WebFinger at Google

[Paul E. Jones]

Santosh,

 

The identifier returned via Webfinger may or may not be the "claimed ID"
since it might be user-entered and not yet normalized.  However, I think a
rel value of

 

http://openid.net/identity

 

would still suffice for both normalized identifiers and those which are not
yet normalized.  The value really should be considered "user provided", in
my view.

 

Once the value is retrieved, I think it should be given treatment just like
any other ID entered into the OpenID login box.  Should a person be allowed
to enter an email address form and then return a different email address
form in the identity field, thus forcing another Webfinger lookup?  I can
see an opportunity for abuse there, so I'd prefer the disallow it, but I
could go with whatever is decided.

 

Paul

 

From: Santosh Rajan [mailto:santrajan at gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 6:28 AM
To: Paul E. Jones
Cc: webfinger at googlegroups.com; openid-specs at lists.openid.net
Subject: Re: WebFinger at Google

 

>From the OpenID perspective we have to see webfinger as a part of
"normalizing  the user supplied identifier". So the OpenID normalization
process would go something like this given a user supplied identifier. (I
will ignore XRI for simplicity)

1) Check to see if the identifier starts with http or https. If yes proceed
as per protocol.

2) If not check to see if the identifier has an "@" sign within the
identifier. If yes use webfinger to get the normalized identifier and
proceed.

3) If not add http to the identifier and proceed.

 

So really what webfinger returns is the normalized identifier, it is NOT yet
a "claimed id" nor is it a "Local id".

 

So I am suggesting one of these two rels.

"openid.normalizedID".

"http://specs.openid.net/auth/2.0/normalizedID".

On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 11:02 AM, Paul E. Jones <paulej at packetizer.com>
wrote:

Jared,


> It seems weird to return the user's OpenID identifier, when ultimately
> the OP Endpoint URL is what you need if you want to authenticate the
> user.  However, I think "http://specs.openid.net/auth/2.0/server"
> should have been used for the rel type, as it is actually defined by
> OpenID Authentication 2.0 spec for that purpose.

I don't think it's weird at all to use webfinger to return one's OpenID
identifier.  After all, Webfinger is intended to be a means of discovering
information about a person.  Once the identifier is learned, then the OP can
be discovered based on that ID.  Returning the OP URL without the user's
identifier is not as useful, since the OP would not know who is being
authenticated: it would then have to prompt the user for his identity.


> What is really needed is an agreed upon URI for what was the "http://
> specs.openid.net/auth/2.0/signon" type (which carried the user's
> OpenID URL in XRDS' LocalID element (which is gone from XRD)).

If the rel value is "http://openid.net/identity" and the href value
represents the user's OpenID identifier, then the RP knows what to do with
that.  I really think that's what we should try to agree upon.

This would minimize the additional effort an RP would have to make, just
adding a Webfinger resolution step and making no changes to the OpenID spec.
The RP might want to implement Webfinger, anyway, in order to discover
information about the user, such as his name, picture, or other information
he wants to share with the world.

Paul


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-- 
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