[OpenID] OpenID + Government

[J. Trent Adams]

All -

The event went well, and was good to see OpenID, InfoCard, Kantara, and
InCommon working together with Protivity on behalf of the GSA/ICAM
initiative.

While the combined representatives were well-prepared for most questions
raised, there were a couple of sticking points that would be good to
focus some energy on moving forward:

 1. Protection against unintended self-exposure.
 2. Protection against masquerading.
 3. Usability issues relating to LOA 1 vs LOA > 1

Since there's not a lot that the technology can really do with the first
issue, it might make sense to focus on how the TFP applicants could
address this issue during accreditation.  Similarly dodgey is
masquerading, though there might be a creative way to layer in an
assertion of one's identity should they wish to publicly claim it.  I
believe Chris Louden will be taking these points back to his group, but
if anyone has suggestions I'm sure they'd be well accepted.

More prosaically, we all know about the usability issues.  To date,
though, we've been focused primarily on how to improve adoption/use of
OpenID in isolation.  The concerns raised in the room were more akin to
how users can be guided along their interactions when they need to shift
from OpenID to something with a higher LOA (when the discussions move in
that direction).  This was a heated topic with no clear path for
resolution in the meeting.

Finally, it was interesting to note that Protivity is only recommending
that OpenID 2.0 be supported in conjunction with this project.  Perhaps
adoption of 2.0 will be spurred on by this requirement.

Cheers,
Trent


Chris Messina wrote:
> Well, I think the newscycles were tapped out with Facebook acquiring
> FriendFeed and launching real-time search as well as Google launched a
> new version of their search engine, but there was an important meeting
> in Washington today and ReadWriteWeb got the story:
>
> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/us_government_reviewing_openid_to_log_in_to_some_g.php
>
> Chris
>
> -- 
> Chris Messina
> Open Web Advocate
>
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-- 
J. Trent Adams
=jtrentadams

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