OpenID Foundation takes new approach

OpenID Foundation takes new approach

The OpenID Foundation, which among other things, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo want to come OpenID Connect Tech Summit in Mountain View to present a new method by which people can subscribe to any accounts of the participating companies on web sites: Account Chooser to the OpenID standard service complement. It was developed by Eric Sachs, a project manager at Google, who sits on the Board of the Foundation, Technology Review reported in its online edition.

Google supports the project and maintains the code on its servers. Account Chooser differs significantly from previous approaches - including the original methodology of the OpenID Foundation itself, the technology had been proven in the opinion of website operators and users as being too complicated. Previously users had to first create an OpenID account and then link it by hand, using other approaches.

Account chooser now allows users to use any account that offers one of the participating companies. The account can then link with other support services. Which was already implemented for example on the login page of the Flickr photo service, where not only the account of the parent company Yahoo, but also can be used by Facebook and Gmail.

Don Thibeau, executive director of the OpenID Foundation, explains that the code is behind Chooser account under an open source license. Web developer so it could implement quickly. Also, the identity provider, ie the company that prints the account is freely selectable. Account Chooser will also cover a number of known standards for verification, including OAuth, SAML and OpenIDConnect.

Mozilla, the organization behind the popular Firefox browser, has developed a competing approach called BrowserID. After verification of his own e-mail address of the service charges for a browser extension that can be used to support, to identify the user at websites that BrowserID. Ben Adida, technical director for the Mozilla project maintains that technology is safer than Account Chooser: The information would be bundled in the user's browser. In addition to reducing the amount of sensitive data that need to be sent to login through the network.