Unified online authentication system by Eric 10380140

"The American Commerce Department said 8.1 million people fell prey to online identity thieves last year at a cost of $27 billion. "

The leaking of privacy on the internet is one of the hottest issues on the internet. People access internet for shopping, managing banking services, as well as renting favorite movies. All these online activities need users to provide sensitive personal information such as credit card numbers, names and email address, sometimes even the real mailing address.

Unfortunately the personal information does catch the attention of the online identity thieves who steals it for illegal activities. The president of America Barack Obama said the government will do more to help consumers protect themselves, and making it more convenient than remembering dozens of passwords'. Obama suggested there should be a newer online authentication system which is easy to use and safe, to replace the old password mechanism which is easy to be hacked by online identity thief. The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace will be voluntary. Some computer experts believe that computer users will had only one single ID for transactions in the future.

When talking about online shopping, sometimes it is inevitable to gives personal information for online transaction. I think many of the users on internet do know the risks of online shopping, that their credit card information could be possibly stolen by online identity thieves. However, they would continue to shop for their favorite items on the Amazon or Apple stores. One of the reasons would be nowadays people has been already get used to this method of living. Online shopping is already a habit or a part of daily life. Someone would say,” you know, its life. Life could be full of risk”. It should be the matter of how we manage the risk.

Moreover, it also reflects that people nowadays are more sophisticating in living between real world and the virtual world. People earn their income by real life effort, shopping through the virtual platform to enrich their real life living standard.

It s a piece of good news that American president Obama make us to rethink the life style on the internet. Are you satisfying on the simple password system to protect your own identity and safety on the internet? It would be other interesting issues that how the new unified online identity authentication system could improve the stability of the cyber space, or what is the new coming debatable online security threats under the new system.

Refer to

Obama administration unveils online ID system (but insists it's not a Big Brother plan to snoop on Internet users)

By DAVID GARDNER
Last updated at 2:45 AM on 16th April 2011

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1377479/Obama-administration-unveils-national-online-ID-system.html#ixzz1JfRkSK23