Cloud Selector

Susan Morrow of Avoco Secure in the UK demonstrated Avoco's new "cloud selector". This is an Information Card selector that operates entirely in the cloud, rather than on the desktop as is the norm for most Information Card selector implementations. (Higgins and Azigo support cloud-based storage of the Information Cards in one’s “wallet”, but the actual selector software still runs on the client device.)

The advantages of a cloud selector:

• It requires no client-side install
• It is available from all of a user’s devices (laptop, desktop, phone, car, TV, etc.)
• It can provide safe, automatic backup of a user’s cards
• It can also serve as an online data sharing service

The disadvantages of a cloud selector:

• It does not provide the same level of security as a local selector – it can be subject to phishing and other attacks. (Avoco has some approaches for mitigating this that Susan demonstrated, such as a way to encrypt a sessionID from the relying party site so the session cannot be easily phished or spoofed.)
• Performance may not be as fast as a local selector (although this can be mitigated by good design and implementation).

More information is available in the article on the informationcard.net blog.