[OpenID] OpenID based on email addresses... Just Works!

Steven Livingstone-Perez weblivz at hotmail.com
Thu Oct 30 16:06:28 UTC 2008


He he - my mum *still* calls it that (sometimes she says "Google") and I
agree we need to think of these people.

 

And latching onto the other localization thread, if she were to use "the
email" in Spain and used an OpenID that wasn't localized she's switch off
the computer.

 

This kind of user doesn't care whether things are technically beautiful or
not - they just want the experience.

 

From: David Fuelling [mailto:sappenin at gmail.com] 
Sent: 30 October 2008 15:55
To: Martin Atkins
Cc: Steven Livingstone-Perez; OpenID List
Subject: Re: [OpenID] OpenID based on email addresses... Just Works!

 

On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 3:37 PM, Martin Atkins <mart at degeneration.co.uk>
wrote:

David Fuelling wrote:


I agree.  It may not be a good assumption, but my impression is that my
OpenID (http://openid.sappenin.com) is going to be "under my control" and
"appropriate to use" for a much longer time than my common email addresses
(something at gmail.com <mailto:something at gmail.com>, somethingelse at yahoo.com
<mailto:somethingelse at yahoo.com>, personal at sappenin.com
<mailto:personal at sappenin.com>, etc) because it makes sense to use different
email addresses throughout my day, year, and life -- whereas I forsee being
able to use the same OpenID URL forever (as long as sappenin.com
<http://sappenin.com> is around, at least).  In my opinion, one more reason
(user convenience) to just map an email address to an OpenID (XRI or URL).


That sounds more like an argument for you to use http://sappenin.com/ as
your identifier instead of an email address.

If you want to use a HTTP URL for your identifier, just enter that URL into
the RP directly!


For me, an internet-savvy, genius technology person (tongue-in-cheek),
you're right.  I know what it means to use the URL, and I do.  However, my
grandmother, who's a little bit less tech-savvy (she still calls the
Internet "email"), she has no idea that she should be using a URL, let alone
what the distinction is.  We need to be thinking about these people, and
about their future freedoms.  Like it or not, people are going to be using
email addresses as their primary identifier -- as the designers of this
stuff, we need to plan ahead and add flexibility for them ahead of time.

<joking>This is about our children, and our children's children, and about
getting people to stop calling the Internet: "the email"</joking>

David

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