[OpenID] Purpose of OpenID Foundation and the Elections

Jack Cleaver jack at jackpot.uk.net
Fri Dec 12 19:32:13 UTC 2008


Eran Hammer-Lahav wrote:
> 
> What makes OpenID a much more difficult sale than credit cards is the
>  user interface. With a card, you pull a standard size plastic out of
>  your wallet and show it. Most people don't really pay attention to 
> the "We accept" signs anymore. If the card is accepted or not, a 
> person on the other side lets you know. But with OpenID, there isn't 
> (yet) such an experience where you "show you OpenID" and the site 
> tells you if it is accepted. In addition, most sites will not even 
> understand what it is you are showing them, but people in a store 
> that does not accept AMEX still know what it is and why you pulled it
>  out of your wallet (and they are prepared to say, "no, but we accept
>  MC").

That raises an interesting (and tangential) question, ISTM.

Imagine that you *could* just whip your OpenID out at any
(likely-looking) website, in the expectation that (like AMEX) even if it
were not acceptable, people would at least know what it was. As far as I
can see, with OpenID that is technically impossible. There is no way to
distinguish an OpenID email identifier from an ordinary email address,
no way to distinguish an OpenID URL from any other URL, and no way to
distinguish an XRI used as an OpenID identifier from a vanilla XRI.

Perhaps an OpenID URI-scheme should be reconsidered? Oh well, too late I
guess.

-- 
Jack.





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