[OpenID] OpenID on TechCrunch forums

[Gavin Baumanis]

Good thoughts Chris,

I've come to the conclusion recently, that as a community, OpenID is
setting the bar pretty high for itself.
I'm constantly amazed, none the less, at how people manage to "step-up"
to that expectation.

It's a credit to all involved  - although perhaps this community is
perhaps a little "lucky" in that the SSO/authentication/identity is a
subject that reaches across pretty much every segment of life. The
general population is thirsty for education/information as it is - the
online community even more-so.

I see the identity space and the vision of "web 2.0" as a dynamic and
exciting forum. It doesn't take too long to realise the value of the
work being undertaken here. I realise I am a technologist - I love
technology (sometimes just for the sake of technology, but it's not just
the "geeks" that are seeing the value in identity on the internet.
Identity fraud is everywhere, online banking systems are warning their
users every session about it etc.

Just as people expect AJAX to be used during registration forms (to let
you know that the username you have chosen is already in use before you
post the form) - I think people will come to expect the ability of
asserting who they are with minimal work to be the "norm" too. People
are always looking for the "easier/quicker" alternative. Look at the
success of Google's "autofill" and recently Sxip's "Sxipper" product for
testimony of that fact.

Gavin Baumanis
RMIT University
Melbourne, Australia

>>> On Tuesday, January 09, 2007 at 06:14, in message
<1bc4603e0701081114q7dbba614o905c12d378290653 at mail.gmail.com>, "Chris
Messina"
<chris.messina at gmail.com> wrote:
> ...which ultimately should be part of determining who you use as
your
> OpenID provider.
> 
> Heck, SSO is coming. Right now, Yahoo, Microsoft and Google own all
> that data and choose whether to share it and with whom. This trend
is
> going to increase, not decrease.
> 
> Building businesses *on top* of OpenID will require, to some degree,
> this data to be stored and analyzed. There will be organzations that
> do good by their users in collecting it; others will betray their
> members. There may be policy governing these matters in the future,
> but I would prefer to build out proper and upstanding behavior
through
> community moral enforcement.
> 
> Now, what this does point to, however, is the need for documentation
> and guidance on choosing an iDP -- what to look for, what questions
to
> ask, how to ask them and what the answers mean. I was reading
through
> the Windows VISTA guidebook section on InfoCard -- and they
mentioned
> it in a such a simple, straightforward way as to obfuscate the
reality
> underpinning such a system w/r/t privacy and data ownership.
> 
> It's paramount to the adoption of OpenID that we have not just a
> better and more coherent story, but that we can explain why these
> issues are important and salient and then follow up with what people
> can do about it.
> 
> Chris
> 
> On 1/8/07, Paul Madsen <paulmadsen at rogers.com> wrote:
>> Providers will almost certainly *gather* this information, the
important
>> question is what they do with it, i.e. share, sell, aggregate.
>>
>> paul
>>
>> Bob Wyman wrote:
>> > One of the comments[1] to Sokullu and McManus' original post
called
>> > for OpenID sites to accept greater privacy guarantees than
currently
>> > provided.
>> >
>> > Specifically, the commenter is concerned that information about
the
>> > frequency of authentication at various sites. Stoicho asks: "How
can
>> > you trust a 3rd party [who] sees how frequent your users logged
in,
>> > how many users your application has?"
>> >
>> > Stoicho asks that sites make the following pledge: Is this
reasonable?
>> >
>> > "WE WILL NEVER EVER NEVER EVER GATHER ANY INFORMATION, REGARTHLESS
HOW
>> > MANY, OR HOW FREQUENT YOUR APPLICATION USERS USED THEIR OPENID
ACCOUNTS."
>> >
>> > bob wyman
>> >
>> > [1]
>> >
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/openid_vs_bigco.php#comment-8274

>> >
<http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/openid_vs_bigco.php#comment-8274>
>> >
>> >
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>>
>> --
>> Paul Madsen             e:paulmadsen @ ntt-at.com
>> NTT                     p:613-482-0432
>>                         m:613-302-1428
>>                         aim:PaulMdsn5
>>                         web:connectid.blogspot.com
>>
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