openid @ winterschool 2008

institute for educational cybernetics

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OpenID

Scott Wilsoninstitute for educational

cyberneticsuniversity of bolton



Identity in technology• Simply an identifier correlated with

credentials– majority of identity identifiers are local identifiers– majority of identity credentials are passwords

• Identity can be correlated with attributes either self-asserted or externally verified

• Attributes can be used to process access policies

• Identity identifiers can be used for personalization



OpenID• OpenID offers globally unique identifiers

(URLs) for identity rather than local identifiers• OpenID SREG enables self-asserted attributes

for the purposes of registering on new sites• OpenID providers offer the credential

checking (which is optional)• OpenID doesn’t guarantee the validity of any

user attributes



OpenID• Board includes Google, Microsoft,

IBM, VeriSign, Yahoo!, Sxip, SixApart…

• Around 10,000 sites support it• Integrated into lots of products:

Drupal, MediaWiki, Wordpress…• Approx. 250,000,000 OpenIDs

created



“The bottom line: OpenID is a disuptive technology that allows web sites to share identity information and streamline authentication processes. Enterprises with a significant online presence can increase contact with their customers by adopting OpenID.”

- Andrew Jacquith, Yankee Group



Already got one?

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http://wiki.openid.net/OpenIDServers

You can also now use:http://www.flickr.com/photos/username

http://blogname.blogspot.com/

Get one now



http://www.flickr.com/photos/username

http://www.flickr.com/photos/username



Try it out• Make a comment on a Blogger blog• http://openiddirectory.com/• https://www.myopenid.com/directory• Go to Jyte.com and claim something…



Why is OpenID interesting?



it isn’t really an authentication system

That’s a good thing



it doesn’t really verify identity or identify the

userThat’s a good thing too



it doesn’t require or assume policy alignment

or trustNice and flexible…



it isn’t a provisioning system

(Apart from SREG and AE, but they aren’t mandatory)



All it does is offer a means of asserting a relationship between an agent and a

URL

how cool is that?



This makes it a potential boundary mechanism for the coordination of

individual, self-organised, and managed activity



OpenID is a pivot

• It can provide an axis of coordination between the formal system and informal systems

• OpenID actually doesn’t really authenticate or identify anyone, but it can connect things that use identity



A (bad?) example: Jyte RSS feed<item>

<pubDate>Sat, 03 Nov 2007 11:36:53 -0700</pubDate> <title>I have at least one unfinished novel that I work on intermittently.</title> <author>http://elihu.myopenid.com/</author> <description><a href="http://jyte.com/profile/elihu.myopenid.com"

title="http://elihu.myopenid.com/">Elihu</a> made this claim.</description> <link>http://jyte.com/cl/i-have-at-least-one-unfinished-novel-that-i-work-on-intermittently</link> <guid>http://jyte.com/cl/i-have-at-least-one-unfinished-novel-that-i-work-on-intermittently</guid> <category>novel</category> <category>writing</category> <category>hobby</category> <category>unfinished projects</category> </item> <item> <pubDate>Sat, 03 Nov 2007 10:48:31 -0700</pubDate> <title>I always thought nic was a hip-py, but now I think he's a hip-hop.</title> <author>http://packers1.myopenid.com/</author> <description><a href="http://jyte.com/profile/packers1.myopenid.com"

title="http://packers1.myopenid.com/">Packers</a> made this claim.</description> <link>http://jyte.com/cl/i-always-thought-www.tapsellferrier.co.uknicferrier-was-a-hip-py-but-now-i-think-hes-a-hip-hop</

link> <guid>http://jyte.com/cl/i-always-thought-www.tapsellferrier.co.uknicferrier-was-a-hip-py-but-now-i-think-hes-a-hip-

hop</guid> </item>

oAuth?Privacy!



Some potential usesIndirect evidencing & correlation, for

assessment or for personal portfolio development

Early-commitment coordination, for early engagement without institutional commitment

Coordination of home/work/university boundary activities

Tracking activity for coordination at group/course level

Tracking activity for analytics and planning at course/programme/institution level



Thanks for listening - over to you

http://www.cetis.ac.uk/members/scott

(that’s also my OpenID, btw ;-)

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openid @ winterschool 2008

Technology