September 2026 - Advisors - list.chattanooga.digital

Meeting about IAM options and evaluation process, Wednesday, September 16, noon
by Greg Laudeman Sept. 9, 2026

Sept. 9, 2026

Based on your (limited) input, the best time to meet about how to evaluate software and options for identity and access management (IAM) is Wednesday, September 16, at noon. Let me know if you want to attend but that will not work for you. We will meet online at https://cloud.chattanooga.digital/call/x3qmvkf6. An calendar file with the link included is attached. Here's a prelim agenda: 1. Background and introductions 2. IAM business rationale and functional requirements * Discussion 3. IAM options overview 4. Software evaluation criteria, process, and tool (maybe a Nextcloud table!) * Discussion * Task force or working group? 5. Action items and next steps That's a lot to cover in 30 minutes, so we may go a little long. The goal is just to get the process started. Let me know of any other topics to cover or questions you may have. If anyone wants to work on any of the above prior to the meeting, that would be great! -- Greg Laudeman, Ed.D., Instigator Chattanooga.Digital <https://chattanooga.digital/> greg(a)chattanooga.digital <mailto:greg.laudeman@chattanooga.digital> 706-271-5521

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Cloud.Chattanooga.Digital is our space online!
by Greg Laudeman Sept. 9, 2026

Sept. 9, 2026

As a pilot member of Chattanooga.Digital you have access to our new Nextcloud instance: Cloud.Chattanooga.Digital <https://cloud.chattanooga.digital>! It gives us a way to collaborate, communicate, store and share files, and more online, along with your private space. You should have received an invitation to set a password in the last few days. If not, check your junk mail folder. If it's there, please mark it as "not junk." If not, let us know and we will resend it. There are numerous applications that can be accessed via Nextcloud. Our instance has ones that are oriented to running Chattanooga.Digital that you can use them for your own purposes: * *Files* *and Photos* – your personal spaces to store and share files and photo. Files have version tracking and recycle bin. Photos and videos can be assembled in albums and shared. * *Talk –* meet online or text chat with others in the browser... or use the Talk app on your computer or phone! We will use this for coop meetings. * *Office* – create and collaborate on diagrams, documents, spreadsheets, and slides directly in the browser. There's also a whiteboard! * *Calendar and a**ppointments* – personal and shared calendars and an app for others to schedule time with you. * *Contacts* – a directory for the coop with member profiles; you control what others see. * *Mail* – use Nextcloud to read your email (email account not included). * *Deck* – basic issue/task tracking with Gantt or kanban views. We're using this to coordinate work on the coop. * *Collectives* – shared pages for notes and documentation that outlive a chat thread, basically a wiki. * *Forms, Polls, and Tables* – tools for gathering and managing structured data. All of this is open source software that we own, running on servers that we control. Your apps and data are YOURS! It is just one of the apps Chattanooga.Digital will provide to members. No giant tech companies involved! We are still figuring out how to manage and use Nextcloud, including what apps to provide to everyone. At this stage we are getting our systems set up, looking for folks who want to be community builders and tech facilitators, and planning to establish the coop as a separate corporation early next year. Any help or input you might provide will be greatly appreciated! Specifically, as mentioned in other emails... and I'll send a separate one... we are establishing a software evaluation process and evaluating identity and access management (IAM) software in the process. IAM will give members single sign-on to Nextcloud and multiple other apps and provide a digital identity to log into other services without giving your data to tech companies. As we move past the pilot phase, the plan is to establish shared Nextcloud instances for individual members (personal use) and organizational members (business/work use) and provide private Nextcloud instances for an additional fee. Your accounts will be migrated to the new instances if you want to keep using Nextcloud. Let us know what you think! -- Greg Laudeman, Ed.D., Instigator Chattanooga.Digital <https://chattanooga.digital/> greg(a)chattanooga.digital <mailto:greg.laudeman@chattanooga.digital> 706-271-5521

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FOSS Evaluation and IAM/IdP
by Greg Laudeman Sept. 3, 2026

