Much is made of the whole OpenID system which in plain English allows you to have one single ID that can be used to log into any website that requires you to login and supports the OpenID protocols.

In theory this is a great idea especially for cranky old farts like myself whose memory has seen better days but in practicality as pointed out by //engtech over at his blog Internet Duct Tape there are some serious drawbacks to be considered before lumping all your sign-in eggs in the OpenID basket.

OpenID is the most popular decentralized system for single sign-on and maintaining a universal digital identity. It’s a very cool concept. Instead of having to worry about maintaining multiple user accounts and passwords (which should be different on different sites), openID lets you maintain one account and one online identity - without having that identity dependent on one company. At least that’s what the purple koolaid wants you to believe. If you stop to thing about it, you’re still dependent on whatever company you are using as your openID server.

The decentralization that is openID’s strength is also it?s biggest weakness. If your openID server goes down then you’re locked out of *all* of your other web accounts that used that login.

Now there is a good conversation going on in the comment section of this post that further expand on his original argument - both for and against.

In the meantime I guess I’ll go back to relying on my memory … err … well maybe not. Where’s that paper and pencil I just had?

[tags]OpenID, authentication, engtech[/tags]

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