![\"Enterprise](\"/860c267222fd012ab48fe9e6c26d0129/EB-The-Enterprise-Buyer%E2%80%99s-Guide-to-Consumer-Identity.webp\")
Identity management for education has witnessed a dramatic change in the first half of 2020. As the COVID-19 pandemic spread, it resulted in the shutdown of educational institutes worldwide, with over 1.2 billion children officially out of their physical classrooms.
\nInterestingly, there is a notable increase in e-learning from the last couple of months. Classes are conducted remotely and on digital platforms. Now, that's a massive amount of traffic to keep up with.
\nBecause significant amounts of highly sensitive data are involved, they make profitable targets for hackers—contact details, academic records, Social Security numbers, financial information, and health data.
\nMany educational institutions are already facing security crises and trying their best to sustain. Providing a secure learning environment has become a high priority.
\nBy now, it is pretty evident that the education sector has become a lucrative target of cybercriminals.
\nOne of the critical reasons schools are targeted, is the extensive data they maintain about students and staff, including personally identifiable information (PII), health details, and financial data. These records are a hot commodity on the dark web and are sold in millions for identity theft and fraud.
\nOther security challenges faced by schools, universities, and colleges in the education sector include:
\nA cybersecurity challenge faced by most educational institutions when defending their networks from threats is a shortage of dedicated IT resources—possibly pointing to the lack of funds to invest in cybersecurity.
\nAnother area that could put schools at risk of attack is the legacy IT infrastructure. IT departments must ensure that older equipment and software have the most recent upgrades, or that if manufacturers no longer support them, institutes should voluntarily install new versions.
\nInstitutes allow students to store data on their own devices, tablets, or laptops. Since they work on the same project in laboratories, in classrooms and at their residences, they carry their data on portable drives and connect to whichever computer is available.
\nMost students don't invest in paid antivirus software or anti-malware versions. Also, they download free, pirated apps. So, every time they plug their infected USB into the institute's network, the whole system gets affected.
\n
Many educational institutions advocate a culture of an open network for students and allow any device to connect within the premises. It is done to promote freedom of free information.
\nBut then, it has its downside too. Open network means that access is not monitored correctly, making it an easy target for cybercriminals to enter the network and wreak havoc.
\nThe majority of educational institutions lack a proper privileged access management system. Role-based access controls (RBAC) offer employees their access to different systems and data sources according to their responsibilities within the institution.
\nPrivileged accounts, like administrative accounts in schools, provide access to specific users that hold liability for critical systems and student's sensitive information.
\nWith each passing year, the specific role of students in the organization changes. They are promoted to the next class, some become alumni, and some may become assistants to teachers or become teachers themselves. Some students may also hold multiple responsibilities at the same time.
\nEducational institutions should authenticate these new identities as soon as they transition to the new role to avoid the burden of a security breach.
\nHigher educational institutes like colleges and universities store higher volumes of sensitive data related to research and other assignments. Moreover, all institutions (—for that matter) store critical alumnus, faculty, and students' data. These are gold mines for intruders to penetrate the networks and pose cyberthreats.
\nFollowing are a few significant ways hackers attack the Edtech sector:
\nA spoofing attack, in context to cybersecurity, happens when someone pretends to be someone else to gain trust to access sensitive network data and spread malware in the process. Spoofing attacks can occur in many different ways, like the widespread email spoofing attacks usually deployed as part of phishing campaigns or caller ID spoofing attacks that are also used to commit fraud.
\nIn educational institutions, attackers target IP address, Domain Name System ( DNS) servers, or Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) services.
\nPassword hijacking, as the term suggests, is a type of attack where hackers gain unauthorized access to the user's login credentials. What's intriguing is hackers do not always adopt a highly technical and sophisticated approach to hack accounts. In many cases, they guess common phrases, such as \"qwerty,\" which ranks high on the list of worst passwords.
\nThe rest of the time, hackers make use of other methods like brute force attacks, dictionary attacks, credential stuffing attacks, etc. to hack into the educational institute's network.
\nCracking of passwords occurs when a hacker deliberately targets a user or a business. They usually send a significant amount of time devising the right kind of attack to break into the victims' network.
\nSpeaking of which, while the victim of credential cracking can be any random user, the effort behind it also means that the victim has been deliberately targeted. It might be a business account, a company's social media accounts, or a premium educational institute with famous alumni.
\nPhishing is a malware attack that tricks victims into revealing their valuable and often sensitive data. Also referred to as a \"phishing scam,\" attackers target login credentials of users, financial data (such as credit cards and bank account details), business data, and everything that could be of high value to hackers.
\nPremium educational institutions have forever been at the risk of phishing attacks, primarily because of their high-value sensitive research data, student-critical data, faculty, or alumni data.
\nA man-in-the-middle attack happens when the cybercriminal intercepts a conversation between the user and the application. You can portray it as the cyber equivalent of eavesdropping done to impersonate one of the hosts.
\nThe hacker may, in this case, plant requests that seem to come from a legitimate source. For example, ask for alumni data that is otherwise deemed confidential.
\n![\"Identity-Management-for-Education\"](\"/999c76c855325833d6201c521f04d88e/Identity-Management-for-Education-1.webp\")
Software applications – apps – are common on campuses nowadays. From in-class polling devices to driving university-wide learning management systems, educational institutions are swiftly adapting to the new trend.
\nThese apps and online platforms play a key role in assisting students and helping modern colleges to operate smoothly by collecting data from faculty and students alike.
\nHowever, these data can be highly sensitive. Sometimes, they include data from students' personal preferences, their knowledge base, and projects they submit through these online portals.
\nTherefore, there will always be a danger looming when new technologies and applications are widely implemented across campuses, and every student or lecturer is expected to use them.
\nA lot of these educational apps may be useful. The school, college, or university faculty may use a few of those as supplemental instructional resources or advocate for additional skills practice.
