Michigan State University Joins MIT Kerberos Consortium
04/21/2008
Michigan State University has joined the MIT Kerberos Consortium, an organization founded in September 2007 to foster the development of the network authentication scheme called Kerberos. In Greek mythology, Kerberos is a three-headed dog who guards the gates of Hades. In the world of computers, networks and the Internet, Kerberos provides a secure way for verifying identity – a process known as authentication.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) developed Kerberos in the 1980s as part of their Project Athena. Today it is the most widely-used method for authentication in the world. Whenever you use your MSU NetID to log into your mail.msu.edu account, register for classes, or perform a transaction using the Human Resources eHR system, you’re using Kerberos.
“By joining the Kerberos Consortium, MSU will have a seat at the table as the community proceeds to improve Kerberos and promote its use worldwide,” says Matt Kolb, Assistant Director for Computing Services in Academic Technology Services (ATS). “We will be able to understand the direction the Consortium takes. We’ll also be able to influence the development of Kerberos standards and products to meet existing and future needs we have at MSU.”
MSU joins an impressive group of Founding Sponsors that MIT announced in March 2008, including Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell University, Duke University, Iowa State University, Microsoft, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Pennsylvania State University and the United States Department of Defense. At the Consortium’s inception in fall of 2007, initial members included Apple, Centrify, Google, Sun, Stanford University, TeamF1, and the University of Michigan.
Steve Devine, Team Leader for Storage Systems and E-mail in ATS, has led MSU’s Kerberos deployment for many years. He says “MIT invited MSU to join the Consortium because we have long been active in the Kerberos community. The creation of the Kerberos Consortium will strengthen the Kerberos community and foster development.” Devine says that a key requirement is better integration with Web applications.
The Kerberos Consortium has already identified a list of development projects, for instance implementing Kerberos in portable devices such as mobile phones and portable digital assistants. Sponsors will pay nominal annual membership fees that will help the Consortium support those projects.
For more information, see http://www.kerberos.org.
