5 ms·

Persona: Mozilla's BrowserID Service

55 points by diwank 15y ago

dsr_ 15y ago
TL;DR: this is just a name change. Thoughts running through my head: I had better not use this for anything important for the first couple of years, until the codebase grows a reputation. On the other hand, this looks great for all sorts of low-security sites where they just want another freaking login. And then -- is the identity token consistent across sites? I don't trust site A not to compare things with Site B. Time to look into the code.
- floatingatoll 15y ago
  Correction: TL;DR: BrowserID is the protocol, Mozilla Persona is our identity site that (among other things) implements BrowserID. BrowserID code: https://github.com/mozilla/browserid https://github.com/mozilla/browserid "BrowserID will stay as a technology name, but the consumer-facing brand of our service will fall under the Persona brand. You can think about it like this: "Persona ID is an implementation of the BrowserID protocol."" https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/mozilla.dev.identity/vQNZ5ymvkT8 https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/mozilla.d...
chrisacky 15y ago
> "On your favorite website that supports BrowserID" I don't know of any of my favorite websites supporting BrowserID.
- zerostar07 15y ago
  BrowserID is only supposed to replace the email/password combo, so I see no reason why it wouldn't catch on (people do give their email/password combinations to sites every day, a much less secure process). Given that BrowserID.com is hosted by a non-profit, it shouldn't raise many privacy concerns either. Anyway, it's true that almost nobody has yet given browserid a try (you can try it at http://textchannels.com http://textchannels.com)
hmans 15y ago
This is from February?
human_error 15y ago
I thought it was something with Firefox themes. It's confusing. They could've found different name.
- ttt_ 15y ago
  The article clarifies that specifically under "Wait, what about Firefox’s Personas?".
  - masukomi 15y ago
    > No doubt there will be some confusion during this transition, so if you have ideas for how to make the transition smoother, definitely let us know! Why didn't anyone point out the obvious solution of not only taking over the name of something that was not only another browser product, but another browser product from the same company. Sheesh. This just seems brain-dead to me. Personas isn't a bad name, but it's a very bad time to be using that particular name. Why, when you're trying to launch a brand new product that is going to require a LOT of external buy-in, do you cripple it with this layer of confusion?
drivebyacct2 15y ago
BrowserID is pretty cool in my opinion. It gives identity providers a lot of flexibility in how they can confirm users identity including multi factor auth or physical tokens.
zerostar07 15y ago
I for one don't like the new name. BrowserID was a perfect name - just an ID that you can use with browsers. It doesn't require any personal data, so it has nothing to do with social sites or real identity. The interface by default allows you to have multiple browser-ids which by itself contradicts the idea of "personhood". This name may raise concerns about "persona-l" data
- isaacaggrey 15y ago
  As floatingatoll said [1], BrowserID is the protocol, Persona is Mozilla's implementation of the protocol [2]. [1] http://www.hackerne.ws/item?id=3739315 http://www.hackerne.ws/item?id=3739315 [2] https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/mozilla.dev.identity/vQNZ5ymvkT8 https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/mozilla.d...
  - zerostar07 15y ago
    I don't think users care about protocols. When you place a button on a website, the user will see "Login with BrowserID" (right?), which is the consumer-facing part of it. After that they will be able to select a browserid provider among which will be "Mozilla Persona Browser ID" (right?). Why not just list it as "Mozilla BrowserID" or sth. More names, more confusion.
    - eberfreitas 15y ago
      I agree. At first I thought that Mozilla was thinking about solving a internet problem for the internet, and not for it's own, which maybe be naive of me, but was a great idea.
    - floatingatoll 15y ago
      Unverified assumptions below! TL;DR: You don't select a BrowserID provider. Your email address determines which provider is used. If your email's domain does not publish the "I am a primary" auto-discovery file, then it falls back to us. BrowserID provider selection is done with service discovery. When you login to a BrowserID site using an email address, there is auto-discovery logic for checking to see if your email address runs a BrowserID primary. I believe the fallback to BrowserID.org is a bootstrap thing, rather than the desired long-term goal. Once Firefox integrates BrowserID support, the user will see a native dialog listing available identities to login to the site, with a checkbox to automatically login in the future. One of the sites that would pop this dialog is Mozilla Persona. Other sites would too. Your identity is an <email@addre.ss>, and then if you want to sign into Persona and build up a profile around that identity, you can.
Kilimanjaro 15y ago
I vote for dropping Persona and keeping BrowserID.