\nThere is a catch, though! Newbie techies or tech start-ups build most of the new applications and courses launched with little to no background in children's privacy laws.
\nFree apps are more likely to collect user data and monitor children's behaviors to deliver targeted advertising. Moreover, there have been instances where even paid apps were accused of monitoring and using child data for unethical purposes. They collect PII and track precise location information, creating a severe threat to privacy.
\nThen again, apps that claim to be specially designed for educational purposes are not immune either. Some of these apps make money by selling advertising directly on the platform or trading students and faculties' sensitive data such as ethnicity, affluence, religion, lifestyle, etc. to third parties.
\nWith massive personal intellectual property at stake, hackers are willing to work even harder to break into educational institutions than other organizations. Failures in compliance can be extremely damaging, particularly with increased media attention.
\nFollowing are a few international compliance regulations that keep students' data safe amidst the volatile criminal backdrop.
\nThe optimal digital experience for education institutions is the need of the hour. Delivering top-notch experiences to students puts the pressure on customer identity and access management (CIAM) providers to provide a secure platform for their data.
\nHere how identity management for education enhances the user experience of students and faculty.
\nOff late, there has been an amplified need for identity and access management in the education industry. LoginRadius, as a leading provider in its space, offers a number of a scalable, highly integrative set of tools to meet the growing requirement of the modern higher education sector. A few of the particular ones include:
\nThe identity management platform allows institutes to create a central identity across all channels through single sign-on for students and faculty. It also offers modern and robust authentication methods such as multi factor authentication (MFA) with one-time passwords or security questions and more.
\nLoginRadius allows smooth and seamless integration into systems through industry-approved standards like OpenID Connect, OAuth2, and SAML2.0.
\nDefine the roles and permissions on who can access what content and when with LoginRadius. Colleges and universities can delegate admins to teachers, lecturers, and staff and assign their respective roles.
\nBesides, they can work with other faculties by adding users to their groups. Also, professors can divide their students into groups and assign permissions based on their projects.
\nStrengthen security and protect resources with a secure interface (APIs). It detects suspicious behavior within the system, and when the need arises demands a second factor of authentication.
\nFurthermore, it offers excellent user experience, and with SSO on the hook, it encourages users to choose a strong password for their accounts. As a cloud-based identity management platform, LoginRadius is always updated with the latest security mechanisms.
\nThe identity platform is compliant with all major international data regulation policies, including the EU's GDPR and California's CCPA. To meet the high identity management of education requirements, it offers more transparency about accepted consents, secured access, and excellent user experience.
\nThe identity management solution is compatible with major security programs. Major certifications include OpenID for end-user identity verification, PCI DSS PCI SSC administered standard for fee and salary transactions, ISO 27001:2013, 2015 for information security, AICPA SOC 2 (Type II) for system-level privacy control, and ISAE 3000 for the protection of non-financial information.
\nOther certifications include ISAE 3000, NIST Cybersecurity Framework, CSA CCM Level 1, Level 2, CIS Critical Security Controls, US Privacy Shield Complaint, and ISO/IEC 27018:2019.
\nGiven this rapid upgrade in the classroom environment, experts are curious whether acceptance of online learning would continue to exist in the post-pandemic world, and whether such a move will affect the pressure of identity management on educational institutions.
\nIf it does (which sure, will), LoginRadius will certainly complement the complex, and unique CIAM needs for schools, colleges, and universities across the globe.
\n![\"book-a-demo-loginradius\"](\"/1bebf239d110701b9b534d7eb481a5ac/BD-Plexicon1-1024x310.webp\")
![](\"/16d08b92f1eb74d4d4d8f5f1bef262dc/454px-MaoriChief1784.webp\")
Sketch of a Māori chief by Sydney Parkinson (1784)
Source - MaoriChief1784
\nIn Part II of the History of Human Identity, we showed examples of identity verification such as names and unique markings. This blog is the final instalment of our 3-part series. In it, we'll focus on cultural identifiers—their use and their abuse.
\nOne of the oldest forms of cultural identifiers is still alive today: physical alterations. In fact, the Maori of New Zealand use tattoos in part as a marker of identity; the earliest recording of this dates back to the 1700s. Maori facial decorations include tattoos with detailed and stylized designs called moko. Moko is used to communicate information about an individual’s heritage and rank in society.
\nIn fact, the Smithsonian.com notes that the Maori use of tattoos “has accurately been described as a form of id card or passport, a kind of aesthetic bar code for the face.”
\nThe earliest documented account of something resembling a passport can be found in the Hebrew Bible, in the book of Nehemiah, which refers to “safe passage” to Judah.
\nIn 1540, the granting of “travelling papers” became the business of Britain’s Privy Council. The actual term passport was also recognized at that point. Some say that the term reflects the act of passing through maritime ports, although that is up for debate.
\nCharles de Saint-Mémin’s United States passport, June 30, 1810
\n![\"human](\"/a35460ca5646f3468ec9d5dcf374f9dd/image-2.webp\")
Charles de Saint-Mémin’s United States passport, June 30, 1810
Source - metmuseum
\nA passport is also a form of personal identification that indicates national identity.
\nAround 100 countries now have compulsory national identity cards. Another 28 countries have optional national identity cards, but their citizens often use other forms of ID such as passports or driving licenses.
\nWest German identity card issued between 1 January 1951 and 31 March 1987
\n![\"human](\"/c797e76a085fb3e7e3420d86a5147b48/image-3.webp\")
West German identity card issued between 1 January 1951 and 31 March 1987
Source - West German Identity Card
\nA Social Security number (SSN) is another unique identifier. The US government assigned this for taxation and benefits. Issued by the US Social Security Administration in November 1935, SSN numbers were part of the New Deal Social Security program. Today, US citizens still use SSNs to access benefits, pay taxes, receive wages, and show one’s identity.
