[LINK] Dumb Americans slow to catch on

[Glen Turner]

Roger,

Your subject is a tad unfair. The rollout of the Common Access
Card[1] through the US DoD has been impressive, and has greatly
improved the security of US DoD websites by moving them away
from password-based authentication.

The major issue is the federation of disparate authenticaton and
authorisation schemes within the US Government.

The university sector has a similar issue, with Shibboleth[2] and
SAML being the technologies of choice for allowing people affiliated
with one university to use the resources of another university.
The sector also has a successful point solution for wireless
called Eduroam[3] (with less features than Shib but built on more
readily available technology).

The USG is ahead in issuing a common card, whereas the university
sector pretty much relies on passwords.  The university sector
is ahead in deployment of federated authentication and authorisation.

I can't really see a common university+VET card just yet, although
there's no doubt that a common proximity+smart card would be a
wonderful thing.

Cheers, Glen

[1] US DoD Common Access Card <http://www.cac.mil>
[2] Shibboleth federated authentication <http://www.aaf.edu.au/>
[3] Eduroam wireless roaming <http://www.eduroam.edu.au/>

-- 
  Glen Turner   <http://www.gdt.id.au/~gdt/>