5 ms·

Bringing OpenID To The Masses: Clickpass (YC summer 07)

87 points by immad 19y ago

pc 19y ago
Congrats! Clickpass is going to be big.
greg 19y ago
And it works with news.yc.
- benhoyt 19y ago
  Actually, it didn't for me. I click on "log in", then click the Clickpass drop-down, type in my own OpenID, it goes through to MyOpenID and verified that. Then it takes me to the "merge with your existing Hacker News account", and I type my correct username/password, but then I get redirected back to News.YC and a blank page at something like http://news.ycombinator.com/x?fnid=j3tO1pS8ox http://news.ycombinator.com/x?fnid=j3tO1pS8ox
  - thorax 19y ago
    A friend of mine had this same issue
    - immad 19y ago
      hmm, I see what the problem is. My apologies, arc is a tricky language :). I am going to fix it and hopefully pg will be able to push it soon.
      - immad 19y ago
        It works if you are logged in to Clickpass btw. But it was a mistake, gonna fix it :)
  - immad 19y ago
    I just found a workaround and fixed it. Sorry for the delay
rglullis 19y ago
Seems to me now that the HN post yesterday on Techcrunch was more of a preparation to announce Clickpass and lure more TC users on its service. Nice one-two movement.
- pg 19y ago
  I assume you're joking, but in case you're not: it was a coincidence. We didn't ask to be TechCrunched.
  - rglullis 19y ago
    It was just an observation. I think it is even better that it was a coincidence. As the saying goes: "the harder you work, the luckier you get". But even if it wasn't, I couldn't say that there was something unethical or shady about it. Sorry if it seemed that I was implying something like that. It was far from my intention.
    - SwellJoe 19y ago
      TC has always been very kind to YC and its startups. They seem to take the view that startups are going to have a hard enough time without their first media appearance ripping them apart over the usual early startup pains and problems. TC readers that comment, on the other hand, are like a more vicious and less literate TMZ that somehow views startups profiled at TC as "the other half" who don't have to work for a living. Not entirely relevant to this thread, but I've been pleasantly surprised by how nice the TC folks are in print and in person, and they're enthusiastic about the whole YC concept.
- petenixey 19y ago
  Thanks for the nice comments guys, we're really excited. Total coincidence about the Techcrunch mention but incredibly lucky too as it rooted out a bug that would have slowed Clickpass to a halt today. Sometimes you just get lucky!
deleted 19y ago
[deleted]
immad 19y ago
We are on Disqus, news.yc and plaxo at the moment. If you want to skip the intermediate pages, http://disqus.com/login http://disqus.com/login and https://www.plaxo.com/signin https://www.plaxo.com/signin :)
- aston 19y ago
  I'm still waiting for arclanguage.org...
- immad 19y ago
  Since Drew was cheeky enough to ask. digg/reddit love :) http://digg.com/tech_news/Bringing_OpenID_To_The_Masses_Clickpass http://digg.com/tech_news/Bringing_OpenID_To_The_Masses_Clic... http://reddit.com/info/6bofr/comments/ http://reddit.com/info/6bofr/comments/
- dfranke 19y ago
  I can't seem to get this to work on news.yc, at least with my self-hosted OpenID (http://openid.dfranke.us http://openid.dfranke.us). I go through my portal and then the Clickpass portal and get redirected back to a news.yc closure URL, but it just gives me a blank page and doesn't log me in.
  - immad 19y ago
    I just found a workaround and fixed it. Sorry for the delay
wallflower 19y ago
>Naturally some concerns arise with any centralized login system. Doesn’t this mean a thief only has to steal one password, your Clickpass password? Clickpass with two-factor security (e.g. SecureID) might be worth paying a subscription fee for
spif 19y ago
Clickpass feels more like a single-sign-on service, wasn't the purpose of OpenID to negate this? Or am I missing something here?
- petenixey 19y ago
  Hi Spif. Clickpass is a single-sign-on service. It's built on the OpenID protocol.
  - spif 19y ago
    Thanks, I did get that part :-) I'm wondering though why this would be a success where MS passport failed. Because it's not evil? Is usability the only left that hampers uptake of openID?
    - petenixey 19y ago
      The Microsoft Passport solution was proprietary, heavy-weight, required a licence to use and was over-engineered. It had a pretty good user experience but it was Microsoft and it was also difficult and expensive to install. OpenID is decentralised, open-source, free and does one and pretty much only one thing very well. It may not win but historically those have been shown to be really good traits for success.
    - alexfarran 19y ago
      Well I haven't had an OpenID until now. Here's what I think you're saying: A feature of OpenID is that, unlike passport, there is more than one ID provider. With Clickpass, although you can use a generic OpenID the normal way, it works best if you have a Clickpass account.
      - petenixey 19y ago
        That's a pretty good description Alex. We've tried to minimise the feature set and whilst we've made sure that people can use their own OpenID if they want to we figure most users won't. If it turns out that they do we'll switch to making it an automatic feature.
poppysan 19y ago
this is gonna lead to a lot of dumb old ladies sending you spam because they gave away their password. Can't wait!!!
deleted 19y ago
[deleted]
maxwell 19y ago
I like it. Congrats guys.
tx 19y ago
How do YC companies get on TC so easily?
- dcurtis 19y ago
  Because Michael Arrington is in love with Paul Graham. It's a secret affair, of course.
- petenixey 19y ago
  They're good ;)
dhouston 19y ago
great writeup -- congrats peter and immad!
axod 19y ago
For me, the whole idea of openID is flawed from the start. Why would I want one point of failure? Why would I want to use the same login details for every site I go to? That's kind of a very bad idea. Sorry, but the whole openID thing seems like tech people making tech things that they think are technically impressive. Rather than things that are useful or solve problems for the average Joe. There are enough password reminder/generator addons/programs etc, and most browsers have such functionality these days. Am I missing something?
- bct 19y ago
  1. 99% of people use the same login details on every site they go to anyways. That's not likely to change. For those people OpenID is actually more secure, since their password is only ever exposed to one site. 2. Your email address is already a single point of failure for any sites with a "Forgot my password" function. IMO an OP can be made secure enough that the benefits of OpenID outweigh the severity of a possible breach (at least for non-critical transactions).
  - axod 19y ago
    Good points. So I guess the challenge is either to convince users that OpenID gives them some advantage to just using their same old login details, or convince website owners that it is a good idea. I guess we'll see how it works out...
jey 19y ago
Looks like logging in with the AOL OpenID provider doesn't work on news.yc. I don't know if this is a news.yc bug or AOL OpenID bug.
herdrick 19y ago
Great stuff, way to go Peter and Immad!
bosshog 19y ago
Peter Nixey: The UK's prodigal son, no? Congratulations to Clickpass. Looks like a good service.
tlrobinson 19y ago
I can't seem to get my news.yc username linked up to my OpenID. I login to my OpenID provider, then get to the point where I enter my news.yc username and password, but then it takes me to a blank page on news.yc. :(

