Olds said that previous attempts at interoperability have been premised too much on one set of protocols by groups like the Liberty Alliance "winning out" over others.

"It was kind of 'If only we could get everyone to adopt these protocols!'" Olds said.

The open-source nature of the Higgins and Bandit integration and a critical mass of CardSpace users may finally overcome those obstacles, however.

"This is an evolutionary approach," said Olds. "We all have 100 user accounts. With Higgins and Bandit and open-source technologies, maybe we'll get it so it's more manageable and we're down to 50 user accounts in a year, and we'll be better off. "