[OpenID] persistent, non-recycleable identifiers

[Andrew Arnott]

James,

You make a good point about using "=drummond" everyone eventually leading to
out-of-date identifiers.  But I think the biggest value to non-recycleable
persistent identifiers is the security that losing control of that
identifier cannot lead to someone else eventually spoofing your identity at
an RP.  That's *huge*.

The second most important value (IMO) of this is that after "=drummond" is
recycled, Drummond can still either log into the RP with his i-number, or
acquire a new recyclable identifier and attach it to his i-number and log in
with that.  I don't know how re-attaching a new i-name to an existing
i-number works, or even if it does today.  But it seems like a logical thing
to be able to do.

The convenient, but least important IMO, is what you bring up, James, which
is that others who recognize the i-name are still able to find the original
owner, even if that owner doesn't own that alias any more.  I don't know how
to make this work, but given the two earlier points, I think achieving the
first two without the third would still be hugely worthwhile.

--
Andrew Arnott
"I [may] not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death
your right to say it." - S. G. Tallentyre


On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 6:01 AM, Manger, James H <
James.H.Manger at team.telstra.com> wrote:

>  =Drummond,
>
>
>
> > In any case, I feel very very strongly that whatever OpenID v.next does
> about identifiers,
>
> > it MUST address the issue of consistent handling and mapping of
> persistent, non-recycleable identifiers and
>
> > non-persistent, reassignable human-friendly synonyms for those
> identifiers.
>
>
>
> A “persistent, non-recycleable identifier” (eg an i-number) sounds like a
> useful concept, but I am always struck by how much more useful “=drummond”
> seems to be than whatever your i-number happens to be.
>
>
>
> “=drummond” (eg an i-name) is supposed to be a “non-persistent,
> reassignable synonym” for your i-number. However, only your i-name appears
> in e-mails (like this thread), your blog domain name, web pages, and other
> online resources. If =drummond gets reassigned, these resources will not
> change so they become “wrong”. Having an i-number doesn’t seem to help here.
>
>
>
> Perhaps these are aspects of reputation, and perhaps reputation is a
> special case that needs human-friendly i-names not persistent i-numbers.
>
>
>
> I guess accounts at online service providers that use your i-number as the
> account id will “fail safely” if your i-name is reassigned. Even in this
> situation, though, it is not clear that non-recycleable identifiers are
> crucial. You can notify a service when your identifier changes, which just
> leaves the services you didn’t care enough about to notify that benefit from
> non-recycleable identifiers.
>
>
>
> Finally, if someone has let their non-persistent, reassignable synonym
> lapse, are they likely to be able to (securely) reclaim their persistent,
> non-recycleable identifier in the future? How do you prove you own an
> i-number (some time after you have stopped paying for an i-name that used to
> resolve to it)? I am not that familiar with i-number practises, but it
> sounds like an awkward business problem. Does the process for re-claiming a
> non-recycleable identifier (eg an i-number) become a little-known backdoor
> that can undermine the security of systems?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *James Manger*
>
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> general at lists.openid.net
> http://lists.openid.net/mailman/listinfo/openid-general
>
>
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