87 points by immad 19y ago

pc 19y ago

Congrats! Clickpass is going to be big.

greg 19y ago

And it works with news.yc.

benhoyt 19y ago
Actually, it didn't for me. I click on "log in", then click the Clickpass drop-down, type in my own OpenID, it goes through to MyOpenID and verified that. Then it takes me to the "merge with your existing Hacker News account", and I type my correct username/password, but then I get redirected back to News.YC and a blank page at something like http://news.ycombinator.com/x?fnid=j3tO1pS8ox http://news.ycombinator.com/x?fnid=j3tO1pS8ox
- thorax 19y ago
  A friend of mine had this same issue
  - immad 19y ago
    hmm, I see what the problem is. My apologies, arc is a tricky language :). I am going to fix it and hopefully pg will be able to push it soon.
    - immad 19y ago
      It works if you are logged in to Clickpass btw. But it was a mistake, gonna fix it :)
- immad 19y ago
  I just found a workaround and fixed it. Sorry for the delay

rglullis 19y ago

Seems to me now that the HN post yesterday on Techcrunch was more of a preparation to announce Clickpass and lure more TC users on its service. Nice one-two movement.

pg 19y ago
I assume you're joking, but in case you're not: it was a coincidence. We didn't ask to be TechCrunched.
- rglullis 19y ago
  It was just an observation. I think it is even better that it was a coincidence. As the saying goes: "the harder you work, the luckier you get". But even if it wasn't, I couldn't say that there was something unethical or shady about it. Sorry if it seemed that I was implying something like that. It was far from my intention.
  - SwellJoe 19y ago
    TC has always been very kind to YC and its startups. They seem to take the view that startups are going to have a hard enough time without their first media appearance ripping them apart over the usual early startup pains and problems. TC readers that comment, on the other hand, are like a more vicious and less literate TMZ that somehow views startups profiled at TC as "the other half" who don't have to work for a living. Not entirely relevant to this thread, but I've been pleasantly surprised by how nice the TC folks are in print and in person, and they're enthusiastic about the whole YC concept.
petenixey 19y ago
Thanks for the nice comments guys, we're really excited. Total coincidence about the Techcrunch mention but incredibly lucky too as it rooted out a bug that would have slowed Clickpass to a halt today. Sometimes you just get lucky!

