As the leading developer of access management systems for digital publishing, we were naturally intrigued by IBM’s prediction before Christmas: ‘You will never need a password again‘. This is one of the five predictions IBM made about ‘innovations that will change the way we live, work and play in the next five years’. Biometric data, it seems, will not only tighten up security online but also massively simplify the business of authenticating your identity, something we all have to do wearyingly often nowadays. ‘Over the next five years, your unique biological identity and biometric data – facial definitions, iris scans, voice files, even your DNA – will become the key to safeguarding your personal identity and information and replace the current user ID and password system.’ Five years really isn’t all that long a time. So, should we at Semantico retool all our client sites for the coming change and rewrite our software accordingly? It may surprise you to learn that we didn’t hire in some extra developers to start working on the task over Christmas. Continue reading →

Shibboleth authentication is increasingly a core library requirement for accessing online products, and enabling Shibboleth access from different countries is a powerful way for publishers to open up new markets for online products. Shibboleth isn’t controlled by one organisation, instead protocols are established in each country by a federation that represents its members. This democratic approach can make things quite complicated.  Especially when it comes to actually enabling users to log in using Shibboleth. Our resident Shibboleth Wizard (actual job title) Simon shares a few thoughts about preparing for a Shibboleth implementation below. Continue reading →