walkah: janrain

I noticed via Scott Kveton's blog this morning that myOpenID got a bit of a refresh this morning. Along with a (very pleasant) new visual re-design, they've officially launched a feature which, imo, is worth noting. Specifically, myOpenID now supports certificate-based authentication:

Phishing is always on the minds of members of the OpenID community and we’re excited to announce the release of our client-side certificate functionality. Client-side certificates leverage the tried-and-true technology known as transport layer security (also known as TLS). This essentially the same technology you probably know of as SSL that is used to secure millions of transactions on the web every single day. With the click of a mouse you can configure your own unique certificate right in your web browser (yep, Firefox, IE, Safari and even Opera). This then gives you the ability to authenticate quickly and very securely from your machine without the use of a password.

As I mentioned in my presentation last month, this is an important aspect of OpenID - namely the choice, and option for stronger, more secure methods of authentication and making that choice user-centric.

Kudos to JanRain - keep up the great work!