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authentication posts

Filed under: Security, Web services, Social Software

ID Selector: making OpenID easier

by Jay Hathaway Nov 13th 2008


OpenID is a great concept. Consolidating your online identity across multiple sites and services is convenient, and arguably offers security benefits. So why do some sites make it such a pain in the butt to use? If you support OpenID on your site, and make it as easy as possible for your users to log in, check out ID Selector.

ID Selector helps you set up a customizable OpenID picker, so your users can quickly get an OpenID or choose one they've already set up. It doesn't require any fiddling with your existing login form, it "just works." The best part is that your users only have to pick an OpenID provider once. When they return afterward, they can just log in with one click. Neat!

Tags: authentication, id-selector, IDselector, login, openid

Filed under: Internet, VoIP, P2P

Skype crashes due to network "software issue"

by Brad Linder Aug 16th 2007

Skype connectingIf you're having trouble logging into Skype today, you're not alone. According to an official blog post, the engineering team has determined that there's a software issue that needs addressing, which could take 12 to 24 hours.

Skype downloads have also been temporarily disabled, so today might not be the best day to upgrade your Skype client or sign up for a new account. Apparently if you're the sort of person that leaves Skype running in the background all day, you can go ahead and leave your client open and you'll be logged in as soon as a fix is issued.

The incident has prompted some interesting speculation in the blogosphere. One possible explanation is that Microsoft pushed out some Windows XP and Vista updates yesterday that could have broken Skype compatibility for many users. Meanwhile Om Malik wonders if the outage exposes a limitation of peer to peer technology as Skype's authentication server could be getting hammered today. It seems like anyone who was logged into Skype when the outage began will remain logged in, while most users trying to login today are having difficulty.

Tags: authentication, outage, skype

Filed under: Internet, News, Web services, Microsoft

Microsoft will support OpenID

by Brad Linder Feb 7th 2007

OpenIDBill Gates made a surprise announcement Tuesday during his keynote at the RSA security conference: Microsoft will support OpenID 2.0. Great, but what's OpenID?

You know how every time you sign up for a new web service, you have to create a username and password? And you know how you're always worried that you'll forget your login information, so you wind up using pretty much the same password for most sites? And then you get all worried that someone at one site could find a way into your bank records, so you start creating variation until you can't remember which password goes with which site.

If you're someone who regularly has to click the "forgot password" link on web sites, OpenID is made for you. It's a system that allows you to login to mulitiple web sites with a single username and password, which is actually a personalized URL that securely stores your user information. OpenID is the free and open source invention of Brad Fitzpatrick, creator of LiveJournal.

OpenID would also seem to be competition for Microsoft's Passport system, which works primarily with Microsoft sites. Microsoft is the largest company so far to announce support for OpenID, which currently works with sites including LiveJournal, Zooomr, and Vox.

[via Thomas Hawk]

Tags: authentication, bill gates, BillGates, openid, password, username

Filed under: Developer, Internet, Google

Using Google Accounts for Single Sign-On

by Jordan Running Feb 14th 2006

Google TalkDeveloping a web service and don't want to manage your own authentication? Use Google's! That's the gist of this article, which describes how to use SSL and XMPP to authenticate your users against Google's database of users in the same way Google Talk does. The article uses as an example Zooomr, an interesting service made more interesting by the fact that it allows authentication from a number of outside sources, including Google, OpenID, and Meetro. The method isn't anything special, but it is an interesting way to get things done.

[Via O'Reilly Radar]

Tags: authentication, google, google talk, ssl, xmpp, zooomr

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With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

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