{"id":206,"date":"2007-05-24T13:53:45","date_gmt":"2007-05-24T20:53:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/archives\/2007\/05\/24\/naming-names\/"},"modified":"2007-05-24T13:57:18","modified_gmt":"2007-05-24T20:57:18","slug":"naming-names","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/2007\/05\/naming-names\/","title":{"rendered":"Naming Names"},"content":{"rendered":"

Phil Karlton said (at least once in my hear\u00ading any\u00adway) that nam\u00ading things was one of the two hard tasks in com\u00adputer sci\u00adence (read\u00ading X Toolkit Intrins\u00adics \u2014 C Lan\u00adguage Inter\u00adface<\/a>, to which he con\u00adtrib\u00aduted, will give you some idea why he said it); I dis\u00adcovered the truth of this yet again when writ\u00ading the FAQ<\/span> for our Iden\u00adtity Pro\u00advider for Open\u00adID. In this case, it was even more con\u00advo\u00adluted, being about what to name the thing that names names.<\/p>\n

When a Sun employ\u00adee signs up at the Sun IdP there is no neces\u00adsity for them to put their real names in the fields marked \u201cfirst name\u201d and \u201csur\u00adname\u201d; they can use a fic\u00adti\u00adtious name if they choose (or put noth\u00ading at all). In com\u00admon Eng\u00adlish, this fic\u00adti\u00adtious name is often called a pseud\u00adonym<\/em>. The vari\u00adous dictionary.com defin\u00adi\u00adtions of pseud\u00adonym would seem to fit this usage very well, so I was pre\u00adpar\u00ading to use it in the FAQ<\/span>. Except for, it turns out that those steeped in iden\u00adtity man\u00adage\u00adment ter\u00admin\u00ado\u00adlogy tend to find that plain-Eng\u00adlish usage of the word confusing. <\/p>\n

In SAML<\/span>, for example, a pseud\u00adonym<\/em> is defined as A pri\u00advacy-pre\u00adserving name iden\u00adti\u00adfi\u00ader assigned by a pro\u00advider to identi\u00adfy a prin\u00adcip\u00adal to a giv\u00aden rely\u00ading party for an exten\u00added peri\u00adod of time that spans mul\u00adtiple ses\u00adsions; can be used to rep\u00adres\u00adent an iden\u00adtity fed\u00ader\u00ada\u00adtion<\/a>. In Liberty Alli\u00adance work, the defin\u00adi\u00adtion is An arbit\u00adrary iden\u00adti\u00adfi\u00ader assigned by the iden\u00adtity or ser\u00advice pro\u00advider to identi\u00adfy a Prin\u00adcip\u00adal to a giv\u00aden rely\u00ading party so that the name has mean\u00ading only in the con\u00adtext of the rela\u00adtion\u00adship between the parties<\/a>. The same or sim\u00adil\u00adar mean\u00ading is used with\u00adin WS-Secur\u00adity (the user iden\u00adtity [is] provided in a SAML<\/span> asser\u00adtion as a pseud\u00adonym<\/a>) and WS-Fed\u00ader\u00ada\u00adtion (A pseud\u00adonym ser\u00advice allows a prin\u00adcip\u00adal to have dif\u00adfer\u00adent ali\u00adases at dif\u00adfer\u00adent resources\/services or in dif\u00adfer\u00adent realms, and to option\u00adally have the pseud\u00adonym change per-ser\u00advice or per-login<\/a>). <\/p>\n

So in order to make life easi\u00ader for those poor, eas\u00adily con\u00adfused iden\u00adtity man\u00adage\u00adment experts, I\u2019ll be using the term \u201cfic\u00adti\u00adtious name\u201d in the FAQ<\/span>, where I would oth\u00ader\u00adwise have used \u201cpseud\u00adonym\u201d, an added cost of one let\u00adter and one word per usage. I hope they appre\u00adci\u00adate my efforts to help them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Phil Karlton said (at least once in my hear\u00ading any\u00adway) that nam\u00ading things was one of the two hard tasks in com\u00adputer sci\u00adence (read\u00ading X Toolkit Intrins\u00adics \u2014 C Lan\u00adguage Inter\u00adface, to which he con\u00adtrib\u00aduted, will give you some idea why he said it); I dis\u00adcovered the truth of this yet again when writ\u00ading the \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cNam\u00ading Names\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-identity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}