In Pursuit of Liberty?

The Liberty Alliance Project offers an open technical specification for identity management on the Internet. Network identities are administered by the user and securely shared with the organizations of the user's choosing. The vision of the Alliance is 'a networked world across which individuals and businesses can engage in virtually any transaction without compromising the privacy and security of vital identity information.'1 This paper explores the Liberty specification version 1.0 that was released on July 15 2002. The specification employs a Federated Network Identity model to deliver single sign-on global logout and identity federation. Over 60 member companies covering a broad range of industries currently sponsor the Liberty Alliance Project.