\nA Social Security card issued by the Railroad Retirement Board in 1943 to a now-deceased person.
\n![\"human](\"/68a2496348bc67706bf652806fe5cb4a/image-4.webp\")
A Social Security card issued by the Railroad Retirement Board in 1943 to a now deceased person.
Source - Social Security Card
\nA Social Insurance Number (SIN) is a 9-digit form of identification that every individual residing and/or working in Canada must have in order to access government benefits, file income taxes, and legally receive payment. SIN cards were first issued in 1964 but have not been printed as cards since 2014 due to the risk of theft. Today, Canadian citizens do not carry SIN cards on their person.
\nMany countries have a process for officially changing one’s legal name.
\nIn Western society, some marriage partners decide to change their surnames. However, taking a new surname is not as commonplace as it once was. In fact, sometimes men and women change both of their surnames to a hyphenated or a combined version of the two.
\nA name change can pose issues for your personal identity, including losing your professional identity or brand.
\nAs a rule, US citizens who wish to change their surnames after marriage must endure a lengthy process. Here's what they must do:
\nAs governments began to regulate identity verification, conflicts arose between personal and legal identification. The ways that people identify themselves sometimes clash with the ways that governments want to identify them.
\nFor example, Canada has a controversial history when it comes to identifying Inuit communities. In the 1930s, a personal identification program in the Canadian Arctic required Inuit fingerprints to identify and document Inuit communities. Shortly after, missionaries and federal agents successfully halted the program, due to the association of fingerprinting with criminal activity.
\nIt took roughly 10 years for the Canadian government to approve and implement a substitute identification system for Canada’s Northern Territories. This was known as the personal identification disk system. The government required Inuit people to wear these small, numbered disks at all times. As a result, many complained that these looked and felt like dog tags. Due to public outcry, the government ceased the program in the 1970s (1980s in Quebec). And in its place, they created a new program called Project Surname.
\nPublic domain photo: Inupiat family, 1929
\n![\"human](\"/2a39730a34121f10a8204ce8a2ca6735/image-5.webp\")
Public domain photo: Inupiat family, 1929
Source - Inupiat Family
\nIn the 1940s the Canadian government created Project Surname as a way to identify the Inuit population. Instead of a number, Project Surname assigned Anglicized last names to Inuit peoples in northern Canada.
\nWhile some Inuit and non-Inuit peoples viewed Project Surname as an effective new identification system, others saw it as a demeaning act of paternalism.
\nIn essence, it stripped people of a meaningful and spiritual tradition.
\nBefore the arrival of Europeans, the Inuit used a complex naming tradition that reflected their culture, environment, animals, family, and spirits. Today, Inuit surnames may contain both Euro-Canadian and traditional Inuit names. However, the sting of Project Surname remains, demonstrating what happens when legal identification gets too personal.
\nAs cofounder and CTO of LoginRadius, a customer identity and access management solution, I enjoy researching and writing about cultural identifiers. Likewise, I hope that you enjoyed this History of Human Identity series and will return to read our next series.
\n![\"book-a-demo-loginradius\"](\"/8fce571f703a5970dbb1359a2fe0e51a/book-a-demo-loginradius.webp\")
In Part I of The History of Identity, we covered how identity began in ancient times. For Part II, we focus on current times, where personal names are now considered fundamental to identity and dignity.
\nThe United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child declares that every child “shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name.” Family names or surnames identify a person’s origins. Family names appear to have developed first in China, originally among the nobility, and then spread to commoners.
\nClan names that seem to indicate matrilineal heritage, called xìng (姓), emerged in China around 4000–3000 BC. Many of these names include the character for woman (女), and the character for xìng reads as “born of a woman.” People with the same xìng were not allowed to marry each other.
\n![\"Human](\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lacquer_painting_from_Ch%27u_State.webp\")
Lacquer painting from State of Ch'u (704–223 BC)
\nAnother type of clan name appeared during the Zhou dynasty from 1046–256 BC. As society became more complex and patrilineal, the shì name (氏) allowed people to differentiate themselves from others with the same xìng.
\nA person’s shì name might be derived from their state or fiefdom, their position within their family, or their profession.
\nChinese surnames were standardized in 221 BC under the first emperor of the Qin dynasty. The xìng and shì names, which people had been using interchangeably, were merged into the single concept of a family name.
\n![\"Human](\"/b9a5e9d1e68049de984bd849b828464e/image-2.webp\")
Marble portrait of the co-emperor Lucius Verus (130 - 169 AD). His name at birth was Lucius Ceionius Commodus, changed to Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus when he was adopted.
\nFamily names first evolved in the Western world during the time of the Roman Empire, 750 BC to 500 AD. Romans developed a system of tria nomina (“three names”):
\nThe Roman three-name system started with the aristocracy and spread to the general citizenry as the population grew and people needed more names to distinguish among themselves.
\n![\"Human](\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jon_Ogmundsson_Icelandic_bishop.webp\")
Bishop Jón Ögmundsson of Hólar, from the 19th century Icelandic manuscript JS 629 4to, now in the care of the Icelandic National Library
\nSurnames developed in the rest of Europe starting in the 11th century. Norman barons brought them to England after the invasion of 1066. Most of these surnames grew organically from one of the following characteristics.
\nLineage: Patronymic and matronymic surnames originate from a father or mother’s name.
\nIceland developed a system where children receive a new surname based on their father’s name (or occasionally mother’s name). For example, Iceland's current prime minister is Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir. Her father’s name is Sigurður, so her surname becomes Sigurðardóttir, meaning “daughter of Sigurður.”
\n![\"Human](\"/85b92d739394b1f811948efc986a962e/image-4.webp\")
Part of Offa’s Dyke, an 8th-century earthwork boundary in Britain.
\nLocation: Many Anglophone names come from the names of towns or regions (Hamilton, Murray), local topology (Landon means “long hill”), or features (Dyke, Wood, Fields).
