My younger brother called tonight to let us know that his five year old son has been diagnosed with Leukemia. Chemotherapy starts tomorrow. Little Jay is a wonderful kid. He doesn’t have a clue what he faces in the months to come as doctors and nurses fight to save his life.

Moments like this bring us face to face with the reality that life is fragile and precious, and that hopes and dreams can changed in an instant.

I have written much in the last few months about Identity. Though important for business and commerce, any digital or physical Identity I have talked about pales to insignificance when compared to the grandeur of life and the Identity of a human soul. Would you please permit me to share my thoughts about Eternal Identity?

I believe that Jay’s Identity is eternal – with no beginning and no end. He came to us from the presence of God through the miraculous process of human conception, he will live on the earth with this fragile human body for what we hope are many years, and then through the process we call death, he will return to that God who gave him life. Throughout his eternal existence, Jay has been and will always be Jay. His Identity is co-eternal with God; it will last forever. The physical body which is now letting him down will one day, after he dies, be reunited with his spirit in a literal resurrection.

This concept of Eternal Identity gives me hope when times are tough. It gives me solace in times of sorrow. It brings great joy as I celebrate the blessings of family and friends and opportunites. It provides eternal perspective as I try to cope with the ups and downs of everyday life. It provides a foundation upon which I can progressively understand the purpose and meaning of life.

If you care to join me, please unite your faith with mine and pray for little Jay and his family. Please give thanksgiving for the miracle of life, for the miracles of modern medicine, for the blessings of family and friends. Please pray for healing, for comfort, for peace. And please share your faith in behalf of so many others who are also in need.

Thanks for listening. Thanks for your faith and prayers. Thanks for being who you are.

Tags: Identity
Family
Leukemia

Dave Kearns of Network World challenged readers to suggest key trends in Identity Management for the coming year. My submission to him? “2006 will bring new methods for more quickly and easily implementing Identity Management solutions.”

I hope my prognostication is not just an exercise in wishful thinking.

Tags: Identity
Digital Identity
Identity Management
Dave Kearns

In the Phoenix Suns‘ sweetheart season last year, Joe Johnson was my favorite player – not the marquee star, but talented, consistent, hardworking and humble. He came to play every night, racking up more minutes than any Sun player. I was really disappointed when he chose to leave.

But the Hawks gave up Boris Diaw and two first round draft picks for Joe. We may have received the better end of the deal. Some pundits are talkng about Boris and Magic in the same sentence. Minute for minute, Boris is outplaying Joe. Boris leads Joe in assists and rebounds, and with last night’s breakout game (31 points, 11 rebounds, five assists and a solid defensive effort against Minnesota star Kevin Garnett), is beginning to show his potential as a scorer from all over the floor.

Tags: Boris Diaw
Joe Johnson
Magic Johnson
Phoenix Suns
Atlanta Hawks
NBA

This brief delay makes the Sun winter break longer than I thought!

Tags: Time
Clock
Sun Microsystems

My brother in law sent me the link to this
great video clip from the Jay Leno show. Enjoy!

Tags: JayLeno
Piano
Christmas

This Christmas, we discovered the coolest toy I’ve seen for a long time. Through the local Sun office, we participated in a Salvation Army Christmas Angel program. An eight year old boy we chose to help requested a Magnetix magnetic construction set, produced by Rose Art Industries. I’ve probably been living in a cave, but I hadn’t heard of these before. It is a simple concept – just several rigid or flexible plastic sticks with a magnet at each end, and a supply of steel ball bearings. Simple, but a lot of fun.

So, in addition to the set we got for the young boy, we bought some for ourselves. We’ve had a blast.

Our grandson, Devlin had a good time attaching the parts together. My 12 year old daughter was enthralled.

And I made this little sculpture, using all the parts we have.

Tags: Magnetix
Rose Art
Christmas

My kids showed me this crazy Christmas Lights video. What a hoot!

Merry Christmas!

Tags: Christmas

I posted my first artile about the Identity Map on November 10th. It seems like an eternity ago. I originally intended to publish a series of articles, one each day, to describe my perspective about Identity Attributes. However, the press of daily work frequently pre-empted blogging, so it took much longer than expected. Now, on the last day before Christmas break, I finally took the time to complete the series of posts.

If you’re interested, here is a Table of Contents for the series:

• Identity Map – the introduction
• Core Identity
• Characteristics
• Names
• Reputation
• Relationships
• Roles
• Locations
• Experience
• Knowledge
• Physical Identity
• Digital Identity
• Blended Identity

I don’t know if you will find this useful, but it has been an enlightening and enjoyable experience for me. Thanks for taking the time to visit.

Tags: Identity
Digital Identity
Identity Management
Identity Map

Blended: “Combined into an integrated whole to produce a harmonious effect.“

I use Blended Identity as a term referring to documents or devices containing a combination of Physical and Digital Identities. A couple of examples include:

• Smart Card. My Sun ID badge includes my printed name and a photo (both Physical Identity attributes) plus a magnetic stripe and smart card device (both containing Digital Identity information).
• Credit Card. I included this in the list of Physical Identity Tokens because it contains printed information about a person, but it is really a Blended Identity Token because of the magnetic stripe containing Digital Identity Information.

Magnetic stripes, smart card chips and barcodes are widely used technologies for embedding Digital Identity information in Physical Identity tokens. RFID technology is becoming increasingly popular as a means of embedding Digital Identity information in physical devices.

A proposal to attach RFID devices to passports has generated considerable controversy.

[Back to the Identity Map]

Tags: Identity
Digital Identity
Identity Management
Identity Map
Smart Card
RFID

Digital: “Of or relating to data in the form of numerical digits.”

Digital Identity refers to digital representation of Identity Attributes for an individual. The purpose of the Identity Map is to categorize and explore Identity Attributes that may have value as Digital Identities.

Wikipedia states two definitions for Digital Identity:

• Digital identity refers to the aspect of digital technology that is concerned with the mediation of people’s experience of their own identity and the identity of other people and things.
• Digital identity also has another common usage as the digital representation of a set of claims made by one digital subject about itself or another digital subject.

The latter definition is precisely the one used in Kim Cameron’s Laws of Identity. I don’t who specified this definition first.

The whole field of Identity Management is focused on the management of Digital Identities and using these Identities to enable secure online interchange between people or between people and systems. Digital Identity claims or assertions are the basis of establishing such trusting relationship between digital subjects.

Digital Identities include only a small subset of the Identity Attributes that below to and individual.For example, a Digital Identity representing me may include my name, address, phone number, user ID and password, but certainly wouldn’t include all my knowledge or experiences.

One person may have many Digital Identities, each representing him or her in a unique way. For example, my Digital Identity on Yahoo is significantly different than my Digital Identity at Sun Microsystems. Each Digital Identity services a different purpose.

[Back to the Identity Map]

Tags: Identity Digital Identity Identity Management Identity Map