Obama administration officials to discuss trusted IDs online

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt will head West on Friday to discuss the future of trusted identities in cyberspace.

The pair will take part in an event at Stanford University to discuss the National Strategy for Trust Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC), which is set to be released by the White House in the coming weeks. Sponsors include TechAmerica, TechNet and the Churchill Club.

One of the major security issues with the Web is the emphasis on anonymity in the original design, making it extremely difficult to verify a user's real identity. The NSTC calls for the creation of an "identity ecosystem," where individuals and organizations can conduct online transactions confident in the real identities of each other and the security of the infrastructure the transactions run on. 

The NSTIC itself is a response to one of the action items in the President's Cyber Space Policy Review, which the White House released last year. Other speakers at the event include National Institute of Standards and Technology Director Patrick Gallagher and McAfee CEO Dave DeWalt.