\n![\"Human](\"/dd2cb534a0c60e5956d4babb28e75e51/image-5.webp\")
A German tailor pictured in die Nürnberger Hausbücher, 1612.
\nProfession: Occupational names are based on the work performed by that family. The German name Eisenhauer means “iron hewer,” Schneider means “tailor,” and Schmidt refers to a blacksmith. Occupational names were also taken by servants of masters in certain professions. There is speculation, for example, that the English surname Vickers would have been adopted by the servant of a vicar.
\nMiddle names have their origins in social class and religion. As mentioned earlier, more names indicated more respect during Roman times. Men had three names; women had two; their slaves had one.
\nAristocrats considered long names a show of their high place in society. Spanish and Arabic families would give their children paternal or maternal names from previous generations. This practice allowed them to keep track of the child’s family tree.
\n![\"Human](\"/1d753d9933dc937e91f1857dda850c1e/image-6.webp\")
\"Rosette Bearing the Names and Titles of Shah Jahan,\" ca. 1645. The central inscription reads, “His Majesty Shihab al-Din Muhammad Shah Jahan, the king, the vanquisher, may God perpetuate his dominion and sovereignty.”
\nThis tradition of middle names spread across Western cultures in the 1700s. But this time, three names were not exclusive to men. When faced with choosing between a family name and a saint name for their children, Europeans decided to go with both: given name first, baptismal (saint) name second, and surname third. The practice then spread to America through immigration.
\nToday, many cultures use a beloved relative’s name for a child’s middle name. And some families may even have two middle names to reflect both maternal and paternal relatives. Practically speaking, middle names can help differentiate people who share common first and last names. For this reason, middle names may be required on important documents, such as flight tickets.
\nThe placement of surnames, or family names, varies by country.
\nEastern name order is typical in East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of India.
\nThe convention in China is to have the family name appear first, followed by the given name. For example, Gāo Xíngjiàn (高行健), who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2000, has the family name Gāo and the given name Xíngjiàn.
\nWestern name order is common throughout Europe, the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand. The given name comes first, and then the family name, although for alphabetized lists, the names are reversed and separated by a comma.
\nWhen Eastern names are used in the West and vice versa, there can be some confusion about whether they are following their traditional name order or not. The cellist known as Yo-Yo Ma uses the Western ordering, even though his Chinese name is Ma Youyou (马友友).
\nThe need to confirm someone’s identity also goes back to ancient times. As society grew larger and political and financial systems developed, humans created ways to verify that a person’s identity was valid.
\nSome civilizations developed stamps and seals that represented a person’s identity.
\n![\"Human](\"/541e015d2aa0f00219ab27bc579f2746/image-7.webp\")
Modern impression of a Cypriot cylinder seal: female figure, ibex, lion, ca. 14th–13th century B.C.
\nCylinder seals go back to the fourth millennium BC in Mesopotamia. These carved cylinders were rolled across wet clay to create an impression that signified ownership or identity. The seals were sometimes crafted from semi-precious stone such as carnelian or lapis lazuli and worn as jewellery. They were used by people from all strata of society to sign business deals, treaties, and marriage contracts.
\nThe earliest seals in China originated during the Shang Dynasty, 1600 to 1046 BC. Chinese seals known as chops were carved from jade, stone, or ivory and dipped in red paste to stamp a unique symbol on documents, letters, and artwork.
\n![\"Human](\"https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestand:Chinese_seal_(Han_Dynasty).webp#/media/Bestand:Chinese_seal_(Han_Dynasty).webp\")
Chinese seal with Han and Manchu characters
\nOther types of signature seals can also be found across East Asia. In Japan, signature ink stamps are called hanko. These are commonly accepted as a signature when validating documents and official forms. Hanko stamps can be made from wood, plastic, and other materials and again, the ink, is generally red.
\nIn the 5th century BC, the Romans started to write sentences and names at the bottom of documents, in addition to creating wax seals with signet rings. The earliest surviving signature from a famous historical figure is that of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, a medieval Spanish nobleman known as El Cid, dated to 1098.
\n![](\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Signature_of_El_Cid.webp\")
Autograph signature of Rodrigo Díaz, [also] called El Cid, Archive of the Cathedral of Salamanca. It reads in Latin: ego ruderico, \"I, Rodrigo\".
\nTo see how modern society uses and abuses identity, be sure to read Part III of our History of Human Identity series next week.
\nLearn how to create a unified digital identity for all of your customers. Book a demo today with LoginRadius.
\n
![\"human](\"/499c0cfb01fff9f826629127fc04da46/image-1.webp\")
Portrait of Thakur Utham Ram, ca. 1760
Source - metmuseum
\nThe concept of human identity stretches back thousands of years into unrecorded history.
\nLong before our identities were digitized and stored in databases, we used language, objects, and documents to represent and confirm our individuality.
\nThis pictorial history in 3 parts explores all the creative ways that we’ve developed to identify ourselves and each other over the millennia.
\nIt’s impossible to know when humans first recognized that they had individual identities.
\nWe assume that early hominins knew each other by sight, sound, smell, and touch, as animals do.
\n![\"human](\"/7479ec6c6f774efbcd8508d42ebfe9c9/image-2.webp\")
High school students in Binghamton NY, USA, holding replicas of hominin skulls. Photo by Carolyn WIlczynski
Students explore hominid evolution
\nPresumably they could tell one Neanderthal from another by their faces, the noises they made, and the way they moved.
\nThere is even research showing that human faces evolved in ways that made it easier for humans to recognize each other. The fact that facial recognition was supported by natural selection implies that it’s very important for social interaction and the success of the species.
