Identity 2.x = Good vs. Evil?

I was at an ISSA meeting yesterday in Minneapolis and the presentations I saw were all about identity. Identity of threats, identity of solutions, and identity. It also got me thinking about whether or not there are more players in the Identity Management space that we realize.

Bots, worms, viruses all have an identity. They (for the most part) are designed to negatively impact the proper operation of technology. Whether it's driven by ego, monetary gain, or revenge, they are out there and growing. To me the identity of these programs are the equivalent of identifying whether or not we're a girl or a boy, since you are typically one or the other (there are exceptions to both). The identity is typically that they are bad, not good.

The solutions that are designed to identify, detect, deter, and destroy are in most cases considered the 'good' since the good takes care of the bad a la Star Wars, Mission Impossible, or James Bond. This is their identity.

So does that mean that the companies deploying anti-virus, firewalls, IDS, IPS, etc. are an extension of identity - it's soul (Good or Evil) and that by extension they are in essence in the Identity Management space as well? The next layer of Identity Management being the physical establishment of the 3-D world's identity of people and machines. I'll have to noodle this around some more...

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