On 3/26/07 6:35 AM, "Jonathan Rochkind" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Jeremy Frumkin wrote:
>> > Ok, so this is a good example for where Iım failing to see the advantage to
>> > OpenID over the current local authentication provided by a university /
>> > library.
> As Nathan explains, to identify your link resolver(s) to a particular
> database (or 'source') you are using. How can a foreign third party
> (vended or free) database use your local authentication login? Instead,
> what they use currently is IP address.
>
> Which is broken in several ways anyone who has worked with
> IP-address-as-identity, common for authentication in our current
> environments, has realized. IP address is not identity. Several people
> (with different institutional affiliation/licenses held/link resolvers
> used) may share an IP address, and one person may have several IP
> addresses. IP address to people is a many to many mapping, and thus is
> horribly broken for identification and authentication, and leads to all
> sorts of problems many of us must continually try to work around, not
> very succesfully.
-------
Right, except OpenID isnıt going to do this; there needs to be an
infrastructure in place where OpenID (or some other standard persistent
identifying system) can sit on top of, and thatıs still the big problem.
Now, maybe the tail will wag the dog, and OpenID will lead to efforts to
build underlying trust infrastructure, but at the moment, that
infrastructure does not exist. The easiest way to implement that
infrastructure probably would be for every institution that might adopt
OpenID to also become an OpenID provider, but then, unless there is a
standard mechanism for linking one OpenID to another in a secure manner,
weıre back at having multiple OpenIDs depending on our context. I completely
agree that IP-based authentication is not the long-term answer; maybe there
is a path, however, to applying OpenID over our current IP-based auth /
proxy servers in a manner that does add user-side value. As Nathan stated in
an earlier email, the one big advantage OpenID has right now is that it is
easy to start playing with, and maybe thatıs enough to start the wagging.
-- jaf
===============================================
Jeremy Frumkin
The Gray Chair for Innovative Library Services
121 The Valley Library, Oregon State University
Corvallis OR 97331-4501
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541.737.9928
541.737.3453 (Fax)
541.230.4483 (Cell)
===============================================
" Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. "
- Emerson
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