OpenID V.Next - Some Views to Consider

Fri May 14 03:12:08 UTC 2010

John,

The XRD document (from WebFinger) would merely specify the current OpenID
2.0 URI as the claimed_id.  There is work to perform the WebFinger
resolution, but I think WebFinger is going to be widely supported and it's
certainly trivial.

Once the Webfinger query is performed, the rest is precisely as specified in
OpenID 2.0.  So, the only additional complexity I'm proposing is the
addition of WebFinger.

Requiring RPs and OPs to understand both OpenID 2.0 and a completely
different OpenID 3.0 seems like a lot more work to me.  With what I'm
suggesting, the current URI continues to be used as it is, but the end user
utilizes an email-style address.

Further, using Webfinger also allows one to specify an OpenID URI (if one so
chose) that points to a different service provider than the one that
provides email services.  I doubt most users would do this, as I suspect
most would just use their email provider.  But, anybody setting up their own
hosting account would likely want to refer to a third-party OP.  So, the
flexibility offered by Webfinger is nice.

What I'd really like is "the best of all worlds".  I want to minimize the
changes to existing RP and OP software, allow users to use email-style
addresses, and allow users to specify their OP independently of their email
provider.  I think Webfinger + OpenID 2.0 does those things.

Paul

From: John Bradley [mailto:john.bradley at wingaa.com] 
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2010 10:55 PM
To: Paul E. Jones
Cc: 'Santosh Rajan'; openid-specs at lists.openid.net
Subject: Re: OpenID V.Next - Some Views to Consider

Having the XRD point to a XRDS is possible but would greatly complicate the
discovery process.

It also entrenches the problem of having to put the OP parameters in every
XRDS.

I don't think that is likely to be accepted.

It is expected that OP would continue providing service via openID 2.0
perhaps dropping 1.1 due to security issues.   

Where a OP is providing openID 2.0 and v.Next services I can see an argument
for using http: URL for claimedID as that lets a openID 2.0 RP migrate
without changing  claimed ID.    However if a OP is v.Next only it may be
reasonable or them to use acct: or other URI schemes.

That will have to be decided by the committee.  

My belief is that option should be under the control of the user or OP not
mandated by the spec.   Certainly for openID 2.0  a http: scheme URI needs
to continue to be supported.

John B.

On 2010-05-13, at 10:31 PM, Paul E. Jones wrote:

John,

To your first part:

I very much like the idea of being able to use an email-form of 'identifier'
when logging into a site, but I would prefer to enable that while also
maintaining compatibility with OpenID 2.0.  That is, use only those
identifiers specified in the current 2.0 spec.

As I'm not involved in the WG itself, I guess I fall into the category of
those in the public interested in having an open/free solution.  At the same
time, I'd like an open/free solution that is not fragmented by multiple
versions that do not work properly from site to site due to a decision to
break backward-compatibility.  I'm really bothered about that decision, as I
just don't think OpenID 2.0 is that hard to implement.  Further, extending
OpenID through artifact binding and using WebFinger should help keep the
base spec simple.  The WebFinger addition would likely be code used for a
variety of purposes and would execute as a step before current OpenID RP
code kicks in.  The artifact binding appears to be a logical and clean way
to exchange a lot more information, all of which is optional.

To the second part:

Step 6 could refer to the OpenID Provider, but if that value was the OpenID
URI used today, then the provider can be derived as it is done today: no
changes to current OpenID RP code.  I suppose it could be either way and it
does not matter a whole lot, but having the claimed ID there would at least
save the user a step since the RP would be able to present that claimed ID
to the OP.  Thus, I would not have to re-key my identity.  The OP could
display a friendlier form of identity, too.  On my own server, I don't ask
for or display the entire URL when logging in, just 'paulej'.  I keep the
URI complexity out of my face.

Paul

From: John Bradley [mailto:john.bradley at wingaa.com] 
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2010 2:40 PM
To: Paul E. Jones
Cc: 'Santosh Rajan'; openid-specs at lists.openid.net
Subject: Re: OpenID V.Next - Some Views to Consider

Paul,

I am going to split my answer into two parts.

The focus of this discussion needs to be on the charter of the Discovery WG
and it;s scope.

The specs list is a way for people to comment on the charter.   The work
will be done on a separate mailing list subject to the OIDF IPR policy.

We want the results of the spec process to be open and free of patent issues
especially from the participants.

People participating in the Discovery work will agree to contribute any IPR
they hold with respect to the final output.

