[wordup] Microsoft pulls an Oracle: Passport to ID nearly all U.S. citizens?

[Adam Shand]

Eiieeeee.  No No No No No.  Bastards.

Adam.

Via: politech at politechbot.com
From: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/134438173_passport18.html

Thursday, April 18, 2002, 12:00 a.m. Pacific
Feds might use Microsoft product for online ID
By Brier Dudley
Seattle Times technology reporter

Forget about a national ID card. Instead, the federal government might
use Microsoft's Passport technology to verify the online identity of
America's citizens, federal employees and businesses, according to the
White House technology czar.

On Sept. 30, the government plans to begin testing Web sites where
businesses can pay taxes and citizens can learn about benefits and
social services. It's also exploring how to verify the identity of users
so the sites can share private information.

Microsoft's Passport is being considered as a way to authenticate users
of the Web sites, said Mark Forman, associate director of information
technology at the White House.

"They are involved in that discussion,'' he said, adding that the
government has not yet selected which technology it will use.

Forman, who is overseeing the government's purchases of $100 billion
worth of technology this year and next, was a featured speaker at the
Microsoft Government Leaders Conference in Seattle this week.

Forman is a former Senate staffer who worked for IBM and Unisys before
he joined the Bush administration.

Describing himself as the government's chief information officer, he
said his priorities are to impose businesslike approaches for technology
deployments and to monitor improvements they bring.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, some politicians and business leaders have
called for a national identification card, but Forman said that's not in
the works. "We don't have any plans for a national ID card," he said.

The White House is instead pursuing an "e-identification" initiative, an
effort to develop ways to authenticate people and businesses online who
already have government identification numbers such as Social Security,
business-registration and employer-identification numbers.

At the government-leaders conference, attended by representatives of 75
countries, Microsoft presented a blueprint for its "e-government"
strategy that suggests they use Passport to verify the identity of
visitors to their Web sites. It also suggested that its bCentral
business Web site could be used to process business tax payments and
that citizens could use its MSN Web site to handle address changes and
voter registration.

Governments have long been some of Microsoft's biggest customers. Its
desktop software for office workers and back-end software running
networks are widely by used by state and federal agencies, and the
company has developed Internet portals for the United Kingdom, Mexico
and other nations.

But getting the United States to use Passport to authenticate its 285
million citizens online would be a coup for the Redmond software
company. It would also be a large step toward fulfilling Microsoft
Chairman Bill Gates' stated goal of getting everyone on the Internet to
use Passport as their sign-on tool.

Yesterday, appearing at the conference, Gates reiterated the goal,
saying he expects governments in many countries will find it difficult
getting to "critical mass" with authentication systems they develop on
their own. He said some governments may opt to use companies such as
Microsoft or America Online as "the bank" that registers people for
online usage.

Passport was introduced in 1999 and is the keystone of an array of
online services the company introduced a year ago, when Gates revealed
his ambitions for the service.

After privacy advocates attacked the plan and a coalition of major
corporations formed an alliance to develop standards for authentication
systems that would work together, Microsoft toned down its approach. It
now acknowledges that Passport will co-exist with other tools.

Forman said his team has also been contacted by the coalition, called
the Liberty Alliance, and will meet with them at some point.

The current version of Passport requires little personal information
other than an e-mail address, but a new, more secure version expected by
mid-2003 may be used to store sensitive data on Microsoft's network.

Microsoft says it has 200 million people registered to use Passport,
most of whom signed up because Microsoft told them it was needed to use
other Microsoft services, such as its free Hotmail e-mail service or
Windows XP operating system. According to Gartner, a research company
based in Stamford, Conn., only 2 percent signed up because of the
service's stated purpose: to avoid having to use multiple
identifications and passwords at different Web sites.

Avivah Litan, vice president and research director at Gartner, said
expanding Passport benefits Microsoft by drawing more Web traffic,
making its sites more appealing to advertisers and enabling the company
to charge "click through" fees for online sales executed using the
service.

But the company may ultimately decide it's not worthwhile to boost the
service from a tool of convenience for consumers to a verification
service relied upon by businesses and government.

"Once you start vouching for identity, that makes you liable for fraud,
that makes you liable for identity theft," Litan said.

Also at the conference, Microsoft announced plans to bring Internet
access to government services to Mexico through a network of kiosks
developed with the company's technology.

Brier Dudley can be reached at 206-515-5687 or bdudley at seattletimes.com