Online Identity, what is the choice?
The identity is an important part of ourselves. That`s why it is a favorite topic in science-fiction. The Online Identity is not like the identity in real life. In reality we have faces, we have finger tips, we can be at one place at a time and other things that can identify us. That`s why it is harder to hide who are you in reality. On the other hand, online you can share knowledge, joy and love with people all over the world and still be hidden.
There are a few ways of online identification today, but more interesting is what`s coming on in the near future. Nowadays we have to make a lot of accounts for services we want to use or just to try. Most of you probably have experienced that on some places if you want to leave a comment you should register first. Due to this big mess with so many accounts most of the users prefer to use the same information (ex. passwords). Then what happens when he decides his account is no more secured, he goes and change his password all over the places he has registered? Now you see what is just one of the problems of nowadays online identification systems.
What should we expect for the future? Most of the biggest companies (Microsoft, Google, Yahoo) have already thought about the topic and have their decisions. The good thing is that the Open Source community has ideas, too.
Let`s first start with Microsoft. Only a few years ago Microsoft wanted to takeover the world with its .NET Passport (newly Windows Live ID) and to dominate in the field of Online Identity. Microsoft`s Passport was a single sign-on service valid only for Microsoft`s web sites and for some of its partners` sites. A lot of people thought .NET Passport was not well considered and therefore it didn’t become a turn stone for the Online Identity. But we have to agree that at that time only remarkable were the efforts of Microsoft`s Passport and then-new Liberty Alliance (who tried to create single sign-on not dominated by Microsoft). Microsoft took a further step and they will implement CardSpace in Windows Vista as a logical extension to .NET Passport. CardSpace (codename InfoCard) is built on WS-Trust and a number of Microsoft technologies. Microsoft does not control WS-* (at least not by itself) which is important. On the other hand, the adoption of this Identity technique will be driven by Windows Vista so Microsoft is the major driver here.
Google rapidly continues to work towards his goal to create an Online OS. Companies from its rank don’t tell what they will do. They do it and after that, they announce it. Google developed a lot of services and all of them using a single account. Firstly known as a Gmail account, but after words we talk about it as a “Google Account”. When they create their Online OS this would be the single sign-on of using it. No matter how open are Google towards Open Source Projects, I really doubt that they will agree to open their Identity system.
Yahoo on the other hand has developed Browser-Based Authentication (BBAuth). They say: “BBAuth offers a Single Sign-On (SSO) facility so that existing Yahoo! users can use your services without having to complete yet another registration process.” As a web developer you can take a part in this initiative and make the live easier for the thousands of users who come from Yahoo. But finally the Identity is owned and controlled by Yahoo (could be another company).
Now is the time to mention about OpenID. OpenID is a decentralized digital identity system, in which any user’s Online Identity is given by URL (such as for a blog or a home page) or an XRI in the latest version. On websites which supports OpenID users don’t need to create and manage new account. Instead, they only need to be able to authenticate with a trusted site that supports OpenID, called the identity provider (ex. VeriSign Labs, LiveJournal, MyOpenID and others). The user has the right to choose his identity provider. He is fully in control, over whether or not to have an identity or how many and over the attributes of the account. User-controlled identity at its heart was the realization that “we are the people”. That identity should comes from the people whose identity it is, rather from outside organizations — whether government or business. This is part of the social democratization of the network that seems unstoppable and very disruptive.
Johannes Ernst mentions that the best way dealing with Online Identity is making the technologies interoperable. It sounds great, only that it’s too ideal for me to believe it. Therefore my choice is to stick closer to OpenID. And I hope companies will realize and give more power to the users to control their Identity in a specified way of course.
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