I gave a talk about OpenID at Barcamp Brussels 3, may 2007

1. OpenID Intro
“Identity 2.0 - Forget your passwords”

2. ~/ $ who am i
• Frank Louwers - frank@openminds.be
• Partner in Openminds & Metatale
• http://frank.be
• Openminds offers high-quality, high-
performance Internetsolutions
• Openminds launched the first Belgian
OpenID identity server

3. Quick Poll?

4. Quick Poll?
• Who uses same username / password for
every new account?

5. Quick Poll?
• Who uses same username / password for
every new account?
• Who loses usernames / passwords for
some sites?

6. Quick Poll?
• Who uses same username / password for
every new account?
• Who loses usernames / passwords for
some sites?
• Who has a blog?

7. Quick Poll?
• Who uses same username / password for
every new account?
• Who loses usernames / passwords for
some sites?
• Who has a blog?
• Who has OpenID? (Wordpress.com, AOL,
Typepad,Yahoo!, ...)

8. Passwords, usernames,
and amnesia

9. Morning workflow
• Read Mail
• Read RSS feeds
• Use company Intranet / wiki
• Write blogpost
• Comment on other blogs / wiki

10. Morning workflow
• Read Mail needs login
• Read RSS feeds
• Use company Intranet / wiki
• Write blogpost
• Comment on other blogs / wiki

11. Morning workflow
• Read Mail needs login
• Read RSS feeds needs login
• Use company Intranet / wiki
• Write blogpost
• Comment on other blogs / wiki

12. Morning workflow
• Read Mail needs login
• Read RSS feeds needs login
• Use company Intranet / wiki needs login
• Write blogpost
• Comment on other blogs / wiki

13. Morning workflow
• Read Mail needs login
• Read RSS feeds needs login
• Use company Intranet / wiki needs login
• Write blogpost needs login
• Comment on other blogs / wiki

14. Morning workflow
• Read Mail needs login
• Read RSS feeds needs login
• Use company Intranet / wiki needs login
• Write blogpost needs login
• Comment on other blogs / wiki needs login

15. Even worse ...
http://www.monuments.nu/monuments/2007/05/pure_annoyance.html

16. Our best friend ...

17. Not only do we need to remember the password
We also need to rember the (random) username!

18. Solutions

19. Lazy solution
• Same password everywhere
• Not safe
• One site compromised, all sites
compromised
• When your mail-address changes, accounts
lost?

20. Solution: Single Sign On
• Previous attempts: Microsoft Passport.net
• Centralised (not everyone trusts MS)
• Expensive to integrate
• Not extendable

21. OpenID: KISS
• De-centralised
• Open Standards based
• easy, lightweight protocol
• providing Single Sign On
• Based on proven standards (dns and urls)
• A blog identifies a person

22. De-centralised
• You choose one of the many OpenID i-
providers (http://openid.openminds.be)
• You choose who you trust and why
• Even set-up your own OpenID server if
you want
• It’s the only place where your credentials
are stored

23. A life without passwords
How does it look like?

24. Login to OpenID sites
• Enter your OpenID identifier url as
“username”
• Site contacts your OpenID Server (based
on url)
• OpenID Server checks if you are logged in
• OpenID Server passes token to site

26. Only the first time I login to an OpenID site that day.
Next time, only a confirmation is needed.

27. What data should be transfered to the site?

28. Wikitravel doesn’t have a local account for this OpenID.
Suggests me to create one. This happens only the first
time. It binds my OpenID (openid.openminds.be/frank) to
this new account.

29. Blog url as OpenID
• My OpenID: openid.openminds.be/frank
• My blog: frank.be
• Solution? Simple HTML tags!

30. Add html headers tags
No other plugins or code needed on your blog!

31. Who is using it?

32. Who’s in the game?

33. Plugins available for:
• Blog software (Wordpress, MT,
Mephisto, ...)
• Wiki software (MediaWiki, DokuWiki, ...)
• Almost all Web frameworks (Drupal, Ruby
on Rails, Joomla, Django, ...)

34. Add OpenID to your project
• Lower barrier (users don’t need to create
an account) eg: http://iusethis.com
• Simplifies account setup
• Specific hacks
• AIM integration
• Company Intranets or wiki’s and
Company OpenID

35. Problems?
• Google isn’t in, and won’t be in soon
• Login is slower (browser redirects ...)
• Vulnerable to Phishing
• risk actually less than with username /
password logins
• can be fixed with plugins (and FF3)

36. Future versions
• Exchange of more attributes
• Gravatars?
• Address (eg for shipping)
• Language / timezone settings
• Verified email address or not
• Security enhancements

37. Cool sites using OpenID
http://iusethis.com

38. Cool sites using OpenID
http://jyte.com

39. Cool sites using OpenID
http://jyte.com

40. Cool sites using OpenID
http://shopify.com

41. Cool sites using OpenID
http://heardontv.com

42. Links
• http://openid.openminds.be (still beta)
• http://myopenid.com
• http://openid.net
• http://janrain.com/openid
• http://openiddirectory.com

43. Q &A
• Do you use OpenID?
• Do you consider it?
• Why (not)?
Frank Louwers - frank@openminds.be