Forums | MacLife

why should i care?  and why should i trust Windows / MS with authentication on one of my sites?  i mean Passport was riddled with security flaws. 

i think MS is convinced everyone has some sort of short term memory loss / disorder.

am i missing something?

and that is ..... ?  that we should trust MS (or any outside company) with user information?

b

I like the idea of MS opening that up, but....  it's a matter of who is going to use it?  If it becomes a popular option that people actually use, then sure, why not offer it. 

The devil is in adoption... which is why I think MS opened it up, they probably don't have a whole bunch of people using it as it is now, so they're looking to pick up more users by opening up the standard.

I certainly wouldn't use it at this time and force users to use it.  I'd see if users actually asked for it, then implement accordingly.

TonyPrevite wrote:

I like the idea of MS opening that up, but....  it's a matter of who is going to use it?  If it becomes a popular option that people actually use, then sure, why not offer it. 

The devil is in adoption... which is why I think MS opened it up, they probably don't have a whole bunch of people using it as it is now, so they're looking to pick up more users by opening up the standard.

I certainly wouldn't use it at this time and force users to use it.  I'd see if users actually asked for it, then implement accordingly.

They already have millions of users.  Windows Live ID is aka Passport.  Essentially, anyone with a hotmail account or who has used the MSDN has one.

Microsoft is the LAST company I want holding my personal details. I have no problem with their products but I do have a problem with their megalomaniac mobster mentality as a corporation. Also as it stands their mail services (hotmail, msn) are useless in the modern market because they over filter incoming legit mail (ie opt-in newsletters) so their customers cannot receive them. How do the users of the Windows Live service know that they won't be denied normal web functionality due to Microsofts obtuse and non webstandard implementation of web services.

Open source is the future. Make it work for everybody. Make MS do the right thing and not have the developer world have to contort functionality to conform to the MS way rather than the right way.

They can't even do this right!

Before you cry that the sky is falling, you might want to read the docs MS has on the service.

The API only provides authentication, not authorization.  You still need to store information in your own site linking the passport user to any user-specific data you are storing on your own site.  An example for this forum would be _all_ the information in the 'profile' section with the exception of the password - none of that information would be stored in the passport/live ID of the user accessing your site.

No sensitive data is passed from your own site to MS.  The windows live login page has to be embedded as an iframe, users login at the live site & the live API POSTs back to a script on your own site with MS.  The only site-specific information that is passed to the login page is optionally what page on your site the user is coming from:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb676638.aspx

The API then POSTs back to a page that you specify when you first configure the service with a very minimal amount of information.  The user-specific information it does post back is signed & encrypted:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb676624.aspx
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb676622.aspx

Seems to me like MS is trying to make this as secure as possible from the get-go, however, looking at the docs it seems like it would be more trouble than it's worth to setup.  Especially for those using 3rd party CMS/blog/forum software that want to integrate it into existing sites.

To view the spoofed iframe, you would need to drive someone to the site containing it in the first place.  You example is no different from phishing websites (eg: fake paypal) that exist now.

Daniel ... i checked several of your examples on your OWN sight ... just to see if you had your act together.  a lot of the sites you have linked as examples are displaying error messages when i click on them.  problems loading header file.  problems connecting to database.  blah, blah, blah. 

so before you cast stones .... you might want to check if your own code is working.

i'm beginning to wonder if you live and work in Redmond

b

Daniel wrote:

Don't put words in my mouth like that.  It's disingenuous and reeks of massive unrepentant ignorance.

nah ... i'm just calling you out on your own BS

Ignore ++ 

What part of "work in progress" and "recently switched hosting companies" did you not get?

Ugh.

::decides to follow TP's advice as this is exasperating::

Altivec wrote:

Before you cry that the sky is falling, you might want to read the docs MS has on the service.

i'd trust MS doc's about as much as our President