AuthN, AuthZ and Gluecon
As I’ve mentioned many times in the past, I’m not an engineer. Still, along the way, even the non-engineers like me pick up some tidbits of knowledge. One of the things I learned in my years spent in identity management (”IdM”) is the difference between Authentication (”AuthN”) and Authorization (”AuthZ”). And, as it turns out, […]

What XAuth Means To SaaS
Image via CrunchBase In the weekend, Meebo, along with companies like Google, Yahoo, Myspace, Disqus, Janrain, etc., announced the release of an open identity platform called XAuth. For Meebo, it gives an option to make their Meebo Bar more relevant among the publishers. For Google, this gives them another stick to beat Facebook Connect and […]

The Demise Of Freeyourid.com And Its Minimal Impact On Customers
Freeyourid.com, the service that offered .name based personalized openID, is shutting doors after almost two years in operation. Last week, they sent out emails to all their customers (including me) about their plans to shut down after August 15th and explaining the customers about their choices. More than the traditional software world, the shutting down […]
Webstock – David Recordan – Open, Social Web
David is a tech lead for Six Apart, home of the blogging software that powers most of the worlds pro blogs, Movable Type. How do we make it easy for people to join sites, bring friends and profiles and take advantage of the substance of your offering? Why is it so hard currently – profiles, […]

Where is Cloud Police?
If you happen to be the unfortunate victim of someone breaking into your home (and I pray that you never are), the first recourse is pretty much the same around the world – you would put a call in to your local emergency services, i.e. 911 (or 000 as it is over here in Australia). […]

Wake Up People, It’s More than Just Your Twitter Password
Ah, what an ego-boost, you can now display your Twitter rank .. I mean your Twitterank. All you have to do is enter your Twittter userid and password: How nice … but perhaps a bit dangerous? Twitterrank is a vast conspiracy I created to steal all of your passwords and shame Twitter into OAuthing. And […]

Microsoft calls OpenID a De Facto Login Standard
Windows Live™Microsoft’s Windows Live ID team just announced their support for OpenID calling it a “de facto standard Web protocol for user authentication.” Beginning today, Windows Live™ ID is publicly committing to support the OpenID digital identity framework with the announcement of the public availability of a Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the Windows Live […]