deleted 19y ago

[deleted]

immad 19y ago

We are on Disqus, news.yc and plaxo at the moment. If you want to skip the intermediate pages, http://disqus.com/login http://disqus.com/login and https://www.plaxo.com/signin https://www.plaxo.com/signin :)

aston 19y ago
I'm still waiting for arclanguage.org...
immad 19y ago
Since Drew was cheeky enough to ask. digg/reddit love :) http://digg.com/tech_news/Bringing_OpenID_To_The_Masses_Clickpass http://digg.com/tech_news/Bringing_OpenID_To_The_Masses_Clic... http://reddit.com/info/6bofr/comments/ http://reddit.com/info/6bofr/comments/
dfranke 19y ago
I can't seem to get this to work on news.yc, at least with my self-hosted OpenID (http://openid.dfranke.us http://openid.dfranke.us). I go through my portal and then the Clickpass portal and get redirected back to a news.yc closure URL, but it just gives me a blank page and doesn't log me in.
- immad 19y ago
  I just found a workaround and fixed it. Sorry for the delay

wallflower 19y ago

>Naturally some concerns arise with any centralized login system. Doesn’t this mean a thief only has to steal one password, your Clickpass password? Clickpass with two-factor security (e.g. SecureID) might be worth paying a subscription fee for

spif 19y ago

Clickpass feels more like a single-sign-on service, wasn't the purpose of OpenID to negate this? Or am I missing something here?

petenixey 19y ago
Hi Spif. Clickpass is a single-sign-on service. It's built on the OpenID protocol.
- spif 19y ago
  Thanks, I did get that part :-) I'm wondering though why this would be a success where MS passport failed. Because it's not evil? Is usability the only left that hampers uptake of openID?
  - petenixey 19y ago
    The Microsoft Passport solution was proprietary, heavy-weight, required a licence to use and was over-engineered. It had a pretty good user experience but it was Microsoft and it was also difficult and expensive to install. OpenID is decentralised, open-source, free and does one and pretty much only one thing very well. It may not win but historically those have been shown to be really good traits for success.
  - alexfarran 19y ago
    Well I haven't had an OpenID until now. Here's what I think you're saying: A feature of OpenID is that, unlike passport, there is more than one ID provider. With Clickpass, although you can use a generic OpenID the normal way, it works best if you have a Clickpass account.
    - petenixey 19y ago
      That's a pretty good description Alex. We've tried to minimise the feature set and whilst we've made sure that people can use their own OpenID if they want to we figure most users won't. If it turns out that they do we'll switch to making it an automatic feature.

poppysan 19y ago

this is gonna lead to a lot of dumb old ladies sending you spam because they gave away their password. Can't wait!!!

deleted 19y ago

[deleted]

maxwell 19y ago

I like it. Congrats guys.

tx 19y ago

How do YC companies get on TC so easily?

dcurtis 19y ago
Because Michael Arrington is in love with Paul Graham. It's a secret affair, of course.
petenixey 19y ago
They're good ;)

dhouston 19y ago

great writeup -- congrats peter and immad!

axod 19y ago

For me, the whole idea of openID is flawed from the start. Why would I want one point of failure? Why would I want to use the same login details for every site I go to? That's kind of a very bad idea. Sorry, but the whole openID thing seems like tech people making tech things that they think are technically impressive. Rather than things that are useful or solve problems for the average Joe. There are enough password reminder/generator addons/programs etc, and most browsers have such functionality these days. Am I missing something?

bct 19y ago
1. 99% of people use the same login details on every site they go to anyways. That's not likely to change. For those people OpenID is actually more secure, since their password is only ever exposed to one site. 2. Your email address is already a single point of failure for any sites with a "Forgot my password" function. IMO an OP can be made secure enough that the benefits of OpenID outweigh the severity of a possible breach (at least for non-critical transactions).
- axod 19y ago
  Good points. So I guess the challenge is either to convince users that OpenID gives them some advantage to just using their same old login details, or convince website owners that it is a good idea. I guess we'll see how it works out...

jey 19y ago

Looks like logging in with the AOL OpenID provider doesn't work on news.yc. I don't know if this is a news.yc bug or AOL OpenID bug.

herdrick 19y ago

Great stuff, way to go Peter and Immad!

bosshog 19y ago

Peter Nixey: The UK's prodigal son, no? Congratulations to Clickpass. Looks like a good service.

tlrobinson 19y ago

I can't seem to get my news.yc username linked up to my OpenID. I login to my OpenID provider, then get to the point where I enter my news.yc username and password, but then it takes me to a blank page on news.yc. :(