Tag Archives: NSTIC

Virtually everyone’s been stuck one time or another trying to remember a online password and thought, “There has to be a better way.” A recent article in our newsletter talks about the problem and suggests tricks to make it a little easier to deal with. But although a lot of smart people have tried to figure out a safe, reliable, and more convenient system, nobody’s come up with one yet. Now, however, the US Government has decided to gently encourage efforts. In the spring of last year, the Obama Administration announced the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, NSTIC. Like the National Broadband Plan, it’s not legislation or even regulation. Instead, NSTIC is a hopeful collection of idealistic principles and goals to promote development rather than a concrete plan with real funding and hard, measurable results. Nevertheless, many agencies and corporations are very interested. It’s easy to see why. Identity theft has become a major problem, costing millions each year, and passwords remain the weakest link in cybersecurity. Commerce might also be helped if you could buy books on Amazon with your Google account or download tax forms from iTunes. And public safety would benefit if your child could be automatically denied entrance to adult websites, or doctors could check in online to help provide medical services after a disaster. The dream is to build a safe method of sharing relevant sensitive information about users with online entities while … Continue reading →