- Artist: Nick WIlson & Friends
- Title: IDV in SL
- Length: 71:00 minutes (65.01 MB)
- Format: MP3 Stereo 22kHz 128Kbps (CBR)
On thursday at 12 noon this week, the Metaversed Live show covered the ID verification debate in front of a live audience in Second Life, and Talkshoe.com - On the show this week were Navillus Batra, Cybergrrl Oh, Craigster Hax and Susan Reynolds.
OpenID is only a means to create a simple, generic identity that can be used to log in across many independent sites. OpenID does not entail any [RL, legal] identity verification so it is not a solution for SL's IDV. As it is said on http://openid.net/about.bml: "This is not a trust system."
However, OpenID can be the basis of a future implementation of common IDs across VWs.
Of course OpenID is not a "trust" system but several trust systems already use it therefore it's a step in the right direction (guess I should have made that statement during the conversation) IF that direction is to use a 3rd party and not LL themselves.
Craig, if LL was to implement a new authentication system from scratch, then OpenID would have been a good solution. But LL already has an authentication system in SL's account IDs. Switching to OpenID would not have any benefits at the present time and would be useful only for a distant future, when these accounts could be used across many VWs and other websites.
For now, however, all LL needed was a trust system like Aristotle's. I don't know why LL chose Aristotle and not another vendor but I don't think there are many like that out there to choose from. What trust systems based on OpenID are there, btw? I have seen it used by several social network sites, but I have not seen any trust system based on OpenID yet. I don't even see how that could be done, as OpenID is decentralized and practically anyone can be a provider of OpenID accounts.
[Added Note] After more research, I found that, for instance, VeriSign offers OpenID in combination with Information Cards (I need to find out more about that). Still, the trusted system in this case is Information Cards and it can be used independently of OpenID. I still don't see what OpenID would offer in itself in terms of IDV.
[Another Added Note] Actually, an SL OpenID would have some benefits NOW. If SL provided OpenID accounts, we could use them on SL-related websites (like metaversed.com), while LL could still keep exclusive control over the management of these acccounts. The benefit would be that such an account would attest that I am the same Lem Skall as the in-world Lem Skall and not just someone faking the SL identity here. However, I STILL don't see what OpenID can do in itself for SL IDV. And, Craig, I am not pointing a finger at you. You may have just thrown that into the discussion, but then the idea of OpenID for SL IDV took on a life of its own and I think that has to be at least clarified if not even rejected.