Perform a one-time Web login with Windows CardSpace

How to Windows CardSpace can be used as a one-time sign-on solution for Websites

The password always causes some difficulties for the helpdesk. Normally, when resetting a user password is not a complicated solution to the level of discomfort, but the problem here is that the assistants are often asked to reset some. passwords are not needed every day, this has caused a waste of time that should have been for people with more serious problems. In addition to that, there are too many Web sites that require passwords to access. Many websites that users trust to perform their jobs are not owned by the company, so they are beyond the control of the company. However, some users still expect helpers to reset their passwords on those websites.

Windows Vista includes a new component that can help you solve these problems; that's Windows CardSpace. The idea of ​​Windows CardSpace is to allow users to create a virtual trading card that contains the personal information they will have to enter when making purchases online. Web sites can be configured to require users to submit their tags without requiring them to enter their name and password. This has caused user sympathy because they do not need to remember the password and name for each site, this card will replace the manual entry of that information on each website.

To access Windows CardSpace, open Control Panel and click on User Accounts , then the Windows CardSpace . Then Windows will display a screen that introduces you a bit about Windows CardSpace. Click OK to delete the screen then you will be taken to the main Windows CardSpace screen.

By default, Windows CardSpace is not available, so you need to create them from scratch. To do so, click Add a Card . You will be asked to consider creating a personal or management card.

Individual cards are general purpose information cards. They allow you to enter information, then save this information on the hard disk in encrypted format. Because personal cards are used for general purposes, you can create a single card that is used on many different websites.

Management card for special sites. The difference between a management card and a personal card is that the management card is issued by the site on which they are used. Typically, if a site issues a management card, this card will have special information to interact with the site that issued it. For example, a management card may include your shipping address and credit card number.

Create a card

To see how Windows CardSpace works, let's create a personal card. Click on Create a Personal Card . When done, Windows will display a form so you can fill in the necessary information. However, Windows Vista will lock the rest of the operating system when you are interacting with Windows CardSpace (this is a security note). It is possible to stop to consider a certain screen with this form, below is our description of it.

The first part you must fill is the Card Properties tab . It has to give the card a name, but you can also assign an image to it. Images may be arbitrary but you will see people often use their own images or logos for a specific website as a card image.

The next part of the screen is to fill in the information that you can send to many different websites by card. This section contains fields that you must manually enter as you do online shopping. These include: name, surname, email address, address, city, province and area code, home phone number, mobile number, date of birth, gender, and even the URL for your website.

When you finish filling in the card data, click the Save button, then your card will be created.

Security issue

The data stored on your workstation hard disk is quite safe. Here not only is the card data encrypted on the hard drive, but it also becomes part of the user profile, which means that no one can access the data unless they are logged in as a person. User created the card.

In addition to security features, users can lock the card to prevent data disclosure due to unusual accidents. To lock the card, simply select it from the main Windows CardSpace screen, then click the Preview button. Windows will then display a screen containing all the information stored on the card. To make this information reasonable, there are a number of links you can use for many purposes to maintain different tags. One of those links is the Lock Card link. Using this link, users can assign a PIN to the card.

PIN can combine numbers, letters or special characters. Windows does not require users to use a PIN code but if the PIN code is used, it must have at least 4 characters. Microsoft recommends that users use a minimum of 8-character PINs.

Of course this raises a problem: what if users forget their PIN? If the user cannot remember their PIN, there is no way to reset the PIN. The only way used to solve this situation is that the user will have to delete the card and recreate it.

CardSpace card transfer

In the previous section, I mentioned the problem that CardSpace tags can become part of the user's profile. So what happens if users switch to another computer and roaming profiles will not be used? Users can easily transfer their cards to a new machine by performing a simple backup and recovery procedure. Obviously, backing up the cards is a good idea, even if the user does not plan to switch the device.

The main Windows CardSpace screen has links to backup and restore cards. Both procedures are very simple and only need users to navigate to the location where they want to perform backup or restore and which cards want to backup or restore.

Conclude

In this article, we have introduced some new techniques for you to create and maintain Windows CardSpace cards. You can see that we have never introduced how to use this card on your favorite websites. That's because websites need to be specifically designed to accept CardSpace cards. Currently, we do not have many websites that meet this requirement. When Windows Vista is widely distributed, CardSpace will also increase its popularity.