OpenID - create one for you today!

http://openid.net

I've started using openID with my blogspot URI.  This is great from the perspective of remembering number of passwords/usernames.  As the number of websites supporting it increases the web will be much simpler place.

There are complex theories out there to explain how openID works.  I'll try to explain it the way I understood ... user perspective only!  Actual implementation is also easy with libraries available in almost all languages.  Here is Java Implementations:
Created by VeriSign: http://code.google.com/p/joid/
http://code.google.com/p/openid4java/

Example of "Sign on 1.0" version:
On yahoo.com: mysickname@yahoo.com and yahoopassword
On google.com: myothersickname@gmail.com and googlepassword
On aol.com: myaol-name@aol.com and aolpassword
On (legacy) hotmail.com: mylegacyname@hotmail.com and hotmailpassword
This became a problem when facebook, myspace and other social networks came out recently with Web2.0 boom for which a person has to create more account/passwords.  Some websites temporarily solved the problem of remembering username by asking your email address to create an account.
On facebook.com: mysickname@yahoo.com and googlepassword
So, by the end of the day a person has to enter 10 accounts all with almost similar passwords (since it sucks to remember 10 user/password combination).  Internet is only 12 years old.  Living in such an environment for another 5 years would be terrible.

To solve this problem we now have something called, openID.  Since a lot of websites have now started supporting it, our dream might come true of remembering one username/password.  OpenID username comes in a URI format.  Create one with the website that supports openid (http://openid.net)  You may already have one URI, e.g. "goodforall.blogspot.com" with one of your existing account, which you can use while creating an OpenID.

Let's say I want to use "software-nerd.blogspot.com" with blogger.com (draft.blogger.com for now) as my OpenID.

Now, I'll go to yahoo.com and use my OpenID.  At this point yahoo.com will:
1) forward the user to blogger.com login page if user is not logged in.  After successful login user will be asked to choose "add yahoo.com account forever" or "only once".
2) forward the user to yahoo.com login page since I'm trying to use OpenID first time with yahoo.com.  Attaches "OpenID" to yahoo.com's account. and then (3)
3) user has access to yahoo.com pages as user is already logged in with OpenID account

So, if we keep using OpenID to all of the websites, this is how "OpenID" gets shared.
On google.com: myothersickname@gmail.com/software-nerd.blogger.com and googlepassword and OpenID with OtherWebsiteAccountsList (mysickname@yahoo.com, myaol-name@aol.com, mylegacyname@hotmail.com)
On yahoo.com: mysickname@yahoo.com and yahoopassword and OpenID(software-nerd.blogger.com) verification
On aol.com: myaol-name@aol.com and aolpassword and OpenID(software-nerd.blogger.com) verification
On (legacy) hotmail.com: mylegacyname@hotmail.com and hotmailpassword and OpenID(software-nerd.blogger.com) verification

So, now Google account knows nothing about Yahoo credentials and Yahoo account knows nothing about Google credentials.  Next time yahoo.com will only match the "OpenID verification" and give mysickname@yahoo.com access to the software-nerd.blogger.com

I still couldn't find an answer if people started to use 5 different URIs ... what would be the complexity factor.  And if this starts to becoming a problem what would be the next user's identity after "name", "email" and "URI"?  Anybody?

OpenID helps at least for now, so get one today (http://openid.net/get)