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What is an identity?

An identity is a set of characteristics or traits that make something recognizable or known. 

In computer network systems, it is one’s digital identity that most concerns us. 

A digital identity is those attributes and metadata of an object along with a set of relationships with other objects that makes an object identifiable. 

Not all objects are unique, but by definition a digital identity must be unique, through the assignment of a unique identification attribute. 

An identity must therefore have a context in which it exists.

This description of an identity as an object with attributes and relationships is one that programmer’s would recognize. 

Databases store information and relationships in tables, rows, and columns, and the identity of information stored in this way conforms to the notion of an entity and a relationship and database

An identity can belong to a person and may include the following:

  • Things you are: Biological characteristics such as age, race, gender, appearance, and so forth
  • Things you know: Biography, personal data such as social security numbers, PINs, where you went to school, and so on
  • Things you have: A pattern of blood vessels in your eye, your fingerprints, a bank
  • Things you relate to: Your family and friends, a software license, beliefs and values, activities and endeavors, personal selections and choices, habits and practices, an iGoogle account, and more

To establish your identity on a network, you might be asked to provide a name and password, which is called a single-factor authentication method. 

More secure authentication requires the use of at least two-factor authentication; for example, not only name and password (things you know) but also a transient token number provided by a hardware key (something you have). 

To get to multifactor authentication, you might have a system that examines a biometric factor such as a fingerprint or retinal blood vessel pattern—both of which are essentially unique things you are.

Multifactor authentication requires the outside use of a network security or trust service, and it is in the deployment of trust services that our first and most common 

IDaaS applications are employed in the cloud. Many things have digital identities. User and machine accounts, devices, and other objects establish their identities in a number of ways. 

For user and machine accounts, identities are created and stored in domain security databases that are the basis for any network domain, in directory services, and in data stores in federated systems. 

Network interfaces are identified uniquely by Media Access Control (MAC) addresses, which alternatively are referred to as Ethernet Hardware Addresses (EHAs). It is the assignment of a network identity to a specific MAC address that allows systems to be found on networks.

The manner in which Microsoft validates your installation of Windows and Office is called Windows Product Activation and creates an identification index or profile of your system, which is instructive. During activation, the following unique data items are retrieved:

  • A 25-character software product key and product ID
  • The uniquely assigned Global Unique Identifier or GUID
  • PC manufacturer
  • CPU type and serial number
  • BIOS checksum
  • Network adapter and its MAC address
  • Display adapter
  • SCSCI and IDE adapters
  • RAM amount
  • Hard drive and volume serial number
  • Optical drive
  • Region and language settings and user locale

From this information, a code is calculated, checked, and entered into the registration database.

Each of these uniquely identified hardware attributes is assigned a weighting factor such that an overall sum may be calculated. If you change enough factors—NIC and CPU, display adapter, RAM amount, and hard drive—you trigger a request for a reactivation based on system changes.

This activation profile is also required when you register for the Windows Genuine Advantage program.

Windows Product Activation and Windows Genuine Advantage are cloud computing application. Whether people consider these applications to be services is a point of contention.

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