Microid mailing list

[Fred Stutzman <fred AT metalab.unc.edu>]

MicroID is a simple, extensible way for third parties to verify sameness 
between two web-based resources.  For example, Sarah may have accounts on 
site A and B.  With MicroID implemented on sites A and B, these sites can 
verify sameness between A and B, establishing a useful identity link.  Of 
course, the communication identifiers must be verified in both A and B, 
though this is common practice for websites.

The reason for the crypotographic hashing is twofold.  First, it provides 
reasonable protection against the scraping of communication identifiers by 
spammers.  Second, it allows the MicroID to contain more than one hashed 
element (in this case the communication URI and the claimed URL).  This 
allows extensibility as the protocol scales to accept new forms of 
communication URI's or URL.  That is, by using the hash, the MicroID 
maintains simplicity and affords great scalability.

Does this make sense?





On Thu, 18 Jan 2007, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:

> Someone emailed me yesterday as follow:
>
> ******
>
> What is the problem statement for microid?  The site itself doesn't
> explain why the owner of the content cannot simply publish their
> communication uri in the content itself.
>
> I can reverse-engineer a problem statement, but much better for
> microid to explicitly say "$THIS is the problem, and microid is a
> solution."
>
> ******
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Peter

--
Fred Stutzman
claimID.com
919-260-8508
AIM: chimprawk