The Shibboleth Project, sponsored by Internet2, is a brilliant solution to “Who am I? Who are you?” web-of-trust issues in the academic environment.
It is a digital ivory tower if you will, allowing certain inter-campus alliances to thrive without having to worry about the riff-raff.
Definitions of shibboleth on the Web:
Language usage indicative of one’s regional and/or social origins used to identify members of one’s own or of another group. Borrowed from Biblical Hebrew; refers to the story in the Book of Judges 12:5-6 in which shibboleth was used by the Gileadites as a password to identify the Ephraimites by their dialectal pronunciation.
www.csa.com/hottopics/ebonics/gloss.php
1. a distinctive or peculiar use of some aspect of speech that identifies a social group. 2. an old slogan, catchword, or common saying that has lost meaning or relevance, as “You’re the cat’s pajamas” from the 1920s.
www.nde.state.ne.us/READ/FRAMEWORK/glossary/general_p-t.html
A unique pronunciation, word, behavior, or practice used to distinguish one group of people from another, and to identify individuals as either members of the group or outsiders. A saying that is strongly used by members of a group and regarded as meaningless, unimportant or misguided by outsiders. A belief that is widely held but interferes with the ability to speak or think about things without preconception.
www.thepeacefulplanet.com/glossary.html
Shibboleth is the name of an Internet2 research project into a federated identity-based authentication and authorization infrastructure based on SAML.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth_(Internet2)
The Hebrew word shibboleth literally means “ear of wheat”. In the Bible, pronunciation of this word was used to distinguish members of a group whose dialect lacked a “sh” sound from members of a group whose dialect included such a sound. The consequences of getting it wrong were fatal: Today, “shibboleth” refers to words and phrases that can be used in a similar way—to distinguish members of a group from outsiders. The word is also sometimes used in a broader sense to mean specialized jarg
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth
