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You're also forgetting that the OpenID provider could be storing passwords and things wrong too, or that they've been hacked and someone's collecting them in-tr
by zedshaw 16y ago
You're also forgetting that the OpenID provider could be storing passwords and things wrong too, or that they've been hacked and someone's collecting them in-transit. Really, any attack against a non-OpenID site is available to an OpenID site, but with the added problem that nobody has to know.
For example, if google had a security breach (ehem China?) and passwords got snarfed for a period of time, how would you or a customer site know?
In addition to those attacks, there's economic attacks available from the provider. One day Google can just decide they don't like you and poof there go your users. For a customer this is a pretty big problem that they all must worry about.
And, all of those attacks are pretty much available to any login system.
- srean 16y agoYeah that's what I meant by "phishing trap". In retrospect not a good choice of words, "compromised" would have been better. I am letting it remain as it is because you commented on it. I think a better way to express my opinion about OpenId is this: say I trust that the probability a particular site will not be compromised is (1 - \epsilon). Then OpenId lets me maintain and transfer that value of trust over authentication transaction with other sites. As the saying goes, it is as strong as the weakest link. There are protocols by which one can boost the level of trust beyond that (1 - \epsilon) but I have not come across a easy to use deployment of one such.