\n![\"human](\"/038c61e7148e2d901d3706d730a71c3f/image-3.webp\")
Hands, ca. 7300 BC, at the Cuevas de las Manos upon Río Pinturas, Argentina. Photo by Mariano Cecowski
SantaCruz-CuevaManos-P2210651b
\nFor an example of written identity in prehistory, we can look at cave markings showing stencilled handprints. Archeologists disagree on the meaning behind cave handprints—they could be warning messages or part of shamanic practice—but to our modern eyes they look like signatures or graffiti tags, a way of saying, “I was here.”
\n![\"human](\"/d4ab7373de245ee439788583b118900d/image-4.webp\")
Forensic reconstruction of Oase 2 skull dating to 35,000 BC
Homo sapiens sapiens, Oase, Rumänien (Daniela Hitzemann)
\nSpoken language emerged 100,000 years ago. In fact, the structure of the brain and the size of the spinal cord of Cro-Magnon people suggests that they would have been capable of producing the same sounds that we use in speech today.
\nBut since we’ve only been writing for the last 6,000 years, we’ll never know if Cro-Magnons developed names for one another, or if so, how these were chosen.
\nThe earliest known names go back to the dawn of ancient history, around 3000 BC. These were the names of royalty passed down through oral history and written down much later: Alulim, first king of Sumer, and Narmer, an ancient Egyptian pharaoh.
\nThe oldest artifacts with written names have more everyday origins.
\nThere are several candidates for the distinction of first recorded name.
\n![\"human](\"/825deb1a4626c7afea9d1c7841665640/image-5.webp\")
A photo of the Kushim Tablet. © The Schøyen Collection, Oslo and London
Leaving A Mark in History: The Oldest Known Named Person
\nOne is a Mesopotamian clay tablet, ca. 3100 BC, found in Iran that appears to document a business transaction. The receipt for barley delivery to the brewery at Inanna Temple is presumably signed with the name of Kushim, an accountant or record keeper.
\n[caption id=\"attachment_5348\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"1684\"]![\"human](\"https://www.loginradius.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2019/08/pic5.webp\")
Jamdat Nasr administrative tablet, ca. 3100-2900 BC. Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art metmuseum
The second is another Mesopotamian tablet from the same era that bears the name of a slaveholder, Gal-Sal, and two slaves, En-pap X and Sukkalgir.
\n![\"human](\"/eca137243e6c8edab906e998bf53de49/image-6.webp\")
A Machiguenga woman dressed in traditional garb Machiguenga woman
Almost every known society refers to individuals by a fixed personal name, but there are some exceptions. One is the Machiguenga of the Amazon, a small tribe that refers to others by their kin relationship, such as “sister.”
\nAncient cultures generally used single names, what we might now consider a first name or given name. Single names are also called mononyms.
\n![\"human](\"/e04146471a786da84dca8e6f6f68133f/image-7.webp\")
Dead Sea Scroll, part of Isaiah Scroll (Isa 57:17 - 59:9), ca. 100 BC Dead Sea Scroll
Most Biblical names are mononyms, for example. This fragment of the Hebrew Bible contains the name יַעֲקֹב (Jacob).
\nBoth the Hebrew and Christian scriptures give great significance to names within the narrative. The meanings of names are often described in the text: The man called his wife Eve [which probably means “living”] because she would be the mother of all the living.” People sometimes take or receive new names to indicate a change in their identity, such as when God renames Abram and Sarai to Abraham and Sarah as part of a promise to make them a great nation.
\n![\"human](\"/f7dd0c103beb3fc46feb44d0afd569a9/image-8.webp\")
Zeno of Citium. Bust in the Farnese collection, Naples. Photo by Paolo Monti, 1969 Paolo Monti
The ancient Greeks used mononyms as well, although historians added qualifiers called epithets when they needed to distinguish between two people with the same name. Epithets might be descriptive of the person or refer to their home or ancestry, but they are not considered part of their official name. For example, we have Zeno the Stoic (also known as Zeno of Citium) and Zeno of Elea.
\nFor a history of identity in the modern world, read Part II of this series next week.
\n![\"human](\"/097b03db8ae840e524586576d4956c6d/image-9.webp\")
A newborn’s hospital name tag
Learn how to create a unified digital identity for all of your customers. Book a demo today with LoginRadius.
\n
In January of 2019, Akamai acquired Janrain and rebranded their CIAM solution as “Identity Cloud,” a platform designed to improve security access controls and identity management. Before the purchase price was revealed, Forrester predicted it would be in the $250M–$275M range (based on an estimation of Janrain’s annual revenue). In reality, the sale price was $125M—roughly half of Forrester’s estimate. Since then, perhaps in response to the Janrain acquisition, customers have reached out to LoginRadius seeking a Janrain alternative. Here’s what they told us.
\nLoginRadius has had many conversations with current and former Janrain customers in the last few months. Through these discussions, we’ve learned that the Janrain acquisition is playing out in a similar fashion to the Gigya acquisition. If you’re interested in reading about the pitfalls of the Gigya/SAP merger, you might like our article Looking for a Gigya Alternative?. In it, we explain some of the problems arising from the Gigya/SAP merger.
\nLikewise, in this article, I’ll demonstrate that while mergers and acquisitions (M&A) can be exciting, an acquisition may sometimes be damaging for customers, partners, and employees. To illustrate that, here are some of the reasons customers are seeking a Janrain alternative today.
\nOne of the chief concerns that companies have shared with us involves service level agreements (SLAs). In particular, we’ve heard that many companies fear that Akamai will not offer the flexibility of custom tech stacks. Their concern is that if they use software or apps not provided by Akamai, they’ll lose the quality, availability, and features that they relied on before the merger.
\nTo put it into perspective, former Gigya customers complained to us that during the SAP acquisition, they didn’t want to switch their tech stack to SAP. However, in order to get a full SLA and the optimal service and features they had come to expect, it suddenly became necessary.
