Beginning Microsoft® Visual Basic® 2008

Appendix D. An Introduction to Windows CardSpace

Microsoft has added a new feature to the .NET Framework 3.0: Windows CardSpace. (Formerly, this software was known as InfoCard.) This is a new type of identity management system that removes the old user name and password you are used to on the Web. The overall idea is that the users creates your cards and then you can choose which cards to assign to different sites. These cards can contain varying amounts of personal info, so for a very public site you can use a card that includes the minimum requirement for that site. For more personal information like a banking site, you can create a card with more data or even have a card issued to you from a bank that is a card provider. For some users, this will be a great solution.

Using CardSpace

To use CardSpace, there are some limitations for both the web site and user. First, the web site you are registering with must support it. For this emerging technology, that will mean that limited sites support it for now. But you should expect more sites to begin to offer this type of identity technology soon. On the user side, you will be required to use IE 7 or Firefox 2.0 (with a plug-in) as your browser. If you have Microsoft Vista, the CardSpace feature is included with the OS. If not, you can install the .NET Framework 3.0 on Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 to get the client tools needed to use CardSpace.

CardSpace is a very easy way to log into sites on the Internet. When you go to a site that ...