[thelist] [OT] OpenID

Luther, Ron Ron.Luther at hp.com
Wed Mar 25 08:16:11 CDT 2009


Jim Puls noted:

>>The number of people on the web without a Google account, 
>>a Yahoo! account, an AOL account, a Wordpress account, 
>>a Livejournal account, or a Blogger account is pretty 
>>vanishingly small, is it not?


Hi Jim,

Could be.  But that doesn't mean users trust those sites.  And it certainly doesn't mean that they authorize or deputize those sites to share information on their behalf! 

I think I'm more in Jack's camp.  The centralized point of failure issue bothers me.  The suggestion to 'put your trust in non-transparent code from a large company cuz they is smarter than u' also bothers me.  

Two quick thinks I would bring to the table:

(1) Not all sites are created equal or contain an equal amount of sensitive information.  (I don't lie awake at night worrying about personal data on my twitter account being compromised for example.)

(2) People lie. {Shocking! I know.} There may be a number of banking sites around the web who may *think* they know my mother's maiden name, but I assure you it's not the "Up Yours, B at tch!" that I entered on the last form I filled out.  So passwords aren't the only line of defense for privacy information.  Refusal to share is more effective.


But yeah - a fun discussion so far!

Enjoy,
RonL.

(Who also likes to mess with the 'age' field on info forms.  It's really amusing just how 'old' some sites allow you to claim to be!)




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