Sept. 3, 2026

Who would be willing help evaluate software for members and/or use for internal purposes? We also need some standard practices, procedures, and tools for this purpose. There are lots of informative resources for using FOSS as components in other projects, which is not exactly right for Chattanooga.Digital since we primarily deploy off-the-shelf FOSS (although one aspect of this is how to evaluate custom or special purpose apps for members, which would be a fee-based service). The "grand-daddy" seems to be https://dwheeler.com/oss_fs_eval.html from 2011. The author includes lots of good resources although a few seem to be outdated. The Concise Guide for Evaluating Open Source Software <https://best.openssf.org/Concise-Guide-for-Evaluating-Open-Source-Software.…> by the Open Source Security Foundation is really good. Another one I like is https://leaddev.com/software-quality/12-things-consider-when-assessing-open… because it seems practical and thorough. Let's combine key elements from these to create a review protocol and scoresheet. At the same time, we need to look at identify and access management (IAM) software. I suggest we use this to hammer out the process, etc. The key missing element with the frameworks is "why." What is the purpose for and requirements of the software? A related element is the user, specifically the "sponsor" that requires the software. For IAM, the sponsor is us, the cooperative, including all members. The basic purpose, as the term implies, is to manage members' access to resources, including and via a digital identity. Our digital identities are a collection of attributes, credentials, data, and devices that represent us. As mentioned in a prior email, the fundamental purpose of Chattanooga.Digital is to give members complete control and full ownership of our digital assets, including our digital identities. More practically, we need: * Authentication via passkeys, passwords, and other factors for single sign-on to as many of our apps/systems as possible. * Authorization for access to apps, data, files, etc., with permissions in various roles. * Automation of user account management as needs for authentication and authorization change. * Governance and monitoring of access, including all of the above, for accounting, compliance, planning, and security purposes. * Via standard methods and protocols: OAuth, OIDC, SAML, etc. Beyond that, we need to position Chattanooga.Digital as a digital identity provider (IdP) for members to access other systems and own data about that access. The main things about this is (a) complementing/replacing centralized digital IDs (b) with a trusted source and (c) supporting decentralized self-sovereign IDs. See https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/access-management/what-is-an-identity-p…, https://www.corbado.com/blog/digital-identity-guide, and https://www.imperva.com/learn/data-security/identity-providers-idps/ for background on this. Please chime in with your thoughts about evaluation approach, methods, process, etc., and how to apply all of that to IAM. Thanks! -- GL

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Greg Laudeman has updated a proposed meeting
by Greg Laudeman Sept. 3, 2026

Sept. 3, 2026

Dear advisors(a)list.chattanooga.digital, a proposed meeting has been updated Respond: https://cloud.chattanooga.digital/apps/calendar/proposal/1243152f20028df485… * Discuss approach to OSS evaluation focusing on IAM services; establish a plan (Description:) * Talk conversation (Location:) * 30 minutes (Duration:) * September 14, 2026 from 12:00 PM to 12:30 PM September 14, 2026 from 5:00 PM to 5:30 PM September 15, 2026 from 12:00 PM to 12:30 PM September 15, 2026 from 5:00 PM to 5:30 PM September 16, 2026 from 12:00 PM to 12:30 PM September 16, 2026 from 5:00 PM to 5:30 PM September 17, 2026 from 12:00 PM to 12:30 PM September 17, 2026 from 5:00 PM to 5:30 PM September 18, 2026 from 12:00 PM to 12:30 PM September 18, 2026 from 5:00 PM to 5:30 PM (America/New_York) (Dates:) -- Nextcloud - a safe home for all your data This is an automatically sent email, please do not reply.

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Greg Laudeman has updated a proposed meeting
by Greg Laudeman Sept. 2, 2026

Sept. 2, 2026

Dear advisors(a)list.chattanooga.digital, a proposed meeting has been updated Respond: https://cloud.chattanooga.digital/apps/calendar/proposal/1243152f20028df485… * Discuss approach to OSS evaluation focusing on IAM services; establish a plan (Description:) * Talk conversation (Location:) * 30 minutes (Duration:) * September 4, 2026 from 12:00 PM to 12:30 PM September 4, 2026 from 5:00 PM to 5:30 PM September 8, 2026 from 12:00 PM to 12:30 PM September 8, 2026 from 5:00 PM to 5:30 PM September 9, 2026 from 12:00 PM to 12:30 PM September 9, 2026 from 5:00 PM to 5:30 PM September 10, 2026 from 12:00 PM to 12:30 PM September 10, 2026 from 5:00 PM to 5:30 PM September 11, 2026 from 12:00 PM to 12:30 PM September 11, 2026 from 5:00 PM to 5:30 PM (America/New_York) (Dates:) -- Nextcloud - a safe home for all your data This is an automatically sent email, please do not reply.

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Greg Laudeman has proposed a meeting
by Greg Laudeman Sept. 2, 2026

Sept. 2, 2026

Dear advisors(a)list.chattanooga.digital, a new meeting has been proposed Respond: https://cloud.chattanooga.digital/apps/calendar/proposal/1243152f20028df485… * Discuss approach to OSS evaluation focusing on IAM services; establish a plan (Description:) * Talk conversation (Location:) * 30 minutes (Duration:) * September 4, 2026 from 12:00 PM to 12:30 PM September 4, 2026 from 5:00 PM to 5:30 PM September 8, 2026 from 12:00 PM to 12:30 PM September 8, 2026 from 5:00 PM to 5:30 PM September 9, 2026 from 12:00 PM to 12:30 PM September 9, 2026 from 5:00 PM to 5:30 PM September 10, 2026 from 12:00 PM to 12:30 PM September 10, 2026 from 5:00 PM to 5:30 PM September 11, 2026 from 12:00 PM to 12:30 PM September 11, 2026 from 5:00 PM to 5:30 PM (America/New_York) (Dates:) -- Nextcloud - a safe home for all your data This is an automatically sent email, please do not reply.

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