Discussions on this list provide no IPR protection for the community. 

I think we have determined that we want the charter to allow exploring the
inclusion of non http:  identifiers as input to the discovery process.

An example of that would be the acct: URI used by webfinger.     That is
consideration not a guaranteed inclusion,  this is only the charter scope.

This discussion got onto the topic of allowing non http: URI as claimed ID.
Should the scope of the charter include considering that. as an option.

I think some people have interpreted your comments as wanting the charter to
restrict claimed_id to only http: scheme URI.

I think Santosh and others want the WG to consider allowing that.

If you are in agreement with allowing that in the scope of the WG charter
then I think we can close that part of the discussion.

That is only saying it can be considered not that it will be included in the
final spec.

The Second part of my answer is that you are close.

Step 6 is a URI for the openID service not the users claimed_id as it has
been discussed to my knowledge.

That is part of what the WG needs to decide.   

That link will need a discovery step to get the parameters for the OP.

There may be elements defined for the XRD that indicate what the localID or
alias is at the OP and other overrides for delegation.

That will be up to the Discovery WG to determine.

Regards

John B.

On 2010-05-13, at 12:00 PM, Paul E. Jones wrote:

John,

Perhaps we need to walk through this so that I don't get confused.

I had assumed it would work this way:

1) I enter paulej at packetizer.com into the RP's login window

2) The RP would assume this is acct:paulej at packetizer.com

3) The RP would query http://www.packetizer.com/.well-known/host-meta to get
an XRD document that contains an lrdd link relation with, for example, an
href="http://www.packetizer.com/lrdd/?uri={uri}
<http://www.packetizer.com/lrdd/?uri=%7buri%7d> "

4) The RP would then query the LRDD link with the acct: URI

5) The would return another XRD document with a <Subject> of
acct:paulej at packetizer.com, and a <Link> with a link relation value of
"openid" (or whatever the group wants to define)

6) The href associated with the above <Link> would be the user's claimed ID.

At this point, the RP has an OpenID claimed ID, just as if the user had
entered that value into the current OpenID login box to begin with.

BTW, all of this is functioning on my site now if you want to actually issue
queries to see the results.  It's not being used for anything right now, but
I implemented it just for the heck of it :-)

So, if you're suggesting the mapping from paulej at packetizer.com to claimed
ID would work differently, what steps are you proposing to be taken?

Paul

From: John Bradley [mailto:john.bradley at wingaa.com] 
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2010 11:25 AM
To: Paul E. Jones
Cc: 'Santosh Rajan'; openid-specs at lists.openid.net
Subject: Re: OpenID V.Next - Some Views to Consider

The openID link relation is to your openID service eg Google not your
claimed_id.

The <Subject> of the XRD is the name of the thing you are looking up.

If you input paulej at packetizer.com into a LRDD resolution process and use
webfinger for normalization you will get a XRD.

That XRD may have the <Subject>  http://openid.packetizer.com/paulej 

That would be up to you or your OP to decide.  

I think Santosh wants to allow you the option of having
acct:paulej at packetizer.com as the subject of the XRD.

This leads to questions about what the core protocol is validating.  Is it
the claimed_id or the openid.identity.  

Do we need both,  is delegation supported, and if so how, etc.

I think the WG needs to consider what impact having non http/https URI as
claimed ID has on the overall protocol.

I don't want to restrict the WG from considering the issue via the charter.

John B.

On 2010-05-13, at 10:51 AM, Paul E. Jones wrote:

Santosh,

The subject of paulej at packetizer.com is what?

If that can be assumed to be acct:paulej at packetizer.com, then when WebFinger
is employed, the Subject of the XRD document is acct:paulej at packetizer.com.
That's not what I want.

Inside the XRD document should be a link like this:

<Link rel="openid" href="http://openid.packetizer.com/paulej"/>

The link relation value is still subject to debate, but that's what I think
we should use to identify the claimed ID.

Paul

From: openid-specs-bounces at lists.openid.net
[mailto:openid-specs-bounces at lists.openid.net] On Behalf Of Santosh Rajan
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2010 1:50 AM
To: John Bradley
Cc: openid-specs at lists.openid.net
Subject: Re: OpenID V.Next - Some Views to Consider

I will vote for the Subject of the XRD to be the claimed_id. It only seems
natural, and clean to do that. 

