Microsoft used to refer to WS-* as the identity metasystem, as if you couldn't achieve the defining heterogeneity without WS-Trust et al to tie it all together. That's why it's nice to see the Cardspace book acknowledge this (albeit indirectly). Use of 'the' when an 'a' would be more appropriate does remain . I did get a chuckle out of for the purpose of understanding the concepts presented in this book, you can safely ignore the protocol portion of SAML. The ostrich strategy may not be working out Read More...