computer science

National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace

National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace rather than just read about it. In short: The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) is a US government initiative announced in April 2011 to improve the privacy, security and convenience of sensitive online transactions through collaborative efforts with the private sector, advocacy groups, government agencies, and other organizations. The strategy imagined an online environment where individuals and organizations can trust each oth…

Key takeaways

National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) is a US government initiative announced in April 2011 to improve the privacy, security and convenience of sensitive online transactions through collaborative efforts with the private sector, advocacy groups, government agencies, and other organizations. The strategy imagined an online environment where individuals and organizations can trust each other because they identify and authenticate their digital identities and the digital identities of organizations and devices. It was promoted to offer, but not mandate, stronger identification and authentication while protecting privacy by limiting the amount of information that individuals must disclose.

Description The strategy was developed with input from private sector lobbyists, including organizations representing 18 business groups, 70 nonprofit and federal advisory groups, and comments and dialogue from the public. The strategy had four guiding principles:

privacy-enhancing and voluntary secure and resilient interoperable cost-effective and easy to use. The NSTIC described a vision compared to an ecosystem where individuals, businesses, and other organizations enjoy greater trust and security as they conduct sensitive transactions online. Technologies, policies, and agreed upon standards would securely support transactions ranging from anonymous to fully authenticated and from low to high value in such an imagined world. Implementation included three initiatives:

The Identity Ecosystem Steering Group (IDESG), the private sector-led organization developing the Identity Ecosystem Framework; Funding pilot projects that NSTIC said embrace and advance guiding principles; and The Federal Cloud Credential Exchange (FCCX), the U.S. federal government service for government agencies to accept third-party issued credentials approved under the FICAM scheme. NSTIC was announced during the presidency of Barack Obama near the end of his first term on April 15, 2011. A magazine article said individuals might validate their identities securely for sensitive transactions (such as banking or viewing health records) and let them stay anonymous when they are not (such as blogging or surfing the Web). In January 2011, the U.S. Department of Commerce had established a National Program Office (NPO), led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, to help implement NSTIC. To coordinate implementation activities of federal agencies, the NPO works with the White House Cybersecurity Coordinator, originally Howard Schmidt, and then after 2012 Michael Daniel.

Steering group The NSTIC called a steering group led by the private sector to administer the development and adoption of its framework. This Identity Ecosystem Steering Group (IDESG) held a meeting in Chicago August 15–16, 2012. The meeting brought together 195 members in person and 315 members remotely. Additional plenary meetings were in Phoenix, Arizona, Santa Clara, California, and Boston, Massachusetts. Under a grant from 2012 through 2014, Trusted Federal Systems, Inc. was the group's administrative body.

Pilots The federal government initiated and supported pilot programs. In 2012, NSTIC awarded $9 million to pilot projects in the first year. For example, the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators was developing a demonstration of commercial identity provider credentials by the Virginia state government, including securely verifying identities online with the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. The Internet2 received about $1.8 million for research. ID.me was given a two-year grant in 2013. Further work funded by NIST is on their Trusted Identities Group Web Page.

Federal Cloud Credential Exchange The NSTIC called for U.S. federal government agencies to be early adopters of the Identity Ecosystem envisioned in NSTIC. Agencies struggled to implement it for services they provide internally and externally. Technical, policy and cost barriers made it challenging to accept third-party credential providers accredited by the Federal Identity, Credential, and Access Management (FICAM) initiative. In response, the White House created a Federal Cloud Credential Exchange (FCCX) team, co-chaired by NSTIC and the General Services Administration. The team consisted of representatives from agencies whose applications are accessed by a large population of external customers. In November 2012, the United States Postal Service was chosen to manage a pilot version of the FCCX, and awarded the contract to build it to SecureKey Technologies, a member of FIDO Alliance. That contract was renewed in May 2015.

Connect.gov Connect.gov was launched in December 2014, the manifestation of this pilot. The first two companies to provide individual US citizens Identity Management services compatible with Connect.gov, were ID.me and Verizon. Ping Identity and Forgerock were the first software platforms to provide FICAM-compliant credentials, and enable private sector organizations to connect securely to government agencies, a primary objective of this project.

On May 10, 2016, 18F announced in a blog entry that Connect.gov would be replaced. The replacement system would be called Login.gov, and launched in April 2017.

Identity Ecosystem Steering Group The Identity Ecosystem Steering Group (IDESG) received start up funding from NIST in 2010 and has since created a series of documents that is available on their website. In 2016, they introduced the Identity Ecosystem Framework (IDEF) Registry for self-assessment.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace

In research: National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2011 establishments in the United States, 2011 in computing, Computer network security, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace in simple terms?

Why does National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace.