Identity Matters

We've recently been involved in some technology demonstrations that I think have a lot to say about how the future of security and trust in mobile networks is taking shape. As everyone can now see, a new breed of mobile applications is emerging that extend the Web 2.0 social networking and mashup metaphors into a pervasive space that users will tailor to serve them in the context activities that involve dynamic communities of their daily lives. Some good examples are coming into focus, and one in particular that we participated in took the prize at Orange's API and Widget contest in Portugal this April.

Most people are regular users of various mapping and location services on their desktop, and now a lot of folks use location services on their mobile phones as well. When coupled with GPS-enabled phones, these familiar applications take on a new usefulness by reacting to changes in the user's environment. Similarly most people have established communities that shape their online activities according to relationships and interests. While for some it's still email and IM that manage their communication with those communities, for many it's rapidly evolving from a combination of those plus Web 2.0 tools on the desktop to mobile interfaces that give them rich interaction with their friends, families, business associates, interests, and urges whenever and wherever they choose. And it's becoming clear to many of us that this is a sweet spot for mobile applications - not just what media can I access, but how can I utilize it now, who can I share it with now, where can we meet to experience it now, and what can make accomplishing that easy for me ... now.

The application that most recently prompted me to write about this is Wizi. Wizi is the free location sharing and traffic information application that won first prize in the Orange API and Widget contest. (You can get it at www.wizi.com.) It has obvious uses for families or business people who are coordinating a schedule because it combines some key attributes of daily life in a dynamic, real-time way - where relevant people are, their destinations or meeting places, how they'll get there, and what's in the way. It can do similar duty for groups with other interests, such as when you want to choose between attending an after-work party, joining some friends for a dinner and a movie, or going a football game where you'll see lots of acquaintances who cheer your club. And, these are the obvious uses - only the collective imagination of a Web 2.0 enabled world can tell how it goes from there.

So, what does a company that specializes in Identity Management, Virtual Directories, and LDAP have to do with any of this? I'll suggest an answer to that by posing a different question: how much of the information that needs to be shared in the scenarios above would YOU like to have cross all groups? While you may want your family members to have your location at any moment in time, is that something you'd like visible to all the members of the football club? And for that matter, would you be pleased if your preferences such as football club or other affiliations was open to all your business colleagues? For most people, their real-time location and their affiliations are things they want to share very selectively. And, after you give it some thought, you'll probably agree that we're only scratching the surface in conceptualizing the schemes we'll really want to have for managing information that discloses our real-time, activity-centric, choice-driven self as it becomes a dynamic attribute in our daily lives. It's about TRUST - who and what gets it, when, and where.

In the collection of networks and applications that support delivering this vision on mobile phones, there needs to be an infrastructure that allows this identity information to be accessed and moved quickly, shared securely, managed actively, delivered flexibly, and operated on automatically in order for the end-user experience to be powerful, satisfying, and easy-to-use. And, if it isn't, then there won't be a sweet spot, after all. This, of course, is where Symlabs specializes - in that infrastructure and in the sharing and management of that information. That's why we've been working with Wizi on APIs, with BT and Intel on Identity Capable Platform (more on that later), and with Liberty Alliance on Advanced Client and Trusted Modules. Sound complex? It is, but in Part 2 I'll talk a little bit about how those technologies come together and how they work to deliver an efficient, trust-enabled platform that hits the sweet spot.

Pablo Sánchez