55 points by diwank 15y ago

dsr_ 15y ago

TL;DR: this is just a name change. Thoughts running through my head: I had better not use this for anything important for the first couple of years, until the codebase grows a reputation. On the other hand, this looks great for all sorts of low-security sites where they just want another freaking login. And then -- is the identity token consistent across sites? I don't trust site A not to compare things with Site B. Time to look into the code.

floatingatoll 15y ago
Correction: TL;DR: BrowserID is the protocol, Mozilla Persona is our identity site that (among other things) implements BrowserID. BrowserID code: https://github.com/mozilla/browserid https://github.com/mozilla/browserid "BrowserID will stay as a technology name, but the consumer-facing brand of our service will fall under the Persona brand. You can think about it like this: "Persona ID is an implementation of the BrowserID protocol."" https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/mozilla.dev.identity/vQNZ5ymvkT8 https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/mozilla.d...

chrisacky 15y ago

> "On your favorite website that supports BrowserID" I don't know of any of my favorite websites supporting BrowserID.

zerostar07 15y ago
BrowserID is only supposed to replace the email/password combo, so I see no reason why it wouldn't catch on (people do give their email/password combinations to sites every day, a much less secure process). Given that BrowserID.com is hosted by a non-profit, it shouldn't raise many privacy concerns either. Anyway, it's true that almost nobody has yet given browserid a try (you can try it at http://textchannels.com http://textchannels.com)

hmans 15y ago

This is from February?

human_error 15y ago

I thought it was something with Firefox themes. It's confusing. They could've found different name.

ttt_ 15y ago
The article clarifies that specifically under "Wait, what about Firefox’s Personas?".
- masukomi 15y ago
  > No doubt there will be some confusion during this transition, so if you have ideas for how to make the transition smoother, definitely let us know! Why didn't anyone point out the obvious solution of not only taking over the name of something that was not only another browser product, but another browser product from the same company. Sheesh. This just seems brain-dead to me. Personas isn't a bad name, but it's a very bad time to be using that particular name. Why, when you're trying to launch a brand new product that is going to require a LOT of external buy-in, do you cripple it with this layer of confusion?

drivebyacct2 15y ago

BrowserID is pretty cool in my opinion. It gives identity providers a lot of flexibility in how they can confirm users identity including multi factor auth or physical tokens.

zerostar07 15y ago

I for one don't like the new name. BrowserID was a perfect name - just an ID that you can use with browsers. It doesn't require any personal data, so it has nothing to do with social sites or real identity. The interface by default allows you to have multiple browser-ids which by itself contradicts the idea of "personhood". This name may raise concerns about "persona-l" data

isaacaggrey 15y ago
As floatingatoll said [1], BrowserID is the protocol, Persona is Mozilla's implementation of the protocol [2]. [1] http://www.hackerne.ws/item?id=3739315 http://www.hackerne.ws/item?id=3739315 [2] https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/mozilla.dev.identity/vQNZ5ymvkT8 https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/mozilla.d...
- zerostar07 15y ago
  I don't think users care about protocols. When you place a button on a website, the user will see "Login with BrowserID" (right?), which is the consumer-facing part of it. After that they will be able to select a browserid provider among which will be "Mozilla Persona Browser ID" (right?). Why not just list it as "Mozilla BrowserID" or sth. More names, more confusion.
  - eberfreitas 15y ago
    I agree. At first I thought that Mozilla was thinking about solving a internet problem for the internet, and not for it's own, which maybe be naive of me, but was a great idea.
  - floatingatoll 15y ago
    Unverified assumptions below! TL;DR: You don't select a BrowserID provider. Your email address determines which provider is used. If your email's domain does not publish the "I am a primary" auto-discovery file, then it falls back to us. BrowserID provider selection is done with service discovery. When you login to a BrowserID site using an email address, there is auto-discovery logic for checking to see if your email address runs a BrowserID primary. I believe the fallback to BrowserID.org is a bootstrap thing, rather than the desired long-term goal. Once Firefox integrates BrowserID support, the user will see a native dialog listing available identities to login to the site, with a checkbox to automatically login in the future. One of the sites that would pop this dialog is Mozilla Persona. Other sites would too. Your identity is an <email@addre.ss>, and then if you want to sign into Persona and build up a profile around that identity, you can.

Kilimanjaro 15y ago

I vote for dropping Persona and keeping BrowserID.