New Open Source Single Sign-On System: OpenID

[Kyle Mulka <mulka@xxxxxxxxx>]

Just thought I would make you all aware of another open source single 
sign-on system in development. http://www.livejournal.com currently uses 
it.

It is called OpenID and is explained here:
http://openid.net/

Here's a blub from their site if you don't feel like going there:

"This is a decentralized identity system, but one that's actually 
decentralized and doesn't entirely crumble if one company turns evil or 
goes out of business.

*An OpenID identity is just a URL*. You can have multiple identities in 
the same way you can have multiple URLs. All OpenID does is provide a 
way to *prove that you own a URL (identity)*. And it does this without 
passing around your password, your email address, or anything you don't 
want it to. There's no profile exchange component at all: your profiile 
is your identity URL, but recipients of your identity can then learn 
more about you from any public, semantically interesting documents 
linked thereunder (FOAF, RSS, Atom, vCARD, etc.).

Anybody can run their own site using OpenID, and anybody can be an 
OpenID server, and they all work with each other without having to 
register with or pay anybody to "get started". An owner of a URL can 
pick which OpenID server to use.

While nothing in the protocol requires JavaScript or modern browsers, 
the authentication scheme plays nicely with "AJAX"-style setups, so you 
can prove your identity to a site without bouncing between pages" - 
http://openid.net

--

Kyle Mulka
Computer Science in Engineering
University of Michigan
http://www.kylemulka.com/