OpenId is gonna be the daddy of Identity Management on the Web
It looks as though OpenId is rapidly becoming the daddy of user-centric digital identity. And for very good reasons.
The concept is based on the fact that anyone can identify themselves as unique on the Web, in much the same way that websites are identified as unique and semantic web nodes in RDF graphs are identified as unique: - through URIs . So you can use your website or your blog as your identity on the Web. Cool or what?!
With OpenId a users' digital identity is verified by anyone who supports the protocol. But what are the implications of this? Well, the more and more sites which support OpenId the less and less individuals have to create new online accounts and can use their individual OpenId account for more and more online transactions.
Interestingly OpenId does not prescribe any authentication mechanism; empowering the identity holder to make their own informed trust decisions on the authentication process of the identity provider. It also empowers the identity provider to design their authentication mechanisms around the use-cases they are satisfying rather than forcing username and password challenges if these aren't really required, for example. Sensitive accounts which require more "security" can implement strong authentication around an OpenId. So there are benefits for both application users and application providers. Everyone is a winner.
So OpenId is really separating online identity from authentication. A fundamental separation of concerns and a pattern which will further enable the adoption of Web 2.0 applications and the promise of ubiquitous single sign-on.
The concept is based on the fact that anyone can identify themselves as unique on the Web, in much the same way that websites are identified as unique and semantic web nodes in RDF graphs are identified as unique: - through URIs . So you can use your website or your blog as your identity on the Web. Cool or what?!
With OpenId a users' digital identity is verified by anyone who supports the protocol. But what are the implications of this? Well, the more and more sites which support OpenId the less and less individuals have to create new online accounts and can use their individual OpenId account for more and more online transactions.
Interestingly OpenId does not prescribe any authentication mechanism; empowering the identity holder to make their own informed trust decisions on the authentication process of the identity provider. It also empowers the identity provider to design their authentication mechanisms around the use-cases they are satisfying rather than forcing username and password challenges if these aren't really required, for example. Sensitive accounts which require more "security" can implement strong authentication around an OpenId. So there are benefits for both application users and application providers. Everyone is a winner.
So OpenId is really separating online identity from authentication. A fundamental separation of concerns and a pattern which will further enable the adoption of Web 2.0 applications and the promise of ubiquitous single sign-on.
posted by Andy Latham at 6:35 PM
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