\nThe reason for their cold feet is simple: switching software can lead to a massive drain of resources within large companies. Therefore, it’s reasonable for companies to avoid that kind of change. Let’s face it, if you already have a tried-and-true tech stack, wouldn’t you want to choose a CIAM solution that works with it?
\nAnytime a big acquisition or disruption occurs in a company, there’s a high probability that customer service may suffer. In fact, time and again, customers told our consultants that they switched from Akamai/Janrain or Gigya due to a decline in technical assistance and customer support.
\nAnother customer related complaint occurred after Akamai acquired Janrain. Janrain customers became concerned when their accounts did not auto-renew. Since the Janrain/Akamai merger, Akamai is exercising its right to renegotiate terms. As a result, Janrain customers are reported to be wary of the fine print on these new terms.
\nCustomers revealed that they noticed a lot of downtime on sites using Akamai Identity Cloud as their provider. Most recently, the NBA Finals game outage on Sportsnet created a lot of heat for Rogers. And since Janrain is the CIAM provider for Rogers, the outage is a result of their inability to handle peak loads. For any business that experiences surges in logins, downloads, or streaming, downtime can cost $300,000 (on average) in lost revenue.
\nKey Takeaway
\nAkamai is a security company, so its acquisition of Janrain confirms that CIAM is a security platform. Akamai clearly saw Janrain as a missing piece in their security company.
\nHowever, LoginRadius made this pivot sooner than Janrain—in 2016, to be precise. Simply put, we've spent more years innovating and delivering value to enterprises than Janrain has. Here are just some of the reasons why LoginRadius is the best Janrain alternative for your business.
\nOur 100% uptime is second to none.
\nYou don’t have to worry about surges or spikes driving customers away and hurting revenue. LoginRadius is the only identity platform with a 100% uptime.
\nWe’re a global leader in customer identity.
\nLoginRadius was named a global CIAM leader by KuppingerCole and has been positioned ahead of other vendors such as ForgeRock, Okta, and Ping Identity. Recently, LoginRadius received $17 million Series A funding, led by ForgePoint Capital and Microsoft. W__e may not be enterprise-size, but we’re enterprise grade—meaning you’ll get both dedicated service and an exceptional product from LoginRadius.
\nWe provide data privacy and consent solutions.
\nWe follow the strictest government regulations for privacy and consent and offer out-of-the-box solutions for GDPR, CCPA, and COPPA compliance. We also provide the highest industry standards for secure single sign-on, data storage, and customer access management.
\nWe’re 100% CIAM with 24/7 tech support.
\nOur product consultants, customer support, and tech teams act quickly to meet your needs. Data migration from your current provider is included, as are customization features and fast deployment.
\nSimply put, LoginRadius excels at what Akamai/Janrain doesn’t—**giving companies an edge over the competition.**
\n“The secret to exceeding customer expectations
\nis knowing what customers want before they do.”
\nLoginRadius is a CIAM solution that offers seamless migration from your current provider within days. We also do migration testing on a staging site, so your customers won’t notice a thing.
\nWant to hear more about making the switch to LoginRadius? Call a LoginRadius digital identity consultant today at 1-844-625-8889. We’ll be happy to give you a product demo so you can compare LoginRadius with your current provider.
\n![\"Janrain](\"/23b2208278dbd4fe5b7ddff1307ce0b5/CTA-Graphics-for-Blogs-V02.01-15.webp\")
The customer identity space is in a dynamic phase, with lots of activity around mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and investment.
\nOne notable event was the SAP acquisition of Gigya in late 2017.
\nNow that a year has gone by, existing Gigya contracts are ending. Engineers are probably thinking that everything’s fine and that not much has changed with their customer identity solution.
\nBut as a leader, you should be worried. The Gigya technology may not have changed (yet) but the company that delivers it has changed significantly. Now is the time to start looking for the best Gigya alternatives.
\nM&A can be exciting for everyone associated with the acquired company. However, in some cases an acquisition can be damaging for customers, partners, and employees, depending on who the acquirer is.
\nOne such case is when the acquirer is significantly larger than the acquired company and they do not let the acquired company operate independently. The differences in size and power create culture clash, which is one of the top reasons that mergers fail.
\nCulture clash then leads to staff turnover, which can be up to three times higher than in non-acquired companies.
\nWhen employees and partners leave an acquired company, customers are the most hurt group among the three. Customers have to move quickly to find an alternative provider, and it also impacts resource allocation, service quality, and all of their future plans.
\nThis is the tough situation where Gigya customers now find themselves.
\nIn the past twelve months, many customers have done their research on Gigya competitors and migrated away from Gigya to LoginRadius. We’ve heard from them about why they switched, and I wanted to share their feedback.
\nGigya no longer has its young, fast-moving culture from pre-acquisition days. It’s now part of a long-standing and enormous organization at SAP, which means a slower pace of technological innovation.
\nSAP has 95,000 employees and Gigya had 500, which makes SAP 190 times larger. It’s not hard to guess which culture is going to win out.
\nIf your company chose Gigya because their agility and cutting-edge creativity were a great match for your corporate personality, there’s now a big disconnect.
\nCustomers aren’t the only ones who don’t want to make the leap to a different culture. Employees are even more affected by the organizational change, and a lot of them leave rather than try to adapt.
\nMany of the people who took care of Gigya’s customers are gone by now. If you’re one of those customers, this turnover marks an end to your human relationship with Gigya.
\nThen you get assigned to new account managers from the SAP culture and SAP strategies, not from Gigya’s young and innovative culture.
\nGigya used to be a small company with a few thousand customers. They were able to give quick personalized support.
\nNow, as SAP, they have a huge client base.
\nPerhaps you were in the top 10% of Gigya customers. Post-acquisition, you’re probably not even in the top 40% of customers. Big acquiring companies have customers who pay them $100 million or more, and you end up becoming a Tier 3 or 4 customer.
