KEY POINTS:
Here's the one thing I hate about using the web - all the passwords I have to remember to access various internet services. From Facebook, Gmail and Flickr to Amazon, ASB online and my Inland Revenue account, I need to enter a password and user name to log on. I have a different one for each and they are just a handful of the websites I visit. That's a long list of passwords and I change them regularly which complicates things further.
I could get my web browser to remember the passwords and plug them in automatically. I could use the identity safe feature in Norton internet Security to lock away my numerous passwords in a digital safe and plug them in automatically. But I'm too paranoid for that. What if someone cracked the safe? All my passwords would be compromised.
The result is that half the time the secret code has to be emailed to me because I've forgotten it.
Thankfully, there's a movement under way to cut through the clutter of internet passwords and user profiles and last week it received the boost that could in time make it the default system for managing your online identity.
OpenID is an open-source system that allows one common log-in for thousands of websites. You'll still need to fill in a form detailing your personal details at each site as that information remains anonymous to the Open ID framework.
But the log-in will be authenticated centrally for each website, meaning you only need remember one log-in to access many of the web services you use.
Internet giant Yahoo's move last week to support the revamped version of OpenID, dubbed OpenID 2.0, gives the one log-on system its largest ally. Yahoo has around 248 million registered users, all of whom now have an OpenID identifier, bringing the total number of OpenID accounts to 368 million. If that's not critical mass, nothing is.
Yahoo will extend its "Sign-In Seal" system to OpenID, allowing you to verify an uploaded image before handing over information.
Around 9000 websites already support OpenID including some you may use on regularly, such as Wordpress, Technorati, Blogger.com, AOL and Plaxo. Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and Novell are among the top-tier supporters of OpenID and, while the likes of Google and IBM are interested, they're not embracing OpenID the way Yahoo is.
The closest we've got to this kind of common authentication ecosystem is with the major web companies Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. I can use the same username and password to access Gmail, Blogger, Picasa, Google Docs and numerous other Google services. The same goes for the Windows Live suite of services and those provided by Yahoo.
But if I want to mix and match services from those three companies, it's three different passwords and user names. OpenID can do away with that, but only with top level endorsement from the big players.
So we're slowly moving towards that dream scenario where, with one safe log-in, you can move from social network website to webmail account to online photo album.
The banks and e-commerce providers will be more reluctant to join and are likely to wait and see how OpenID's security holds up. Like that digital safe full of passwords, OpenID is really the same thing - a massive database of web users' log-ins. What if it were compromised?
With that many Yahoo users in the OpenID camp you can bet hackers will try to gain access. Nevertheless, OpenID paves the way towards more convenient web surfing - and I'm in favour of that.
