free and open-source
Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...
Microsoft open-sources clever U-Prove identity framework /ref> technology and accompanying SDK for user-centric identity management. The underlying
cryptographic protocol
A security protocol (cryptographic protocol or encryption protocol) is an abstract or concrete protocol that performs a security-related function and applies cryptographic methods, often as sequences of cryptographic primitives. A protocol describe ...
s were designed by Dr. Stefan Brands and further developed by Credentica and, subsequently,
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
. The technology was developed to allow internet users to disclose only the minimum amount of
personal data
Personal data, also known as personal information or personally identifiable information (PII), is any information related to an identifiable person.
The abbreviation PII is widely accepted in the United States, but the phrase it abbreviates ha ...
when making
electronic transaction
Electronic funds transfer (EFT) is the electronic transfer of money from one bank account to another, either within a single financial institution or across multiple institutions, via computer-based systems, without the direct intervention of ...
s as a way to reduce the likelihood of
privacy violation
The right to privacy is an element of various legal traditions that intends to restrain governmental and private actions that threaten the privacy of individuals. Over 150 national constitutions mention the right to privacy. On 10 December 194 ...
s. Security expert
Bruce Schneier
Bruce Schneier (; born January 15, 1963) is an American cryptographer, computer security professional, privacy specialist, and writer. Schneier is a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Fellow at the Berkman Klein Cente ...
praised the cryptography behind U-Prove.Microsoft U-Prove Technology Wins Another Award , CSO Online /ref>
Overview
U-Prove enables application developers to reconcile seemingly conflicting
security
Security is protection from, or resilience against, potential harm (or other unwanted coercive change) caused by others, by restraining the freedom of others to act. Beneficiaries (technically referents) of security may be of persons and social ...
and
privacy
Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively.
The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...
objectives (including
anonymity
Anonymity describes situations where the acting person's identity is unknown. Some writers have argued that namelessness, though technically correct, does not capture what is more centrally at stake in contexts of anonymity. The important idea he ...
), and allows for digital identity claims to be efficiently tied to the use of tamper-resistant devices such as
smart card
A smart card, chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC or IC card) is a physical electronic authentication device, used to control access to a resource. It is typically a plastic credit card-sized card with an embedded integrated circuit (IC) c ...
s. Application areas of particular interest include cross-domain enterprise identity and access management, e-government SSO and data sharing, electronic health records, anonymous electronic voting, policy-based digital rights management, social networking data portability, and electronic payments.
In 2008, Microsoft committed to opening up the U-Prove technology. As the first step, in March 2010 the company released a cryptographic specification and
open-source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
API implementation code for part of the U-Prove technology as a
Community Technology Preview
A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...
under Microsoft's
Open Specification Promise The Microsoft Open Specification Promise (or OSP) is a promise by Microsoft, published in September 2006, to not assert its patents, in certain conditions, against implementations of a certain list of specifications.
The OSP is not a licence, but ...
. Since then, several extensions have been released under the same terms and the technology has been tested in real-life applications.
In 2010, the
International Association of Privacy Professionals
The International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) is a nonprofit, non-advocacy membership association founded in 2000. It provides a forum for privacy professionals to share best practices, track trends, advance privacy management is ...
(IAPP) honored U-Prove with the ''2010 Privacy Innovation Award for Technology''.
Microsoft also won the in ''European Identity Award'' in the ''Best Innovation'' category for U-Prove at the European Identity Conference 2010.
The U-Prove Crypto SDK for C# is licensed under Apache License 2.0 and the source code is available on
GitHub
GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous ...
.
Microsoft also provides a
JavaScript
JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...
Blind signature
In cryptography a blind signature, as introduced by David Chaum, is a form of digital signature in which the content of a message is disguised ( blinded) before it is signed. The resulting blind signature can be publicly verified against the origin ...
*
Zero-knowledge proof
In cryptography, a zero-knowledge proof or zero-knowledge protocol is a method by which one party (the prover) can prove to another party (the verifier) that a given statement is true while the prover avoids conveying any additional information a ...
Adam Back
Adam Back (born July 1970) is a British cryptographer and cypherpunk. He is the CEO of Blockstream, which he co-founded in 2014. He invented Hashcash, which is used in the Bitcoin mining process.
Life
Back was born in London, England, in July ...