Something I love is OpenID. I love having a portable online identity, not being tied to an email provider or something like Facebook Connect or Twitter OAuth. Better yet, I don’t have to rely on someone else keeping their servers up – I can change my OpenID provider whenever I like and keep the same log-in (how?).

Why is OpenID not more popular then, when it is probably a safer and more reliable option? It might take a bit more work (registering with a service provider and then linking to this in the header of the HTML of the user’s webpage), but it isn’t exactly a huge amount of work. I don’t know how difficult it is to implement an OpenID log-in properly; dozens of plug-ins exist for many pieces systems like WordPress (I removed it here due to issues getting the log-in styled properly… not really a technically limitation!).

Why are more and more systems embracing proprietary log-in systems like OAUTH or Facebook Connect, but neglecting to include an OpenID log-in? Many sites, like AOL, are OpenID providers but then fail to accept OpenID themselves. It’s perfectly good having hundreds of providers, but little use if the major sites which provide these identities actually refuse to then accept them!

OpenID should be pursued, whether instead of or in addition to services like Facebook Connect and OAUTH. Better yet would be for Facebook and Twitter to accept and offer OpenIDs, of course!

I have been reading Freedom of Information Act requests recently and I came across one filed to Merseyside Police, in February 2007, that I had to share. I apologise if someone has already reported this; I found the information in the public domain and Merseyside Police removed the name of the person who filed the request, so I can’t credit them.

Somebody asked Merseyside Police about their IT infrastructure. They asked some questions like ‘How many desktop computers do you have?’ but then some more interesting ones like ‘Of those server computers what is the Operating System and Version are they using?’ and ‘Has Open Source comparative been review [sic] for the Operating System?’.

Apparently, it isn’t in the ‘public interest’ to tell us which web browser, office suite, email client or operating system they use. Nor is it in our interest to tell us even if the software they even considered open source solutions. Whilst they noted ‘Accountability of Public Funds’ is important, it’s clearly not that important. Why? Apparently, telling us what operating system or web browser they use would ‘leave Merseyside Police Systems subject to potential attack from hackers.’

Perhaps if Merseyside Police used secure software (or could at least confirm they considered open source solutions), they wouldn’t have to worry about being subject to potential attack!