\nYou never get the same level of care you enjoyed before from your CIAM vendor.
\nSAP is also outsourcing its support for Gigya customers to external partners who don’t necessarily have the level of expertise required. They may not understand your actual implementation. It can take days or weeks to resolve issues.
\nSAP Customer Data Cloud, the new name for Gigya’s customer identity and access management (CIAM) platform, is just a tiny part of the SAP universe. CIAM is now one offering out of 200.
\nGigya uses SAP servers for colocation, and they only have five regional data centers.
\nMany large brands, including a large media company with 30 million users, have migrated from Gigya/SAP to LoginRadius. Here are the top 5 reasons why big brands are considering LoginRadius as the best Gigya alternative.
\n“Innovate or die” is the mantra of the 21st century for tech businesses. The LoginRadius customer identity platform is the most modern offering in its class. In the security industry, it’s essential to stay current and jump on new developments quickly, and we have the agility to do that. The company has been recognized as a leader by many analyst firms, including KuppingerCole, Gartner, and Forrester.
\nLoginRadius started in customer identity and it’s what we do. The full focus of our technology and business leadership is on creating modern customer experiences and helping businesses win customer trust.
\nLoginRadius is deployed on Microsoft Azure cloud servers with failover to Amazon Web Services. Our platform scales to handle hundreds of millions of customers and over 150K logins per second. We have 35 global data storage centers (and counting).
\nLoginRadius offers our clients a dedicated support team, consisting of a customer success manager and implementation engineer. These are LoginRadius experts who understand your environment and resolve your issues quickly.
\nLoginRadius is the only CIAM platform on the market that guarantees 100% uptime, compared to 99.9% offered by other vendors. While other platforms have minutes to hours of unscheduled downtime as well as downtime for regular maintenance, LoginRadius is simply always available.
\nLoginRadius has migrated many customers, and we’re good at it. Our team will work with you through the whole process and manage the production deployment so there’s very little effort required on your side.
\nWe have automated software for a seamless migration and quick go-to-market, and we do most of the migration testing. Your users won’t be affected—they won’t even notice anything. Customers are pleasantly surprised at how simple the process is.
\nIf you’d like to hear more about customers making the switch to LoginRadius, contact us at 1-844-625-8889. We can also give you a demo so you can see how our features compare.
\n![](\"/c001db558b99ac0189e5dff5eeb4a6f4/CTA-Graphics-for-Blogs-V02.01-14-1024x310.webp\")
Enterprise CIOs and VPs of technology face growing demands to scale their digital platforms. Gartner estimates that 2020 is the sink-or-swim year for mid- and large-sized enterprises—organizations with more than $250 million in annual revenue—to modernize their digital infrastructure.
\nScaling digital platforms can be a daunting task. It involves large-scale efforts to accommodate growing demands in online customer experience, data personalization, and a centralized identity infrastructure for your users. What’s more, these initiatives often rely on comprehensive upheavals to business and operating models.
\nBy 2020, businesses will have to develop new digital experiences and unique online services just to stay competitive, let alone to get ahead. Top companies across media, telecommunications, and financial industries feel pressure to increase market share and deliver more value to their customers. Executives know they can’t fall too far behind.
\n![](\"/62286922b2cee6cc348d181a4ee413bb/rawpixel-570911-unsplash-e1543257473342.webp\"){kind=tracking}
Additional Gartner data highlights the challenges that come with this changing landscape. Over half of all enterprises surveyed have less than expert-level capabilities for implementing or updating critical digital platforms, such as managing data systems for analytics and modernizing technology ecosystems to better serve users.
\nOnly about 34% of digital technologies are adequately optimized for enterprise businesses in all industries, but enterprise CEOs have identified, on average, a need to drive 11% of growth exclusively from “digital revenue.”
\nTackling this gap requires more than digital optimization. A full business transformation to create new digital services and business models are crucial, especially for customer retention.
\nImagine an online portal and an accompanying mobile app where customers have to log in at each new touchpoint, struggling to remember their passwords. Their customer journey is disjointed and impersonal. Many studies show that not only will customer engagement decrease but churn rates will gradually increase as well.
\n![](\"/76b7599830c5c607c3d07d2b02257012/damian-zaleski-843-unsplash.webp\")
So how can you make sure that your organization stays ahead of the curve with a business digital transformation when faced with resource challenges and competitor pressure?
\n1. Go beyond optimization to enterprise-level digital transformation.
\nBy 2022, just two years after Gartner’s sink-or-swim date, digital platform adoption will create new market leaders in roughly half of all industries.
\nSuccess in the face of such drastic, impending shifts hinges on the foresight of CIOs and tech VPs to build new revenue opportunities for their organizations. Simply enhancing previous technologies to improve productivity and customer experience will only safeguard bottom lines. A fully proactive solution also involves creating new revenue streams and transforming business model in the digital era.
\n2. Adopt low-risk third-party platforms.
\nWith third-party platforms, you can optimize resource efficiency and set yourself up for highly customizable solutions that can be applicable for new business-development opportunities across your digital brand. A flexible, cloud-based solution can offer out-of-the-box third-party integrations to meet user demands and build unified customer profiles.
\nBy investing in a cloud-based customer identity platform, for example, you can lay the foundation for a transformative digital business solution to simplify your operations while enabling scalability across markets and customer channels.
\n3. Identify what’s important to bring clarity to the task at hand.
\nStudies show that a digital identity strategy that enhances the registration experience, authenticates customers, and personalizes the user journey improves the bottom line, streamlines business processes, and ultimately delivers value.
\nSpecifically, roughly 80% of customers express frustration when their identity and data are lost when switching between channels. Almost as many will not do business with companies whose digital platforms aren’t tailored uniquely for them. Those statistics have nearly doubled in a few short years thanks to popular brands like Amazon, Netflix, Starbucks, and Uber. These providers continually improve their technologies to augment the digital experience for their customers and raise the “expectations game” across the board.
