icipant Operating Practices (POP) - This document describes how InCommon Participants need to describe
their credential and identity management system.
Profile - Data comprising the broad set of attributes that may be maintained for an identity, and the data required to authenticate under that identity.
public key cryptography - A cryptographic technique that uses two keys: the first key is always kept secret by an entity, and the second key, which is uniquely linked to the first one, is made public. Messages created with the first key can be uniquely verified with the second key.
Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) - The set of standards and services that facilitate the use of public-key cryptography in a networked environment.
relying party - A recipient of a certificate who acts in reliance on that certificate and/or any digital signatures verified using that certificate. http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3647.txt
Resource Provider (RP) - For the InCommon Federation, the term Resource Provider has been superseded by the term Service Provider.
Service Provider (SP) - Previously called the Target Site in the Shibboleth software implementation. For InCommon, an SP is a campus or other organization that makes online resources available to users based in part on information about them that it receives from other InCommon participants.
Shibboleth® - Software developed by Internet2 to enable the sharing of web resources that are subject to access controls such as user IDs and passwords. Shibboleth leverages institutional sign-on and directory systems to work among organizations by locally authenticating users and then passing information about them to the resource site to enable that site to make an informed authorization decision. The Shibboleth architecture protects privacy by letting institutions and individuals set policies that control what information about a user can be released to each destination. For more information on
Shibboleth please visit http://shibboleth.internet2.edu/uses.html.
Sponsored Partner - A business partner that provides resources to a higher education institution, and is sponsored for participation in InCommon by a participating higher education institution.
Support Contact - The Support Contact is the primary contact for error handling. The Support Contact may be a help desk or a designated support person.
Technical Contact - The Technical Contact for InCommon serves as the
primary point of contact for all technical issues for the organization
participating in InCommon. The technical contact communicates with
federation technical staff to ensure smooth operation of the federation's
Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) - The name for identifying an abstract or physical resource.
Uniform Resource Locator (URL) - The address of a resource accessible on the Internet. URLs are a subset of URIs.
Uniform Resource Name (URN) - Refers to the subset of URIs that are required to remain globally unique and persistent even when the resource ceases to exist or becomes unavailable.
validation - The process of identification of certificate applicants.
Where Are You From (WAYF) - A server used by the Shibboleth software to determine what a user's home organization is.