Coming very soon: OpenID authentication
I decided to make yesterday a MyChores Monday since the weather was so rotten and i had nothing much else to do. I spent the day learning about, and implementing, OpenID authentication.
OpenID lets you authenticate yourself with a trust mechanism between websites, rather than using a username and password. If you have a URL that identifies you personally, which you can assert is yours alone, then you have a good candidate for an OpenID. For example, my OpenID is sermoa.livejournal.com. Nobody else can claim to be me using that URL. When i want to authenticate myself with my OpenID, the authenticating site will send me off to LiveJournal, which prompts me to log in (if i’m not already) and asks me if i want to grant access to the site. I can say “Yes, just once”, “Yes, always”, or “No”.
OpenID also builds trust between websites, allowing you to assert you are who you say you are. If you see sermoa.livejournal.com posting on any OpenID site on the Internet, you’ll know that nobody else can authenticate that OpenID with LiveJournal, so it must be me.
New users will have the choice of signing up to MyChores using OpenID, and existing users will be able to associate their MyChores account with an OpenID. Having done so, login can be done merely by entering the OpenID URL and authenticating with the OpenID provider. Whether you login using OpenID or using a username/password, MyChores will behave the same either way. OpenID users who want a password for MyChores will need to go to ‘Forgot password’ to set one for themselves.
If you’re a member of LiveJournal or any of its derivatives (DeadJournal, GreatestJournal, JournalFen, etc) then you already have an OpenID. I hear that all AOL/AIM users now have an automatic OpenID, too. Alternatively, you can get one at myopenid.com or pip.verisignlabs.com.
OpenID has been around for a few years, but is really kicking off now with interest from AOL, Microsoft and Mozilla, plus a whole bunch of sites on the Internet supporting it. There has never been a better time to jump on the OpenID bandwagon.
I have finished testing locally for MyChores OpenID support, but i’m going to wait for tomorrow night to let the changes go live, just in case there are any unanticipated problems. I’ll post again when you can try it out! :)