March 31, 2008 9:18 AM PDT

Microsoft joins MIT Kerberos Consortium

The MIT Kerberos Consortium, a security authentication and authorization group, announced Monday that Microsoft has joined its shindig.

The consortium, which launched in September with Google, Apple, Sun Microsystems and a collection of universities, noted Microsoft is coming aboard as a founding sponsor.

Kerberos aims to offer consumers the same single sign-on authentication and authorization system that corporate America has been using to allow employees to access network services with one log-on. Kerberos is an offshoot of MIT's Project Athena, which was developed back in the 1980s.

Microsoft uses the Kerberos network authentication protocol in such products as its Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008. And Kerberos also serves as the main authentication tool in Microsoft's Active Directory.

"Microsoft joining the Kerberos Consortium is significant," Stephen Buckley, consortium executive director, said in a statement. "They represent a vast number of users of Kerberos. It is an important step forward towards our common ambition to create a universal authentication platform for the world's computer networks."

What's next? Given its past troubles with its passport authentication efforts, is the next stop for Microsoft the Liberty Alliance Project?

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Add a Comment (Log in or register) 5 comments (Page 1 of 1)
REAL Kerberos now for MS?
by ewelch March 31, 2008 10:52 AM PDT
The old Kerberos that Microsoft used to use was like their Java, windows-only and proprietary to keep other OSs out. Are they promising to correct past bad behavior by joining now?
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Humm. How did they FOUND it?
by CharlesRovira March 31, 2008 11:10 AM PDT
They weren't founding members. They can't suddenly go back and rewrite history. What part of the English language definition of the word FOUNDING don't they understand? They were not, are not now and can NEVER be FOUNDING members.
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