Business Weblog

The General Services Administration has chosen the Liberty Alliance consortium to do SAML 2.0 interoperability testing for products in its E-Authentication Solution program.

E-Authentication Solutions is part of the president’s e-government initiative. ‘The purpose is to provide credentialing services for outward facing government applications on the Web,’ said acting program executive Tom Kireilis.

The Security Assertion Markup Language specifies an Extensible Markup Language standard for exchanging data for authentication and authorization between security domains. GSA has adopted Version 2.0, the latest version, but SAML interoperability testing has been required throughout the program.

’Before we were doing this in-house,’ Kireilis said. ‘That is resource-intensive. It became evident’ that going to an outside testing authority ‘was the thing to do. Given the community that Liberty Alliance represents, they were in the perfect place to provide the testing for us.’

Liberty Alliance is an identity industry consortium whose members include technology vendors and consumer service providers as well as educational and government organizations. The Liberty Alliance Management Board includes representatives from AOL, Ericsson, Fidelity Investments, France Telecom, HP, Intel, Novell, NTT, Oracle and Sun Microsystems.

The E-Authentication program provides assurance level 1 and 2 credentials, which can be a user identification and password. The goal of the program is to enable sign-on with a single set of credentials across multiple applications. In addition to the U.S. program, several other national governments also are deploying SAML 2.0-based applications to enable identity-based access. Use of a common standard could allow federated identity access controls across multiple enterprises.

GSA has certified seven products under its own interoperability testing program, but that number could expand rapidly. Kireilis said there could be hundreds of products tested.

Currently there are 65 relying parties or applications now in the E-Authentication Federation, using these technologies. ‘We’ll more than double that this year,’ Kireilis said. The Office of Management and Budget has directed agencies to prepare plans for enabling targeted applications, and GSA has been working with them in developing their timelines. ‘So we know what is coming down the road,’ he said.

As the new American election approaches, there are many candidates that will potentially make American History. One of these candidates is Barack Obama. If elected as the next present, he will be the first ever African American president in history. For those who do not know about Obama, here is a brief yet insightful biography.

Obama was born in August 4, 1961. His first experience in politics was when he was the junior United States Senator for his state under a Democratic Party. While receiving such role, he already contributed to history by being labeled the fifth African American Senator in a whole history of the United States.

In 2008, Obama will be running for Presidency. His Democratic Party’s mission is to end the Iraq War, which is quite turn around for the country. It will be quite interesting to see how the election plays out, which may ultimately show the nation’s current stand on the war. Of course each candidate has their own view on the war and it will not be the sole reason why the American citizens will be voting in favor of a specific candidate.

Barack Obama also wants to implement a universal health care system which allows the right to all citizens (and some permanent residents) to health care, regardless of the fact that they can afford to pay for the services or not. This is essential for the United States since they are the only industrialized country that does not grant all of their citizens the right to health care.

If Barack Obama were to be elected as president, it will show how much the United States has gone through pass their decades of discrimination against the African American. Of course racism has already decreased since the 70’s and 80’s but it still lingers within the country if we admit it or not. The sole purpose of voting for a certain senator is not to chose whether he or she is in a specific group (such as race, class or gender) but rather look through such things into their values as a person and goals for the country. This election will be one of the most important elections as there is lots of potential for history to be made and of course, a major impact in the country’s direction.

The results of Barack Obama’s campaign for presidency is not as predictable since the vote is going to be determined by generations of people who have new mindsets. As opposed to decades ago, if a similar election would be held (with a female and black senator running) the results would be quite obvious because of the discrimination between the two. However, the United States are in a new state, but of course those with the discriminating generation are still alive and voting.

As each candidate tour the country hoping to convince voters to vote for them through their campaign, Obama New York as a win would greatly benefit is campaign along with California Obama majority. Tune into the 2008 election as history will surely be made.

Barack Obama is junior senator from Illinois and also the member of Democratic Party in United States of America. He was born on 4th of August, 1961. According to the Historical office of United States, he is the fifth African American Senator in United States of America’s history and only African presently serving in American Senate. He was born to an American mother and a Kenyan father. Barack Obama grows up in culturally varied environment.

He spent his childhood time mostly in the Hawaii of United States of America. He also passed his four pre-teen years in the Jakarta the capital city of Indonesia which is considered to be a multi ethnic city. He completed his graduation from Harvard Law School and Columbia University. Barack Obama California serviced as an organizer of community, lecturer in university and also a lawyer of civil rights and after that he started his public office. He provided his service to Illinois Senate starting from 1997 till 2004 initiating his movement to the senate of United States in the year of 2003.

He is one of the leading candidates of Democratic Party’s who is in the race of United States president in the 2008 election. After proclaiming his application for this election in February 2007, he has highlighted ending of the war in Iraq and to implement worldwide health care as movement subjects. He got married in the year of 1992. He has got two daughters. Barack Obama New York has written two books which were among the bestselling books. The name of these books are ‘The Audacity of Hope’ and ‘Dreams from My Father’.

His first book ‘The Audacity of Hope’ was published in oct. month in 2006 just three weeks before the midterm election in 2006. This book was bestselling book and listed in the New York Times list of best selling books on the top in early November of 2006.

Barack Obama was chosen for the Illinois State Senate in the year of 1996 from the USA’s 13th District of the south-side in Hyde Park a neighborhood part of Chicago. In the year of 2000, Obama prepared a failed Democratic main run for the United State’s House of Representatives seat detained by four times current applicant Bobby Rush.

Obama was once again chosen for the Illinois Senate in the year of 1998 and also in 2002 and he formally resigned in the month of November, 2004 followed by his election to the United States Senate. As a legislator of state, he served with Republicans as well as Democrats in breezing a successful legislation on health care reform and ethics.

He is very helpful senator of America and most of the Democratic Illinois presidential and Senator are hopeful for Barack Obama today identified for a reduction in carbon production in United States of America, basically in case of California’s Fuel Standard of Low Carbon, about which an order was issued by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to start it in January, nationwide. There are many organizations that are making popular to Barack Obama among students and youngsters. They are informing people about the message of Obama of vision and hope for future presidential election in USA.