OpenID

Hi,

Has anyone managed to integrate http://openid.net/?

Looks like an interesting idea, but even more like utopia at this phase. I knew about it only today, so the answer coming from miniBB team is: no, we have not tried to implement it.

On small forums there is an important question of "personal identity". I suppose with the global thing like OpenID it won't be possible to have a simple username "Paul". I will need to register Paul882128193 or the bullshit like this. Imagine that there will be another few millions of Pauls - Paul882993012, Paul433232929, Paul32123003 etc... Now imagine all Pauls are posting in the same thread on forums.

Is it "identity"? I think no...

Additionally, for miniBB it is not needed to have username at all - you can post in Guest mode in no problem. Of course until it's not restricted by forum administrator.

More... in practice it is working like a nightmare, because I still need to register on each site where I am "logging in" with open ID. As an example: I have registered an OpenID at one of those providers, claimid.com. Now I have to check my email to confirm the registration, and as you might know, about 40% of automated emails are now accessible in spam/bulk folders. So I need to dig my bulk box to search for that email. Finally I am confirming my registration and trying to test on other sites how it works, just entering openid.org's directory of sites and trying to "login and vote" for one of them.

These are the steps necessary for "login":

1) It asks for my "open id" which appears to be a simple URL of http://claimid.com/minibb. I am entering this URL, and the script redirects to claimid.com, keeping the referenced URL (simple at this stage, huh?)

2) There at claimid.com I need to enter my original username and password which were registered at this provider.

3) claimid.com shows "the following registration data was requested" and I need to enter again my Nickname, Fullname, Email - I suppose this data will be passed back to openid.net, and basically, each site supporting this thing, may ask for it - so I am basically registering twice anyway.

Additionally it says "Above changes will only be sent with this response. Edit your profile to make permanent changes". It means I can fill this data in my profile on claimid.com and it will be substituted automatically for the site which asks for it.

4) I am glad I can skip this information and just "login", finally. It already took me few minutes to drive in. Now I am appearing to be "logged in as claimid.com/minibb". What else? Nothing except my "authority" showing I am just logged in.

The idea behind appears simple yet not really effective: just to connect to the 3rd party server, ask for my original login and pass the information that this login was correct. This information most likely then is saved in the original site's session, and when I close my browser, I need to go thought all steps again. Not sure on the "right" sites it is working the same way... with miniBB for example, I can stay logged in for months.

I've tried another site and the was impossible for me to log in because it said "ERROR CODE: OPENID_NOSERVERSFOUND. ERROR DESCRIPTION: Cannot find OpenID Server TAG on Identity page". I have no idea what this means and where should I ask for support - on claimid.com or this other site. This naturally means my "open ID" doesn't work automatically on all sites even if I was logged in already.

I don't see much sense of it then? I need to enter my login on each site separately, thus in 2 or 3 steps. If something doesn't work I don't know what the reason is.

On a regular site it would took me just few seconds. On any bulky site which requires registration, I have only couple of unique usernames to register, and if one of them is already taken, another fits good. I also have one password for such sites which I always remember.

This makes the life easy without such difficult to end user technology as Open ID.

OpenID is quite handy for both user and server. MiniBB would much nicer with it.
You can allow user to have a local display name to avoid clones.

As to the 'stay logged' you are not completely correct. Take a look at this OID consumer: http://apps.md87.co.uk/openid/. It's short and very well commented (yet not procedural).

Vladimir

Welcome to the human chip era :(

I don't know what so handy is on open ID side. I've tested it and it took huge time for me to authorize, not saying about registration and getting what this thing means. On each site I need to authorize separately, so I don't see a big sense of it (another story would be if it authorizes once and for all sites, but that seems to be impossible). From my point of view it is just another funny thing for programmers. I doubt end users with a basic knowledge will learn it without knowing what benefit it gives them.

No, you're thinking from a dev perspective.

Imagine you're e-social and comment on 30 standalone blogs. Like this one: http://tinyurl.com/6yjelj. Even if you auto-save, it's either the same pwd or a mess.

Or, you're not social, but you acc. stumbled on a blog which says:
"Tried miniBB, total crap. No OO, full of elseifs."

You'd feel a slight satisfaction if you comment:
"Run a loop profiler, fk2."

But you do not, as you're too bored to register, even with wh4f.org. Wait, there's a openID field. Good.

OpenID is supported by Yahoo and some other big names. So a lot of ppl already have it by default. Wordpress.com has it, LiveJornal has it, Magnolia has it, etc. And it's being promoted: http://tinyurl.com/yo73lj.

Pun** guys are planning to implement http://microid.org/ though in 1.3. I don't know if they are serious, but it on their dev page.

So, openID is a nifty little thing for a user. I don't know what provider you've been using, but it takes 2 sec to auth at http://isopenid.ru from Purvciems :)

Vladimir

It's my personal opinion, but I would NEVER want to be assigned a unique username to my online life. One of the greatest thing about the Internet is that it is (still) mostly anonymous. It will never be my goal to make the "segreagation job" easier for search engines or other tracking software/institutions and have a permanent archive of your thoughts and your activities online.

Imagine one day someone searches on my unique username and based on my comments creates a FULL PROFILE of me. I'm still stunned people are so much into "sharing" everything they can online, including what they do, what they see, what they eat, what they watch, what they read, whom they know, where they work, where they go on vacation, what pets they like, what shows they watch, what schools they graduated from, which websites they have bookmarked -- all this stuff about "social bookmarking."

IMO it's one of the biggest threats to human freedom, and yet so freely given up by humans themselves...

I can't imagine this sorry... I don't even have time for one blog :-) And last days statistics shows people are less interested in blogging. I don't know anybody who's posting on 30 blogs.

I have my own open ID alternative: when I am registering at many forums or sites, I am just using the same username which I know is very rare, and a very simple password. Because I am mostly registering needing to make couple of questions and get the answers, I never got back to them. Even if I forgot them for some case, it is possible to restore password - everywhere.

In that case open ID seems and works exclusively for Internet geeks who are spending in chats hours per day and know what it could mean, and what benefit it could bring. Tell my wife the same things you've wrote above - and she will probably think you are just too boring.


Bingo!

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In general, I don't doubt miniBB could be implemented to work with open ID. I am sure it can. If somebody want to sponsor this feature, you are welcome.