This Persona/BrowserID kludge makes me sick. I don't get why everyone is so optimistic about it. I believe there's absolutely no reason why one just can't be a

This Persona/BrowserID kludge makes me sick. I don't get why everyone is so optimistic about it. I believe there's absolutely no reason why one just can't be a source of their own identity (as it naturally happens), with so-called "identity providers" actually being "identity notaries." In BrowserID they do generate keypair, but then tie identity not to it, but to an email address, something user lends, but never actually possesses. Completely the same as with OpenID, where identity is tied to URI. Actually, the only change is URI scheme part: http/https to mailto — which is nice UX-wise, but that's about all the advantages. OpenID was heavily criticized for that (remember all those "did I sign up with Google or Facebook?", URI changes/account rename issues, identity providers being temporarily down, and so on?), and now those who criticized OpenID are praising system that have most of the same problems. I can only hope Persona would silently fail and never gain any significant popularity, so users won't have to struggle with another hype wave, to only lose their trust (if there's any left) in non-centralized identity systems.