Federated identity management in future online markets and communities

Abstract

Identity overload and password fatigue is a common problem for people who engage in online activities. Federation can be a mitigation against password fatigue problem. Federated identity management aims at reducing this problem by linking multiple online identities belonging to the same party. The problem with federations are that they are best suited in closed networks, and that user-centric technologies have a greater role in open networks when it comes to mitigating password fatigue. That is why user-centric technologies will be included as a supplement to this thesis to address some of the problems with password fatigue in open networks.

The goal of this thesis is to get an overview of the available identity management solution today and have a look in some of the important aspects of federated identity management. We will then evaluate a federated system from users’ perspective, and compare the experience with a slightly different way of authenticating ourselves. CardSpace and OpenID will be used together as an example to see if information cards can offer something different and convenient. We will then try to suggest future use cases for federated identity management in different areas like online services, eGovernment, enterprises and online communities. Use cases for how these areas can benefit from adapting user-centric technologies will also be included.

This thesis will then sum up some thoughts on the password fatigue problem based on the gathered information and the evaluation. It will also include some thoughts on user-centric identity as the next step n identity management.