The Bandit project is a worldwide open source community that enables open yet secure enterprise computing. Bandit's components will create an environment where, verifiably, the right people get the right access to the right IT systems at the right time.

Bandit's current emphasis is in the following areas:

• Provide simple application access to multiple identity stores
• Support multiple and pluggable authentication methods to provide consistent application access
• Provide a simple application interface to unify system access based on roles
• Allow applications to easily participate in a common compliance system

Here at Bandit, you'll find a community of developers, end users, and other open source enthusiasts who all have the same goal in mind. We work together to create an Open Identity System. Please join this exciting effort and help shape the future of digital identities.

Why do Bandit?

To best explain why a project like Bandit is important compare it to what happened during the 1980s and the 1990s pertaining to the "Network Environment".

The "Network Environment" started with protocols and standards defined to enable applications and devices to better communicate and interoperate. During the 1980s there was an explosion of new protocols and standards in networking technologies. From these standards infrastructure or components were developed to support these standards. This infrastructure enables many networking applications to be developed. Some of these applications brought network usefulness to everyone and from it came the internet and a new way of communicating. All of these layers make up the "Network Environment" we know today.

We see the "Identity Environment" as starting very similarly. There is an explosion of protocols and standards dealing with identities. These range from authentication, access control, compliance, workflow, policy, storage, etc. From these protocols and standards we are seeing infrastructure that is being developed to support them. This is where Bandit fits in. We are trying to build a community that will build some of this infrastructure and provide it openly so that there is interoperability and collaboration in the "Identity Environment". From this infrastructure many applications will be written. There will be some applications that change peoples daily lives and define the "Identity Environment" of the future.