NERCOMP: Identity Management SIG
September 27, 2005 | 32 Comments
Yesterday we attended the NERCOMP Identity Management Workshop at the College of the Holy Cross.
Steve Carmody of Brown University explained an ideal infrastructure including a reminder for me to review “Identifiers, Authentication, and Directories: Best Practices for Higher Education” by Internet2. Carmody had a lot of great things to say, giving a solid overall update of how Internet2 and MACE are coming along with Shibboleth, Grouper, Signet, and various other initiatives. He also pointed me at Sun’s XACML Implementation which is very interesting.
Christopher Misra of UMass Amherst and Robert Banz of UMBC both presented on their current IdM initiatives. They both seem to have established IdM infratructures which need one enhancement or another.
In the final time slot was a general group discussion. I took this opportunity to ask how schools are establishing and maintaining credentials remotely. No one had an answer that was ideal, I suggested our current proposal and no one seemed to have any criticisms. One person suggested that maybe we don’t need to have as secure a system as we’re proposing to merely secure someone’s email. My reply to this was in a federated world with connections to the federal PKI bridge, InCommon services, and more, we are securing far more than email. It is our responsibility to have as high a level of assurance as possible.
Tags: authentication, authorization, credentials, grouper, higher education, identity, identity management, internet2, MACE, NERCOMP, password, passwords, shib, shibboleth, signet, xacml
Authentication Definition
September 26, 2005 | 4 Comments
According to Internet2, authentication or AuthN is defined as:
Authentication is the process of establishing whether or not a real-world subject is who or what its identifier says it is. Identity can be proven by:
- Something you know, like a password
- Something you have, as with smartcards, challenge-response mechanisms, or public-key certificates
- Something you are, as with positive photo identification, fingerprints, and biometrics
Once again, this is a nice concise definition. It’s good to have these clearly defined to eliminate any confusion or debate when discussing, similar to what I did with my “Single Sign-On Definition” post.
Tags: authenticate, authentication, authn, biometrics, challenge-response, definition, fingerprints, identity management, internet2, middleware, password, passwords, smartcards
Tirrell Family Crest and Coat of Arms
September 24, 2005 | 1 Comment
Ever since visiting the Family History Library I started doing a bit more research about my family again. One of the interesting things I’ve turned up are all the following renditions of Tirrell Family crests and coats of arms.
http://www.araltas.com/features/tyrrell/
http://www.5dollarcoatsofarms.com/gallery/T/pages/image140.html
http://www.terrellproject.com/
http://www.terrellproject.com/al/id8.html
http://www.mkheritage.co.uk/wdahs/Thornton/docs/tyrellarms.html
http://www.houseofnames.com/xq/asp.fc/qx/tirrell-family-crest.htm
Tags: coat of arms, crest, family, tirrell
Shelby GT 500E
September 23, 2005 | 9 Comments
In 2003 after the popularity of Gone in 60 Seconds and the staring role of Eleanor, Carroll Shelby and Unique Performance got together to produce a limited number of GT 500Es. These are modernized recreated hybrids of classic greatness and modern technology. They start as 1967 Mustangs and the engine, interior, and suspension are all replaced with modern parts.
I want one bad, but with a base price of $119,000 I’m probably out of luck.
They’ve also done a sweet limited edition Ford “Stallion” based off the current generation of Mustang. These are also extremely cool and with a base price of $38,000. More reasonable, but still a bit out of my range.
Tags: 1967, 1967 mustang, car, Carroll Shelby, cars, Ford Mustang, Ford Stallion, gt, gt500, gt500e, high performance, muscle car, Mustang, Shelby, Stallion
NY Times Steps Back 5 Years
September 20, 2005 | 15 Comments
You have to wonder what the guys at NY Times are thinking. They just announced a new service called
I’m planning on keeping an eye on their Alexa rank after they put this in place. I bet within a few months a significnat decline in traffic becomes apparent.
In a lot of ways I think this is sad, NY Times is fairly well known for its left slant which I’m not exactly opposed to…
Tags: advertising, alexa, blog, blogging, blogs, new york, newpaper, NY Times, NYTimes, onlne newspaper, The New York Times, timeselect, TimesSelect, traffic, traffic rank
Tri-Wizard Tournament is Coming
September 20, 2005 | 2 Comments
I just saw the new trailer for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I am definitely looking forward to November. The initial teaser trailer was good, but I really wanted to see Mad Eye Moody. The new trailer features him prominently in multiple clips and he assuredly fits the part. My only concern is that a few of the effects looked much like effects and not seemless. Overall, it does appear there will be a ton more magic and action in this movie. Not a huge surprise since there is so much action in the book, which would have likely had a ton cut. Being Hollywood, I think they’ll keep a lot of the action sequences and end up cutting plot points, but I suppose wanting the plot points is why I read the book…
Go check out the new trailer, I’m excited, you should be too.
Tags: goblet of fire, harry potter, Hollywood, Mad Eye Moody, movie, movies, preview, teaser trailer, trailer
PHP strtotime Limitation
September 20, 2005 | 5 Comments
I have been relying very heavily on strtotime() in PHP in just about everything I write. For those not entirely familiar with this function, strtotime() will "parse about any English textual
Why create Unix date() date('m/d/Y'); will generate a reasonably nice US representation of today's date. However, if you did date('m/d/Y',strtotime('3 weeks ago')); you can get the nice readable format provided by date, but for some arbitrary date you are deciding upon with strtotime. Also, knowing strtotime happily accepts the date('m/d/Y',strtotime($row['date_field']));. For a complete list of the available date formats, visit
Ok, so the title of this makes reference to a limitation... on to that. On some
In the meantime, safestrtotime() function and shared it on PHP.net. I'm reproducing it here for my convenience, altered to match the code formatting I prefer.
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<?php
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function safestrtotime($strInput)
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{
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$iVal = -1;
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for ($i=1900; $i<=1969; $i++)
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{
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// Check for this year string in date
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$strYear = (string)$i;
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{
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$replYear = $strYear;
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$yearSkew = 1970 - $i;
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}
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}
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if ($yearSkew> 0)
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{
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$numSecs = (60 * 60 * 24 * 365 * $yearSkew);
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$iVal = $iVal - $numSecs;
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$numLeapYears = 0; // determine number of leap years in period
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for ($j=$replYear; $j<=1969; $j++)
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{
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$thisYear = $j;
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$isLeapYear = false;
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// Is div by 4?
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if (($thisYear % 4) == 0)
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{
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$isLeapYear = true;
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}
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// Is div by 100?
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if (($thisYear % 100) == 0)
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{
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$isLeapYear = false;
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}
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// Is div by 1000?
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if (($thisYear % 1000) == 0)
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{
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$isLeapYear = true;
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}
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if ($isLeapYear == true)
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{
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$numLeapYears++;
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}
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}
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$iVal = $iVal - (60 * 60 * 24 * $numLeapYears);
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}
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return $iVal;
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}
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?>
Tags: 1970-01-01, date format, datetime, Ed Lecky-Thompson, epoch, function, mysql, operating systems, PHP.net, timestamp, timestamps, Unix Epoch, Unix timestamp