Keeping things secure

OpenID is a standard that seems to have legs.

http://www.news.com/8301-13577_3-9866802-36.html

The Members of OpenID include Google and Microsoft. The benefits of the technology is you, the consumer, do not have to leave your identity information all over the web, where it is subject to loss or misuse. Your profile is kept one place, one place you decide to trust. Your name, password, Mothers maiden name, address, SS number, credit card, etc is kept at the one address. If you visit a new site and want to sign up for a newsletter or buy something, only the information that site authorized to have is transferred from your OpenID supplier. You have only one user name and password to worry about.

This could be very important in the mobile device space. Desktop users can put passwords on a piece of paper in the desk drawer, or can keep themselves signed on to websites. Mobile users, and their mobile devices, have no such luxury.

Still to be worked out is how to keep the ID secure for unattended devices, things like RTU controllers for electrical power or pipelines. “Security thru obscurity” for embedded devices does not work- you can see some interesting hacks on the whitepaper you can get here:

http://www.applieddata.net/Embedded/Security.asp

A good working definition of disaster is when the mainline press use the term "embedded" and "Exploit" in the same sentance.