-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- [The Harvard Club is now "business casual". No more jackets and ties, but see below for details. While it lasts, anyway. Since the dot-bomb, the suit-probability in the main dining room has been asymptotically approaching unity. :-). --RAH] The Digital Commerce Society of Boston Presents Chuck Wade New Authentication Services--A pending train wreck? Tuesday, December 4th, 2001 12 - 2 PM The Downtown Harvard Club of Boston One Federal Street, Boston, MA The IT industry's holy grail has always been "single sign-on," and now Microsoft is promising to deliver this long-sought treasure with its Passport offering. Meanwhile, AOL, Oracle and Sun (with its friends in the Liberty Alliance) are also claiming to have found solutions to the single sign-on problem. In the payments world, Visa is readying a new authentication service called 3-D Secure for over-the-Internet credit card transactions, while MasterCard prepares to introduce its SPA authentication technology and American Express is still promoting its Blue Card and associated wallet software. Interest in authentication services, including single sign-on, has reached a fever pitch since the tragic events of September 11th, although interest was building even before the twin towers collapsed. With all of these new authentication services coming to market, it might seem that the IT industry is about to finally get some much-needed relief from the suffering associated with weak, or non-existent, authentication. Unfortunately, what we may be about to witness instead is another industry train wreck as competing solutions collide in the midst of a skeptical market place. This talk will highlight some of the strengths and weaknesses of these emerging authentication services. It will also discuss their common failure to address the real requirements of users. Some thoughts will be offered on how the industry approach needs to change if viable authentication services are ever to be adopted in the real world. Chuck Wade consults on Internet payments and security. He was previously engaged as a Senior Researcher at CommerceNet, and as a Principal Consultant in the Information Security Group of BBN Technologies. At BBN, he led Electronic Commerce initiatives and client engagements, with most of his consulting work within the Financial Industry. As one of the original participants in the FSTC eCheck Project, Chuck has been involved with over-the-Internet electronic payments since the mid 1990's. He also contributed directly to the architecture, design, deployment and testing of various large, mission-critical networks, including the trading floor network for the New York and American Stock Exchanges. In a career spanning a quarter century, Chuck spent all of the '90s with BBN (now a part of Verizon) as a Consultant and Systems Architect. During most of the '80s, he worked at Motorola directing the Advanced Technology Group for their Codex division. He has also worked in the minicomputer industry and university research. He holds both Sc.B. and Sc.M. degrees from Brown University in Electrical Engineering. This meeting of the Digital Commerce Society of Boston will be held on Tuesday, December 4th, 2001, from 12pm - 2pm at the Downtown Branch of the Harvard Club of Boston, on One Federal Street. The price for lunch is $37.50. This price includes lunch, room rental, A/V hardware if necessary, and the speakers' lunch. The Harvard Club has relaxed its dress code, which is now "business casual", meaning no sneakers or jeans. Fair warning: since we purchase these luncheons in advance, we will be unable to refund the price of your meal if the Club finds you in violation of what's left of its dress code. We need to receive a company check, or money order, (or, if we *really* know you, a personal check) payable to "The Harvard Club of Boston", by Saturday, December 1st, or you won't be on the list for lunch. Checks payable to anyone else but The Harvard Club of Boston will be returned. Checks should be sent to Robert Hettinga, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 02131. Again, they *must* be made payable to "The Harvard Club of Boston", in the amount of $37.50. Please include your e-mail address so that we can send you a confirmation If anyone has questions, or has a problem with these arrangements (we've had to work with glacial A/P departments more than once, for instance), please let us know via e-mail, and we'll see if we can work something out. Upcoming speakers for DCSB are: January James Turk Non-Bank Payment Systems February TBA As you can see, :-), we are actively searching for future speakers. If you are in Boston on the first Tuesday of the month, are a principal in digital commerce, and would like to make a presentation to the Society, please send e-mail to the DCSB Program Committee, care of Robert Hettinga, <mailto: rah@shipwright.com>. For more information about the Digital Commerce Society of Boston, send "info dcsb" in the body of a message to <mailto: majordomo@reservoir.com> . If you want to subscribe to the DCSB e-mail list, send "subscribe dcsb" in the body of a message to <mailto: majordomo@reservoir.com> . We look forward to seeing you there! -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 7.0 iQEVAwUBO/Z+lcUCGwxmWcHhAQGU+ggAs4e7abFasaxckLi+Oo8nqPeb9noeuoFZ QAn6hDUJmqFgkkhcJ3i0z0+Aw6hIT3pQ3iL/AE3q2TGGOOu4q4Ca30Ghh9m5ScNx rRJTDa4UD2PZjWVcIWJ+RqCnSOKRsCR2epMzLjDJXCZ+NhmBsAJf2Wrec78nTQN7 lS3g5sUyE0PMUNTjMByeWvts3wClsQqnlXOaP8uGHdENKMoXioVZtdPbfcKWXPag K2BRJ8xkyMb1vr8XUYpa8mBZh+ItddAtGikB39vPbDFqouLFP6zU6Vk7dc8yhoCm j70jilWp7F4zT+n0EM0CTKXLrhekbZX0Vd7qzvzXoFEO90IIpZpFng== =hQe4 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To unsubscribe from this list, send a letter to: Majordomo@reservoir.com In the body of the message, write: unsubscribe dcsb-announce Or, to subscribe, write: subscribe dcsb-announce If you have questions, write to me at Owner-DCSB@reservoir.com --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'