\nFocusing on a digital identity strategy will secure and enhance your online services at a broad level. By disrupting your technology landscape to rethink how your organization responds to trends like digital identity convergence, big data and analytics, and “device identity,” you can setup your enterprise business for success in the future.
\nBut what does this kind of digital identity strategy look like?
\n![](\"/e75ba5b47f7d82bd64df45b0587d089d/daniel-gzz-105307-unsplash.webp\")
In today’s globalized world, your customers are no longer merely customers when they access your digital services. Instead, they converge from multiple persona types:
\nIn the past, standalone, online-based revenue streams and information databases could coexist with little need for overlap, let alone integration. However, in today’s burgeoning digital-business ecosystem, you need a management tool for customer identity that recognizes multiple personas and links them to the same online identity.
\nAs more operational models among enterprise businesses encounter digital identities and the proliferating number of third-party platforms that host and support them, data and analytics needs become more complex. Companies must increasingly consider how they will:
\nA central, cloud-based solution to handle all of your customer identity needs can help consolidate the digital identities of your users, removing data silos throughout your whole digital ecosystem.
\n![](\"/75736fc0004a7fbaef153ac6c843343d/bence-boros-573486-unsplash.webp\")
With the emergence of the internet of things and myriad mobile devices on the market, taking advantage of identity-based opportunities around all of the devices and electronic items can make the difference in leading the pack among your competitors or constantly having to play catch-up.
\nWhatever the device and the customer’s need, your organization has to prepare for these expectations as they relate to a plethora of digital devices, now and into the future, if growth and sustainability are part of your enterprise’s long-term roadmap.
\n![](\"/9f6e28b61e3053571a0eaeb08ab6e8c3/heidi-sandstrom-173946-unsplash.webp\")
Planning for Gartner’s 2020 threshold for digital transformation need not be a daunting task after all. A B2C CIAM solution for your company is an example of a cloud-based, holistic solution to store, manage, and secure all of your customer data and identities.
\nA customer identity solution provides several benefits ranging from personalized user journeys and seamless SSO capabilities, serving as a strong starting point for a digital transformation strategy.
\nLook for a strong, enterprise-grade solution that offers secure data storage, data encryption, and superior uptime capabilities to easily access and maintain customer information. You’ll be able to protect your customers’ identity and ensure that your services always function reliably so you can scale your organization and stay ahead of market trends.
\nWith the right CIAM platform, for example, you can track your customer’s entire digital journey and integrate the data with marketing automation tools to cultivate your marketing and upselling campaigns directly within your own platforms. Plus, offering a coherent omnichannel experience via SSO means your customers can browse your digital service, shop online, interact with mobile-first content, and ask support questions on social media, all without having to re-authenticate themselves each time. Seizing on these benefits, you can eliminate data silos and create a single online identity for each one of your customers.
\nIf you’re interested in learning how a cloud-based CIAM solution can help your enterprise transform your digital infrastructure, download 4 Key Entry Points to a Digital Transformation. This e-book features case studies for each specific entry point to help you understand how a best-of-breed identity platform could provide value to you.
\n![](\"/2ef7af73eb28e239b8454d4b12c57446/4-key-entry-points-to-digital-transformation-1024x310.webp\"){kind=spacer}
Improving quality of life for citizens is at the heart of many municipal digital initiatives. Even so, city leaders often choose to focus on improving their technology infrastructure without considering citizen engagement.
\nA successful digital transformation can have many benefits for both citizens and municipalities. But if cities do not put the energy into improving their citizen engagement, they will struggle to truly transform their communities.
\nBy investing in a well-designed and implemented citizen-centric solution, municipalities can achieve the following benefits.
\n![](\"/1a646b5f77388415e2621a5d5cec5ca8/collaboration-colleagues-community-2.webp\")
Citizens want to engage with their local government. They want to be able to share their views and access channels to participate in the decisions of government, connect with representatives, and be assured that their input has meaning and relevance.
\nCitizens have been very vocal about these methods of engagement, so it should come as no surprise that communities are happiest when their citizens feel well-informed about the municipality's business and have opportunities to be part of policy formation.
\n![](\"/96aff7164972798b815b07b2ed7b0433/berlin-building-business-3.webp\")
The public has been demanding more transparency and accountability from government for years. These demands are prompting municipalities to change how they engage with the public.
\nEspecially in the era of media and \"fake news,\" it has never been more important for municipalities to have a direct way of engaging their citizens. Organizations need to ensure that the facts are correctly communicated, but also need to listen carefully to the public's voices.
\nMunicipalities need to have a direct line of engagement between themselves and the community instead of relying on the media to connect them. Otherwise, they will struggle to build trust. The more involved and accurately informed a community is, the more likely citizens will trust the institution that is engaging with them.
\n![](\"/ea0f43721710974145272e12366a302e/advice-advise-advisor-4.webp\")
Engaging the community to keep them better informed about what is going on will only help in the long run. For example, instead of spending too much time and resources on projects that are only going to get protested, why not get community input from the beginning? If citizens are more involved in the process, municipalities can reduce lengthy and expensive legal appeals as well.
\nMany municipalities are now undergoing digital transformations in order to improve transparency and communication. After all, with a more sophisticated digital ecosystem, you will be able to simplify how you interact with your citizens.
\nUndergoing a digital transformation, however, is just one of the much-needed steps. In order to truly engage your citizens, you need to know who they are. To learn who they are, you have to incorporate digital identity into your transformation.
\nHow does digital identity help with engagement? In our new e-book, we have listed the top 5 ways to improve your citizen engagement, which include creating a seamless digital service by unifying citizen services and identity, as well as improving your privacy and security efforts. You can check out the new e-book here. ![](\"/0a80e2261e1690438d02b5fb6d35513d/Ebook-thumb.webp\")
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