Archive for Stephen Wilson

  • Reframing identity Reframing identity

    Instead of breaking down and then re-building identity silos, we simply need to reframe them BY STEPHEN WILSON 'Break down the silos" is one of the catch cries of modern management practice, and a special rallying call in the Federated Identity movement. Nobody denies that myriad passwords a...

  • Identity crises Identity crises

    Identity wars have been fought and lost as major players pull out and admit defeat, but who's making advances in the field? BY STEPHEN WILSON The Digital Identity movement is in crisis. Recent months have seen Microsoft shelve its Cardspace offering and cede leadership in this space. The lea...

  • Give me an 's'! Give me an ’s’!

    No one is shaking pom poms with excitement and standing up and cheering for the US's pluralisation of internet IDs BY STEPHEN WILSON It's amazing what the omission of a single letter 's' can do to the meaning of a complex idea, like digital identity. The National Strategy for Trusted Iden...

  • The question of quality The question of quality

    Quality is not about the production and uniformity of your product. Nor is it about putting the stamp of approval on repeatable 'crap' BY STEPHEN WILSON In the early 1990s, I worked for the first medical device company to be certified under the then new ISO 9000 quality management standard. We...

  • Seduced by Zeus Seduced by Zeus

    These are testing times for Internet banking security as the Zeus Trojan and botnet bewilders, blights and burgles millions of PC users BY STEPHEN WILSON The Zeus Trojan and botnet have bedevilled Internet banking for 18 months now. Specially designed to steal logon details, Zeus has infecte...

  • Crisis? Whats crisis? Crisis? Whats crisis?

    Is the field of open digital identities an 'ecosystem' or merely a system in crisis? BY STEPHEN WILSON Why is digital identity so tricky? The past decade is littered with worthy online identity initiatives that failed to meet expectations: the Trust Centre, VANguard, Project Angus and Libe...

  • Public yet still private Public yet still private

    Financial institutions can learn from publicly available data, but it pays to remember even if information is public it is still subject to the Privacy Act BY STEPHEN WILSON Privacy is a notoriously slippery topic, but information privacy law  is in fact pretty straightforward.  Having sai...

  • Verified, not scrutinised Verified, not scrutinised

    Clapping eyes on customers to enable them to open new bank accounts and the like is no longer necessary, but what are the risks? BY STEPHEN WILSON Recent investigations by Online Banking Review editor Charis Palmer have shown that electronic verification services employed by online banks in ...

  • Smart phone, dumb risk Smart phone, dumb risk

    If you want to use a 'smart' phone, you need to be even smarter about its security and the apps you choose to use BY STEPHEN WILSON Sadly the 'smart' in smart phone turned out to be just a marketeer's tag-line, if the latest security breach is anything to go by. In mid December, an anonymou...

  • The sharp card The sharp card

    Smart devices are called just that because they have a canny knack of knowing when to give precisely the right amount of information. BY STEPHEN WILSON A common thread runs through the most important cybercrime: The vulnerability of digital identities to abuse. Digital identities are machi...