individual characters such as Latin capital
sharp s for German. Version 5.1 extends support for languages in Africa,
India, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Vietnam, with the addition of the Cham,
Lepcha, Ol Chiki, Rejang, Saurashtra, Sundanese, and Vai scripts. The
Unicode Collation Algorithm (UCA), the core standard for sorting all
text, is also being updated at the same time. The major changes in UCA
include coverage of all Unicode 5.1 characters, tightened conformance
for canonical equivalence, clearer definitions of internationalized
search and matching, specifications of parameters for customizing
collation, and definitions of collation folding. The next version of
the Unicode locale project (CLDR) is also being prepared on the basis
of Unicode 5.1, and is now open for public data submission.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
IONA Becomes Silver Sponsor of the Apache Software Foundation
IONA announced that it has become a Silver Sponsor of The Apache Software
Foundation. The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is a non-profit
corporation dedicated to consensus-based, collaborative software
development. Financial sponsorship will help ASF to acquire servers and
hardware infrastructure, purchase bandwidth and needed resources, and
increase awareness of ASF projects and incubating initiatives. IONA's
commitment to Open Source software is an integral part of its 15-year
heritage. With a high degree of Open Source community involvement, IONA
supports the efforts of its developers who are members and contributors
to a number of ASF projects. Aiding the efforts for increased adoption
of Open Source SOA, IONA developers play key roles in the Apache
ActiveMQ project, the Apache ServiceMix project, the CXF project in
the Apache Incubator, and the Apache Camel project, a sub-project of
ActiveMQ. IONA's distributed, Open Source SOA infrastructure solutions,
FUSE Message Broker, FUSE ESB, FUSE Services Framework and FUSE Mediation
Router, are built on code developed in those ASF projects and are
distributed under the terms of the Apache License 2.0. IONA provides
professional support, consulting and training for enterprise customers
looking to deploy this Open Source SOA technology in their mission-critical
business applications. IONA also recently announced the launch of Artix
Connect for WCF (Windows Communication Foundation). Artix Connect for
WCF enables Global 2000 customers to optimize their investments in
Microsoft technology and seamlessly extend connectivity with legacy
applications from within the Microsoft Visual Studio development
environment. By wrapping back-office legacy systems behind
standards-based Web Services Description Language (WSDL) interfaces,
Artix Connect for WCF allows the .NET developer to connect with Java
or CORBA without the need for custom adapters or new code generation.
The product enables companies to leverage existing investments in Java,
CORBA, and more, without leaving the Microsoft Visual Studio development
environment or requiring additional skills. Artix Data Services, a
component of IONA's Artix family of advanced SOA infrastructure products,
offers the broadest support for financial services standards, message
types and validation rules, including SWIFT, SEPA, FpML, TWIST, ISO
20022, CREST and FIX, with the ability to model any data format for
complete compliance.
Foundation. The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is a non-profit
corporation dedicated to consensus-based, collaborative software
development. Financial sponsorship will help ASF to acquire servers and
hardware infrastructure, purchase bandwidth and needed resources, and
increase awareness of ASF projects and incubating initiatives. IONA's
commitment to Open Source software is an integral part of its 15-year
heritage. With a high degree of Open Source community involvement, IONA
supports the efforts of its developers who are members and contributors
to a number of ASF projects. Aiding the efforts for increased adoption
of Open Source SOA, IONA developers play key roles in the Apache
ActiveMQ project, the Apache ServiceMix project, the CXF project in
the Apache Incubator, and the Apache Camel project, a sub-project of
ActiveMQ. IONA's distributed, Open Source SOA infrastructure solutions,
FUSE Message Broker, FUSE ESB, FUSE Services Framework and FUSE Mediation
Router, are built on code developed in those ASF projects and are
distributed under the terms of the Apache License 2.0. IONA provides
professional support, consulting and training for enterprise customers
looking to deploy this Open Source SOA technology in their mission-critical
business applications. IONA also recently announced the launch of Artix
Connect for WCF (Windows Communication Foundation). Artix Connect for
WCF enables Global 2000 customers to optimize their investments in
Microsoft technology and seamlessly extend connectivity with legacy
applications from within the Microsoft Visual Studio development
environment. By wrapping back-office legacy systems behind
standards-based Web Services Description Language (WSDL) interfaces,
Artix Connect for WCF allows the .NET developer to connect with Java
or CORBA without the need for custom adapters or new code generation.
The product enables companies to leverage existing investments in Java,
CORBA, and more, without leaving the Microsoft Visual Studio development
environment or requiring additional skills. Artix Data Services, a
component of IONA's Artix family of advanced SOA infrastructure products,
offers the broadest support for financial services standards, message
types and validation rules, including SWIFT, SEPA, FpML, TWIST, ISO
20022, CREST and FIX, with the ability to model any data format for
complete compliance.
Facebook Meets .Net
Facebook is a popular social network site and a destination for
application developers, but developers need to learn its peculiarities,
according to a VSLive conference presentation in San Francisco.
Development on Facebook is more like embedded development rather than
normal Web development, said speaker Jeffrey McManus, CEO of Platform
Associates, a consulting firm. Facebook is a platform featuring a
collection of technologies enabling developers to create applications
that incorporate Facebook data. This could include applications, for
example, that make Web services calls to Facebook and applications
that can run within Facebook. Technologies for developing applications
in Facebook include FBML (Facebook Markup Language) and IFrame, an HTML
construct that opens a hole in a page enabling display of another page
inside of it, according to McManus. Also factored into the equation is
Facbook.Net, a .Net library that wraps Web services and handles
authentication and other elements. Silverlight, Microsoft's new
multimedia presentation technology, also can be supported in Facebook
using FBML.
application developers, but developers need to learn its peculiarities,
according to a VSLive conference presentation in San Francisco.
Development on Facebook is more like embedded development rather than
normal Web development, said speaker Jeffrey McManus, CEO of Platform
Associates, a consulting firm. Facebook is a platform featuring a
collection of technologies enabling developers to create applications
that incorporate Facebook data. This could include applications, for
example, that make Web services calls to Facebook and applications
that can run within Facebook. Technologies for developing applications
in Facebook include FBML (Facebook Markup Language) and IFrame, an HTML
construct that opens a hole in a page enabling display of another page
inside of it, according to McManus. Also factored into the equation is
Facbook.Net, a .Net library that wraps Web services and handles
authentication and other elements. Silverlight, Microsoft's new
multimedia presentation technology, also can be supported in Facebook
using FBML.
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