Sessions at ConFoo 2012 about Identity

Thursday 1st March 2012

• Defining User Identity: True Identity VS Anonymity

  by Jonathan LeBlanc

  From Mozilla’s new BrowserID to OpenID and the Facebook Graph API, determining user identity has become a simple matter of leveraging a profile. The problem, and the source of many heated debates, arises when trying to determine whether to identify a user by their true, real life, identity and whether that should be forced on them when interacting online. Social powerhouses like Facebook and Google+ are throwing their weight behind forcing users to be directly tied to their real life identity, but what does this mean for privacy, anonymity, and online social interactions? In this talk we’ll explore the concepts behind identity models, how online and real life social graphs are used for defining identity and relationships, and how using real identity and social graph models have led to real life issues of security and privacy worldwide. Through these models, we’ll explore how services like BrowserID, OpenID and the Facebook Graph API are used to construct user identity online.

  • APIs
  • Identity
  • OpenID

  At 4:00pm to 5:00pm, Thursday 1st March

  Coverage slide deck

Friday 2nd March 2012

• Changing the Face of Open Identity in Ecommerce

  by Jonathan LeBlanc

  The case for online identity has been present for as long as there has been a need to customize a web experience for an individual person. From OpenID to BrowserID, there are open solutions for solving the issue of having different logins for all of the sites and services we use. The problem with open identity systems in the Ecommerce world is that the identifying characteristics of a user in current implementations is shallow, providing basically a “yes, this person has an account” answer to “who is this user?”.

  This is where new X.commerce identity is trying to change identity. By leveraging off of the massive user Ecommerce information of PayPal and eBay, open Ecommerce identity is now a valuable source of real user data. Using buying and selling history, user ratings, profile identifiers and a vast array of different user data, X.commerce identity is able to define “trust levels” for a user who signs in to your site and provide solutions for easy, secure identity and payment.

  • e-Commerce
  • Identity
  • OpenID
  • X.commerce

  At 1:40pm to 2:40pm, Friday 2nd March

  Coverage slide deck audio clip