Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
Security News
Microsoft Joins MIT Kerberos Consortium
3/31/2008
The MIT Kerberos Consortium has added Microsoft to its ranks of formal industry supporters. The company joined the group Monday as a founding sponsor, gaining a seat on the executive board, which also includes representatives from Apple, Sun, Google, and, of course, MIT itself. Microsoft's director of Windows Core Security, Slava Kavsan, will occupy the board seat.
MIT's Stephen Buckley, executive director of the Kerberos Consortium, told us that although Microsoft was not a formal sponsor of the consortium before now, it has been involved in Kerberos for some time and has worked with MIT on the development of standards.
"MIT and Microsoft have a long history of working together on Kerberos," Buckley said. "This history starts well before the release of Windows 2000. Since then, MIT and Microsoft have been working on standardizing some of the features, such as realm referral, that enhance the ease of configuration of the Active Directory product. To this day, MIT and Microsoft continue to work together on Kerberos standards. Its really a dream come true for us that now we have the Kerberos Consortium as the formal organizational structure for all these interactions going forward."
Kerberos itself is a network authentication protocol that originated at MIT. The consortium that formed around it back in September aims to expand the protocol to offer data protection to a wider range of clients, including various consumer devices, and to release open source implementations of the technologies developed that will be available to consortium members without licensing fees for use in their technologies and within their organizations.
"We are proud to join the MIT Kerberos Consortium as a founding sponsor. Microsoft has always been committed to interoperability of our authentication protocols, and Kerberos' universal authentication platform is of strategic importance for Microsoft and our customers," Kavsan said in a statement released by MIT this morning. "Today, the majority of enterprise deployments consist of a large number of heterogeneous systems. Microsoft's implementation of Kerberos on the server side as well as the client side provides our customers with a smooth deployment experience, and we want these implementations to interoperate with others in these diverse environments. Kerberos' vast user base will give us a better opportunity to listen to customer feedback and help us continue to actively contribute to future improvements in Kerberos."
Industry supporters of Kerberos and the Kerberos Consortium include Sun, Apple, Google,
Recommended Reading
- Moodle Gets SCORM Improvements, Security Fixes
New versions of Moodle have been released, bringing the most recent stable build to 1.9.3. The latest round of updates includes a number of bug fixes and security enhancements, as well as improvements to the SCORM module.
- Free 'Morro' Antivirus To Replace Microsoft OneCare
Microsoft is rolling out a free antivirus software program for consumers that will compete with products made by Symantec and McAfee. Code-named "Morro," the AV app is expected to be available by the end of 2009.
- Microsoft Demos New SQL Server Features at PASS
Microsoft Wednesday previewed the ability to centrally manage applications and resources in the planned upgrade of SQL Server, code-named "Kilimanjaro."
- Microsoft Unveils Exchange and SharePoint as Services
Microsoft exec Stephen Elop on Monday announced two hosted solutions from Microsoft--Exchange Online and SharePoint Online--which are now available to organizations of all sizes in the United States. The software, paid for by annual subscriptions, is hosted on Microsoft's servers and supported by Microsoft's channel partners.
- 6 Ways Not To Become Rote Using Instructional Technology
There are, in my experience, six strategies to consider with any use of technology that will guard against rote use of technology and facilitate critical analysis of teaching and learning effectiveness. In this article, I'll share with you the checklist I work with and encourage others to work with in learning about and using new technology.
- Bringing Student Web "Stuff" to Campus Enterprise Systems
How can an institution incorporate Web 2.0 learning opportunities for students, and evidence of learning from those opportunities, into existing campus technologies and processes? PlugJam is providing part of the answer.
