FIDO specs to pave way for post-password era
Dedicated to easier yet stronger authentication, the FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance announced Tuesday that it has published specifications, for broad industry adoption of strong authentication next year. The standards-delivering consortium formed in July 2012. The mission has been to address a lack of interoperability among strong authentication technologies, and to remedy user problems in creating and remembering multiple usernames and passwords. The new entrants are final 1.0 drafts of two specifications, Universal Authentication Framework (UAF) and Universal 2nd Factor (U2F). Alliance members include device manufacturers, online service providers and enterprise, They can now implement and commercialize the 1.0 specs. The Alliance notice said that "both specifications are unencumbered by FIDO member patents. Members are free to implement and market solutions around FIDO-enabled strong authentication, and non-members are free to deploy those solutions." Current implementations available in the market include those from Nok Nok Labs, Synaptics, Alibaba, PayPal, Samsung, Google,...