Re: Shared Authentication Scheme - the reason for the Redirect and POST mailing

> Alex Chamberlain wrote: > > The server and client will initially be programmed in PHP, so I > wanted to > > gather some opinion on whether people wanted another SAS, and what > would > > make them use it over any other?? The company will be there, not > > only > to > > serve the end user, but to serve the developer as well. If anybody > wants to > > be one of the first users/developers, feel free to contact me on > > this > email > > address and I will keep you posted. > > Personally I don't really like the idea of yet another SAS/SSO... The > whole point of an SSO is summed up in the first letter of the > Acronym... > *Single*. If there are multiple different services and different sites > implement different SSO systems then there is no longer a *Single* > service. > > Personally, I think that a distributed system with a single > *specification* that allows different implementations to exist is the > only way forward here and for that, OpenID seems like the best spec > out there right now. > > Perhaps you can explain what your system would offer that would make > it better than an OpenID service? Perhaps your service will be OpenID > compatible to ensure wider exposure? Perhaps it does more than OpenID? > If so what? > > Col I was anticipating this question, but did not want to prompt it. In fact, I started a few weeks ago looking at the OpenID specification, and a PHP server implementation: I found it to be confusing and quite buggy. I hope to implement a OpenID 'frontend' in the future, but not straight away. I also consulted several friends, as well as some of my 18-year-old brothers friends - although a few were very comfortable with the internet and did understand, a lot were confused by the concept of a URL itself - they sort of understood when I explained it was a web address, but could not understand how to use this as a username: this is a fundamental problem of their discovery procedure, in my opinion. Also, a single server system will be more consistent and more secure, and I hope the sharing of personal information *legally* will be a key attraction for most websites. I am at a very early stage, and welcome any comments. Alex No virus found in this outgoing message. Scanned by AVG Free 8.0 Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.138 / Virus Database: 270.4.10/1549 - Release Date: 12/07/2008 16:31