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August 17, 2005
shaver on the case for identity 2.0
If someone can help solve identity on the Web, it'll be shaver. I had the fortune of working on UREG for Netscape as well as Screen Name Service for AOL. Screen Name Service is still used today by AOL (and could be more performant). Identity (authentication/registration) is a pain in the ass problem so it'll be interesting to see how identity 2.0 progresses.
Some observations:
- Splitting "profile" information from identity. Identity 2.0 can't have "profile" information nonsense, so establishing identity has to have the most minimal information possible just to establish identity none of this country of origin, male/female, age stuff. "Sharing" of profile information among identity partners is also a big hairy ball of a mess, so need to stay away from that.
- Central gateway, e.g. passport model doesn't work.
- Identity 2.0 can't be a password manager/wallet.
- There is a trust relationship that needs to be established e.g. iChat's @mac.com and @aol.com among those playing the game.
- A reset/migration of identity, is there something other than email that we can use.
- Political bs. The big players yhoo, msft, aol already have a namespace based on email. Google is building up a namespace. Small fry sites really have no chance if they're requiring people to sign-up yet again for some service. Wonder why AOL, MSFT, YHOO have not opened up instant messaging? It's not because they can't, they don't want to make a competitor's identity more powerful than their own (especially when identity is a billing relationship).
- "Trusted client" is going to sneak it's way back in to the mix (as if identity 2.0 wasn't bad enough).
So what's the identity problem again?
- Too many usernames and passwords and the security of it all.
- Single sign-on (the holy grail of authentication, if only we could all just get along).
- Spoofing/scams go away.
The net of this is, we can be in a much better place than where we are today with identity. Right now, it's just a complete mess. Maybe everyone should just install the bugmenot extension and call it a day.
Posted by rebron at August 17, 2005 10:39 PM
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