Recently i entered windows control panel to uninstall a package, and noticed a "Digital Identities" entry.
It seemed a novelty, and i wondered what the heck was that. I keep my machine fairly update, but i do all the updates manually and i never noticed choosing to install such thing.
According to the applet, it is something that allow us to create personal cards to avoid entering information and passwords manually on websites.
Maybe this is part of the new Infocard infrastructure, i fired the applet and it doesn't seem like Microsoft's work. It is fairly amateurish. :-)
The help has errors and the applet itself has serious typos
The create new card states action:
"Provider Cards are issue by third parties, such as backs, membership organizations, and amjor websites....."
I normally don't even notice such things, but this is such a blatant type, that even i noticed. I surely don't trust my money with a back nor i frequently visit amjor websites. :-)
The help (a single screen, i wouldn't call it help), is badly and a CHM markup is visible.
I've been googling like crazy to find if this is spyware,a trojan or whatever, with this evidence i was starting to become worried. I do all my browsing with firefox, and i rarely use IE for browsing the internet (and i've never had a spyware infection, and the last time i got a virus i was still running DOS :-)). Although an email trojan hipothesis couldn't be discarded. :-(
According to this it may have been installed with WinFX (but i don't have infocard service installed)
The control panel icon, is consistent with this post, but the screens are not the same. The applet border is the same, and it seems to "darken" all other windows (and it seems to also have the modal behaviour i get).
It is not that i'm a paranoid guy or a fan of conspiracy theories (even if you are not paranoid, it doesn't mean they are not trying to get you :-)), but i'm fairly carefull with the things that get installed, and this seemed highly suspicious (the typos are really amateurish and it seemed the work of a rather incompetent phisher :-)). But this link from Kim Kameron, left me more assured, it seems to be from Microsoft.
Not sure how it got installed though, probably when i installed Service Bat some weeks ago.
Only haven't found, the location of the executable that is responsable for the applet. Still googling to see where i can find the location of a control panel applet. Seing who is responsable for the UI, would put my (last) doubts to rest. :-)