Filed under: Software, Security
Government / Military Mac users get PIV single sign-on from Thursby
Thursby Software is a longtime Mac development firm (since 1986) that has always had a mission: integrating Macs as full players in mixed-OS environments. While Mac OS X has gone a long way toward improving the situation of Mac users in predominantly Microsoft environments, there are still situations where third-party software may be required. Thursby's ADmitMac line of software is specifically designed to ease Mac integration into Microsoft Active Directory (AD) environments.Thursby's ADmitMac for PIV integrates US Government FIPS 201 Personal Identity Verification (PIV) with Macs. ADPIV, as the product is known, allows single sign-on with a PIV card. It verifies the PIV card against a centralized authority, obtains Kerberos tickets using PIV certificates and then makes those tickets available to Kerberized applications, and securely locks the Mac upon removal of the PIV card.
ADPIV also allows password-free access to Exchange servers by providing authentication to those servers. ADPIV is currently available at the introductory price of US$149, with discounts available for larger quantities.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
slaw_dawg said 4:28PM on 5-29-2009
Not to not pick too much, but we actually use a PKI certficate on what we call a CAC (common access card).
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colouroflight said 4:47PM on 5-29-2009
PIV?!
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merc669 said 6:15PM on 5-29-2009
Come on get your terms right. Getting old reading wrong or incorrect material. By the way, this was part of Apple OS at one time. But Apple has let this ball drop, which hurts them big time if they wish to get in the door of the DOD and other Govt Agencies. Get with the program and include PKI and Card Reader Support and get it right the first time...
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gnat said 11:24AM on 5-31-2009
I won't argue the "get it right the first time" bit, but 10.5 has reader support built in and it works just fine. The only issue i've had with the native support was that I got an Oberthur card when the DoD started moving over to them. Apple took a while to get that sorted out, but I can tell you that the Thursby solution in the mean time was buggy and conflicted badly with the Apple solution when it was released.
As far as getting their foot in the door. Again I won't argue that there is a lot more that Apple could do to make things easier, but they have more than just a foot in the door already both in the DoD and the Federal Government.
Mo said 6:06PM on 5-29-2009
ADmitMac for CAC and ADmit for PIV are two different products, for what it's worth.
No idea what the difference between CAC and PIV is, though - I've not read the relevant specs.
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Mo said 6:09PM on 5-29-2009
Ah, CAC is the DOD standard. PIV is the federal standard.
The specs look pretty similar, though.
kentawilson said 9:34PM on 5-29-2009
When I seen it I immediatley thought it was a CAC card. A card that I need to go and reset my PIN frequently.
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Dan said 9:14AM on 5-30-2009
It would be great if I could stick my CAC card in a Mac and do work at work rather than dealing with all the Windows junk that comes down the pipe...and we don't even have Vista yet.
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Roberto said 12:07PM on 5-31-2009
You should have blurred Mr Palmer bar scan code, to prevent any more TUAW readers to learn the private information encoded in it.
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