August 10, 2007 (InfoWorld) -- The Federation for Identity and Cross-Credentialing Systems (FiXs) -- a little-known group of nonprofits, government contractors, commercial entities, and government agencies -- has just unveiled a first-of-its-kind global infrastructure to support distributed, integrated identity management and cross-credentialing across organizations. The implementation combines several existing security technologies along with a set of trusted models, policies, and operating rules to insure the accurate identity of personnel accessing physical sites or logical systems.
Already in a pilot mode at a handful of government agencies and defense contractors, the FiXs identity management initiative does not have a hard date for broad deployment, although the impediments do not appear to be technical. "The cultural gap with the public in general is still too wide," said Dr. Mike Mestrovich, president of FiXs. "I think there would have to be a public consensus to move us in that direction and I don't see that happening until at least 2009 or beyond."
Founded in 2004 and based in Fairfax, Va., FiXs counts among its members the Department of Defense, Wells Fargo, Lockheed Martin, EDS, and several others. Modeled after secure electronic payment systems and initially implemented by the DOD's Defense Manpower Data Center ...   more »