Michael


Making the Internet Better

February 15, 2016

I was recently just laying around, and started thinking about a couple of issues with how the Internet operates today, and thought of a couple of things, that if changed, could really increase usability and general ability to communicate on web, and have that communication actually mean something.

Now Before I go further, I feel like I need to talk about what I believe Authentication and Authorization is.

1. Actual Federated Authentication.

Imagine a single, universal, Government endorsed Authentication protocol. Every Human gets one set of credentials. Security via Username, Password, OTA Code, Certificate, And Biometric Security combinations.

That Account Is You.

If we had this, and it was universally trusted. We could Vote using it.

With this system, all those Change.org campaigns gain weight overnight, as suddenly the signatures aren't just dupicate accounts, but actual, one time only votes.

With this, we could even change how we vote on these things. Imagine changing a Law via a Pull Request on Github!

You could also link these credentials to all your online apps

Well...maybe not that last one... because when using these credentials, you would not be able to hide on the Internet. Everyone would know its you. However, Nothing would stop the creation of local credentials per application, like we have today. (Don't worry, you will still be able to create throwaway's on Reddit.) But when you are signed in, suddenly, Everything online would have more merit, because everyone becomes accountable for what they say.

This Authentication could also be used for local accounts. Your computer logon at home and at work, your Phone account. Your home Automation.

It would truly be a Unique Identifier.

2. Truly separate Authentication from Authorization

I am so tired of having to log into different GMail accounts, Different Twitter Accounts, Different Reddit Accounts.

Authenticate Once; Authorize Many...

Lets look at an example.

Barbara Dunkelman is the Social Media and Community Manager at Rooster Teeth. Understandably, Barbara would have to access multiple Twitter accounts. Rooster Teeth, Funhaus, Achievement Hunter, and her own personal one, Just to name a few. Every Twitter account has its own email address, Username, and Password.

Now, I can't comment on how Barbara might handle this, but I know Twitter doesn't natively support multiple accounts. So you would have to log into each account separately.

But imagine if this followed the Authenticate Once; Authorize Many approach...

This means Barbara could Log in once, then get a nice drop-down allowing her to select which account she wishes to impersonate.

Now a couple of large applications are starting to use this model (Facebook, for one, does this very well with Pages) but it's no-where near wide spread as it should be. And if we couple this with the Federated Authentication we spoke about earlier, you would only have to Authenticate Once.

Imagine that. One Username. One Password. One Person.