Amid all the subterfuge surrounding Facebook’s fast-and-loose attitude toward privacy protection, it was nice to see someone taking a simplistic tack on one of the more vexing problem: helping individuals manage multiple IDs and sign-ons for Web services. In this post, Orange invites interested folks to join the nine month trial of a service that allows a user to select his or her preferred sign on and apply it to multiple sites, rather than following the de facto practice of choosing a new username and password for each new Web service that comes along (often re-using the same pair over and over again).

Admittedly, there has to be a lot going on under the hood where service providers are sorting out the pros, cons and interdependencies of OAuth (for authentication), SAML (the Security Access Mark-up Language), OpenID (authentication), XRDS, Information Cards, CardSpace and other manner of generic and branded “ID federation”. Orange has distilled the alphabet soup into a “tool” which looks a lot like a Web site or landing page. It invites people to use their “Orange France Identity” or to select another “trusted” combo to apply as they surf secure Web services.

The idea is spelled out further in this video (in French with English subtitles). It centers around a site called Quizagain.com, so I’m not sure whether Orange has the unenviable task ahead of it of recruiting participating sites into its “single-sign on” efforts. Even though it will face significant challenges growing the base of participants, it’s nice to see such a clean interface and simple approach to a known problem.

Categories: Articles

Tags: authentication, Orange, Recombinant Communications, Web Services