Identity Matters

John Fontana

John Fontana is a journalist focusing on access control, identity, privacy and security issues. Currently, he is the Identity Evangelist for strong authentication vendor Yubico, where he writes and edits a blog, as well as, directs several social media channels and represents Yubico at the FIDO Alliance. Prior to Yubico, John spent five years with identity vendor Ping Identity. He also spent 15 years as a senior editor for a variety of publications, including Communications Week, Internet Week and Network World, where he focused on enterprise topics including collaboration, directories, network infrastructure, databases, open source, ERP and security. He covered IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, Red Hat, Google among other enterprise vendors. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, CNN, CIO and Mashable.

Latest Posts

Woman pleading Fifth in password case loses appeal

A federal court denies a woman's appeal in a case where she said turning over her password to decrypt files was a violation of her Fifth Amendment rights.

February 21, 2012 by John Fontana in Hardware

Irreparable injury result if FTC fails to police Google, group tells court

A privacy group replies to the Federal Trade Commission's request to dismiss a lawsuit seeking a court ruling to compel the federal agency to enforce a consent order levied against Google as part of a privacy case settlement.

February 21, 2012 by John Fontana in Google

Google's FTC privacy report unmasked

Google defends its forthcoming privacy policy changes in a report to the FTC saying that no new data sharing will take place. One privacy agency says Google did not answer all the questions it was required to address.

February 13, 2012 by John Fontana in Google

Woman who pleaded Fifth in password case now citing Fourth

A woman who argued that providing a password to authorities was a violation of her Fifth Amendment rights has filed an appeal in her case and is now also citing the Fourth Amendment.

February 10, 2012 by John Fontana in Hardware

Court agrees to speed up case over Google's privacy policies

A federal court has agreed to an accelerated briefing schedule in a privacy case that could affect the rollout of Google's new privacy policies.

February 9, 2012 by John Fontana in Security

EPIC sues FTC to stop Google; search giant says group wrong on facts, law

The Electronic Privacy Information Center is suing the Federal Trade Commission in federal court to compel the agency to stop Google from rolling out its new privacy policies.

February 8, 2012 by John Fontana in Security

NSTIC doc outlines transition to privately led ID effort

The government's National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace takes its most important step to date by releasing recommendations for turning the effort over to the private sector.

February 8, 2012 by John Fontana in Enterprise Software

BrowserID takes evolutionary step; ventures into wild

The Mozilla Foundation is inviting all email providers to adopt its BrowserID technology and begin validating their users' log-ins to Web sites that support the protocol.

February 7, 2012 by John Fontana in Collaboration

Google's answer to EU as succinct as its privacy policy

Google doesn't have a lot of patience for European regulators who asked the search giant to "pause" the roll out of its new privacy policy, set to launch March 1, so they can explore "possible consequences."

February 6, 2012 by John Fontana in Government : US

Gartner: Identity a lever of control; 6 trends for 2012

Six trends will dominate the identity landscape in 2012, according to Gartner. Three are new and three are holdovers from 2011. The trends challenge not only the way IT thinks about identity and how to manage it, but in the technologies and standards available to implement it.

February 5, 2012 by John Fontana in Government

NSTIC puts $10 million toward identity pilot programs

The effort to create a national identity infrastructure is starting to take shape as $10 million is ear-marked to fund pilot programs that may well form the foundation of the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC).

February 2, 2012 by John Fontana in Government : US

EPIC files FOI request over first Google Privacy Report to FTC

The Electronic Privacy Information Center has filed a Freedom of Information request to see Google's mandated privacy report to the Federal Trade Commission, which is part of April settlement with the agency.

February 1, 2012 by John Fontana in Google

Facebook OAuth extension ruffles feathers, nixes user access permission

Facebook has drawn the attention from the IETF with a new proprietary extension it developed for an emerging authentication protocol. The extension alters the way user permissions are set for long-life access tokens.

February 1, 2012 by John Fontana in Social Enterprise

Privacy vs. digital age: Where's the balance?

The digital age is launching an assault on privacy as we've known it. As social sites collect more and more data how will attitudes toward privacy change. And what can be done from a self-regulation, legal and end-user stand point to put more control back into the hands of consumers.

January 26, 2012 by John Fontana in Social Enterprise

BrowserID testing waters, but missing pieces weaken story

The Mozilla Foundation is finally testing its BrowserID authentication system, but a missing part of the architecture used to validate a user's credentials is a big gap the Foundation must address.

January 24, 2012 by John Fontana in Security

John Fontana

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