OpenID Mobile Profile?

Fri Jan 30 17:25:41 UTC 2009

http://xri.net/=wil

On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 11:54 AM, Breno de Medeiros <breno at google.com>wrote:

>
>
> 2009/1/30 Wil Tan <wil at dready.org>
>
>> I'm by no means familiar with the mobile market in Japan, but out of
>> interests I did spend some time researching it. To elaborate on Nat's
>> points:
>> As I understand it, a typical user interaction flow for mobile phone usage
>> in Japan goes like:
>>
>> 1. User browses the carrier deck, finds a site she's interested in, clicks
>> on the link.
>> 2. She is brought to the site, and can immediately be identified for all
>> future visits (i.e. logged in.) This is possible because the site knows that
>> the IP address belongs to the mobile carrier, and that it can trust the
>> subscriber/device ID in the HTTP headers.
>>
>> With OpenID comes additional features such as AX, but it is only usable,
>> or rather considered to be an acceptable user experience, if it doesn't add
>> too much to the flow above.
>>
>> In the OpenID scenario, we assume that she uses OpenID to authenticate to
>> the site (RP), the flow continues:
>>
>> 3. First of all, the user needs to input an OpenID URI
>>
>
> This step is the easiest to optimize away. The RP could detect that the
> client is of mobile type and the IP address the user is coming from. That
> would immediately disclose a start point for discovery of user's OP
> preferences, namely a location at the mobile carrier.
>
> Unfortunately, the browsers typically do not support javascript. Otherwise
> at this point, it would be sufficient to make an AJAX request to the
> well-known location to obtain the user's OP. Alternatively, the user would
> be redirected to the location and it would then further redirect the user to
> the user's OP. If the mobile carrier is the OP that last step would not be
> necessary.
>

Agreed, this step can be easily optimized as long as the RP has a way to
identify the user, via cookies or subscriber ID provided by the gateway.
It's at most a click of a button away.

This part shouldn't need to be in the profile.

>
>> 4. Due to the URL length restriction, RP will have to use POST, which
>> means she will have to wait for the HTML form to be downloaded, then click
>> on a button to submit it.
>>
>
> Since OpenID RP requests are not signed, an artifact profile could be
> simply be the URL where you can actually find the OpenID request.
>
>
>
>>  5. She'll have to authenticate at the OP site, which we assume is no-op
>> for the user assuming the OP uses the subscriber/device ID provided by the
>> carrier.
>>
>
> Just a bit latency delay.
>
>
>> 6. Upon successful authentication, the OP needs to again present at least
>> a submit button to POST the results back to the RP.
>>
>
> Adding an artifact here could work very similarly
>

Yes, 4 and 6 are candidates for consideration. The exact mechanism will need
to be hashed out.

The current OpenID protocol doesn't require the RP to accept connections
from the OP, which means that an RP could well be behind the firewall. It's
a nice property to have. Using artifact binding for step 6 is fine, but
doesn't step 4 require the OP to connect to the RP? I'm thinking something
like a reverse artifact resolution:

1. Upon discovering the OP endpoint, posts the request there.
2. OP responds with a URL containing an artifact.
3. RP redirects user to that URL at the OP
4. OP resolves the artifact and finds the request in #1.

>
>
>>
>> The URL restriction forces the use of POST, which costs 2 additional steps
>> for the user, not to mention the additional bandwidth, time and attention
>> overhead.
>>
>> It all boils down to providing a great mobile experience, which in turn
>> spurs adoption and innovation.
>>
>> =wil
>>
>> 2009/1/30 Nat Sakimura <sakimura at gmail.com>
>>
>> There are two issues involved.
>>>
>>> 1) URL length etc. limitations
>>> 2) User interface
>>>
>>> 1) has impact on 2).
>>>
>>> For instance, we want to avoid the users pressing buttons when
>>> redirecting.
>>> And, in many cases, we do not have javascript.
>>> This means we are left with GET and this URL length limitation becomes an
>>> issue.
>>>
>>> 2) cannot be solved globally because it could very well be somewhat
>>> dependent on
>>> the carrier implementation and handset capability.
>>> For most of the phones in Japan, we can get unique
>>> id for each handset at http level fairly securely so we can depend on it
>>> to
>>> avoid any typing (not even username etc.). This was one of the factor why
>>>
>>> m-commerce got so popular in Japan.
>>>
>>> In many other markets, e.g., the U.S., this is not granted. Thus, some
>>> other means
>>> are required. I know, WIl Tan of Maleysia is working something on iPhone
>>> in this regard.
>>> Essentially, it needs to be solved per carrier or per handset class
>>> (e.g., mid-p enabled phones, etc.), I think.
>>>
>>> =nat
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 2:56 PM, Johannes Ernst <jernst+openid.net@
>>> netmesh.us> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Are you talking about URL length limitations for the identifiers that
>>>> users need to enter, or for URLs that are being sent around as part of the
>>>> protocol?
>>>> IMHO the most important question to ask for mobile devices is: can we do
>>>> without "typing" anything?
>>>>
>>>> On Jan 29, 2009, at 16:56, Nat Sakimura wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi.
>>>>
>>>> Are there poeple who are interested in discussing OpenID Mobile profile
>>>> sort of thing?
>>>> Mobile phones has unique challenges of being restricted in URL length
>>>> etc.
>>>> OpenID as it stands now has very lengthy URLs in both requests and
>>>> responses and it sometimes does not fit into the restrictions.
>>>> SAML world has defined artifact binding to cope with it. IMHO, OpenID
>>>> should define something like that also.
>>>>
>>>> In Japan, there are bunch of people (including mobile carriers) who
>>>> wants to do it.
>>>>
>>>> Are there interest here as well?
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Nat Sakimura (=nat)
>>>> http://www.sakimura.org/en/
>>>>  _______________________________________________
>>>> specs mailing list
>>>> specs at openid.net
>>>> http://openid.net/mailman/listinfo/specs
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Nat Sakimura (=nat)
>>> http://www.sakimura.org/en/
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> specs at openid.net
>>> http://openid.net/mailman/listinfo/specs
>>>
>>>
>>
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>>
>
>
> --
> --Breno
>
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=wil
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