The Liberty Alliance Project this week released its first specifications meant to foster an open single sign-on and identity authentication scheme for the Web.

Liberty version 1.0 is meant to enable users to authenticate themselves at one Web site, and have that authentication carry over to other sites of their choosing, obviating the need to log on to each site individually. The Liberty Alliance refers to its technology as a federated network identity system.

The Liberty specification is meant to be open, meaning it is freely available to anyone, works with disparate systems and no one company controls the specification. That stands in contrast to Passport, Microsoft's competing technology, which it firmly controls. The Liberty Alliance has had discussions with Microsoft about joining the alliance, so far to no avail.

Liberty version 1.0 addresses five functions:

  • Opt-in account linking -- enabling users to choose to link accounts with different companies, perhaps in the same or related businesses, such as travel.
  • Simplified sign-on for linked accounts - the ability to authenticate at only one linked account and navigate to others without authenticating again.
  • Authentication context -- the ability for companies to designate authorization levels for a given customer, controlling what the customer can do or see at a site.
  • Global log-out -- the ability for customers to log out of all linked sites by logging out of the site where they initially logged in.
  • Liberty Alliance client feature -- client component for fixed and wireless devices that facilitates use of Liberty version 1.0.

    • Several members of the Liberty Alliance this week announced plans for products based on the 1.0 specification, some to be delivered by the end of the year. The members are: Communicator, Inc., Entrust, Inc., NeuStar, Inc., Novell, Inc., OneName Corp., RSA Security and Sun Microsystems.

    More details on their plans, as well as the version 1.0 specification, are available at the Liberty Alliance Web site: www.projectliberty.org.