Archives 2006 - Quarter 4

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.

Busting Silos with User-Centric Identity

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".