On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 3:17 AM, John Bradley <john.bradley at wingaa.com>
wrote:

So if openID supports LRDD then normalization rules for Acct: and other URI
schemes could be specified so that they to can be resolved to a XRD.

The question will be for the core protocol what to use as the claimed_id.   

There are three schools of thought.

1 The normalized input identifier

2 The Subject of the XRD

3 The claimed_id that the OP returns.

There are arguments to be made for all three.

I expect this to be addressed in the WG.

On 2010-05-12, at 12:34 PM, Santosh Rajan wrote:

Starting a new thread here based on an earlier one quoted below.

Let us reconsider the definition of OpenID for V.next. I would like to see a
new definition for OpenID.

"An OpenID is Any Valid URI that can be resolved to it's Descriptor".

Now let me give a little explanation on the above, with a few points.

1) Existing OpenID's version 1 and 2 are compatible with the above
definition. (http(s) OpenId's version 1 and 2 do resolve to their
descriptor's)

2) Email like identifiers are compatible with the above definition with the
webfinger protocol, and ofcourse resolve to their descriptor's.

Now any other future protocol that can make its URI resolvable to a
descriptor, will also be a Valid OpenID. Let me give an example.

According to the above definition we can make "tag URI's" valid OpenID's, as
long as we have a protocol to resolve this URI to its's descriptor.

tag:user at example.com <mailto:tag%3Auser at example.com> ,2007-11-02:Tag_URI

Now as far as I am concerned tag URI's are even better as OpenID's, because
they are unique over space and time.

Webfinger support for tag URI's anyone? :-)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Paul E. Jones <paulej at packetizer.com>
Date: Wed, May 12, 2010 at 8:11 AM
Subject: RE: Draft charter for v.Next Attributes working group
To: Santosh Rajan <santrajan at gmail.com>
Cc: Mike Jones <Michael.Jones at microsoft.com>, jsmarr at stanfordalumni.org,
openid-specs at lists.openid.net, tech-comm at openid.net

Santosh,

Why not store the claimed ID in the webfinger (LRDD) XRD document?

The objective, I would hope, is to make it easier to log into web sites.
Email-style identifiers make that easier, but the system does not have to be
built around those.

So, I sign up with a service provider.  Let's just use my own site as an
example.  I am assigned an email address paulej at packetizer.com.  Behind the
scenes, I am also assign an OpenID ID http://openid.packetizer.com/paulej.
Now, when I visit a web site, I can type 'paulej at packetizer.com' and the
site can perform a webfinger query to discovery by OpenID ID.  We would
define a link relation (something we've talked about before) that represents
openid.  It could be http://openid.net/identity or it could be simply
"openid" (since link relations need not be URIs).  Looking at the href of
the "openid" link relation, one would find my OpenID
URIhttp://openid.packetizer.com/paulej.

Now, should I wish to have a different email provider than my openid
provider, that's fine: I could change the record associated with the openid
link relation to contain a different OpenID identifier.  Alternatively, I
could just get an account at someopenidop.com <http://someopenidop.com/>
and they might assign an e-mail style address like paulej at someopenidop.com
and perform the Webfinger resolution behind the scenes.

Anyway, issue this request:

$ curl http://www.packetizer.com/lrdd/?uri=acct:paulej@packetizer.com

You'll see the link relation for my claimed ID:

<Link rel="http://openid.net/identity"

      href="http://openid.packetizer.com/paulej"/>

It does introduce another protocol, but I think these play nicely together.
The real identity would remain the URL that OpenID uses today.  The email
identifier would just be an alias for it.

Paul

From: Santosh Rajan [mailto:santrajan at gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2010 12:39 PM
To: Paul E. Jones
Cc: Mike Jones; jsmarr at stanfordalumni.org; openid-specs at lists.openid.net;
tech-comm at openid.net
Subject: Re: Draft charter for v.Next Attributes working group

On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 8:55 AM, Paul E. Jones <paulej at packetizer.com>
wrote:

Adding support for email-style addresses is something I like, but something
that can be provided via webfinger.  Thus, no change to the base protocol.

I beg to disagree here. I think the base protocol needs to address the issue
of email like identifiers. I would like to see that email like identifiers
are valid OpenID claimed id's.

So something like acct:example @ example.com <http://example.com/>  should
be a valid OpenID claimed_id.

Also this discussion should not be in this thread (about attributes) and
maybe someone could start a new thread on this subject.

Thanks

Santosh

http://hi.im/santosh

-- 
http://hi.im/santosh

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