World Wide Mike

I installed the OpenID plugin on my blog. What is this? How does it affect you? Read on…

OpenID provides you with one identifier and password that you can use anywhere OpenID is accepted. How does it work? You sign up for a URI (basically a URL or web address) with an OpenID server (for free) such as MyOpenID. Whenever you need to identify yourself to an OpenID enabled site or service (such as when posting comments here), you put in your URI (for example mike.myopenid.com). This site will contact your OpenID provider (myopenid.com) which will ask you to put in your password. If your info checks out, the OpenID provider will tell the site asking about you that you’re kosher and grants you access.

What’s the big deal? Today, you probably identify yourself to many websites and services with a different user name and password for each. After a while you may forget your passwords, especially for those sites you only visit once in a while. Some companies have tried to provide a solution to this; some time ago Microsoft tried to get Passport (now Windows Live ID) to be the de-facto authentication system for the internet. Yahoo has Browser Based Authentication and Google has their Google Accounts Authentication. I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t trust my entire online ID to one single entity.

So how does OpenID solve this Big Brother problem? The beauty is that there can be many autonomous OpenID providers. If you own a domain, you can even roll your own (mike.beachtemple.com could be me)!

As a user, you have one URI to remember, one password, and one identity Internet wide. If you come across a cool new website you want to sign up for, you won’t find your user name taken.

Go ahead, try it out. Go register for an OpenID identity at MyOpenID or any of the other providers, and try posting a comment Then explore some of the OpenID enabled sites.