Persona

There aren't many decentralized authentication solutions out there. Namely, there are few alternatives to OpenID, and Mozilla Persona seems to be the most modern and most viable. Persona is based on the underlying BrowserID protocol. Further, Mozilla currently runs an Identity Provider (IdP) service at https://login.persona.org/ but one can run an IdP themselves, allowing for decentralization.

In terms of practical usage for sudo room, there are a sufficient number of libraries and plugins available for integrating and developing with lots of different applications and environments. This blog post from 2013 explains some more about how these libraries can be used.

Identity Provider (IdP)

• Quick-and-dirty Identity Provider (IdP) implementation http://kamituel.tumblr.com/post/47604831876/mozilla-persona-implementing-idp
  • Based on documentation https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Persona/Implementing_a_Persona_IdP
• Another blog post on implementing an IdP: https://lukasa.co.uk/2013/04/Writing_A_Persona_Identity_Provider/
• Another blog post on implementing an IdP: http://rfk.id.au/blog/entry/persona-identity-provider/
• Option to hack a Single-Sign-On (SSO) service by implementing parent domain cookie with shared session store, or instead at least have consistent identity management across applications: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16010168/using-mozilla-persona-auth-for-single-sign-on#comment22898509_16026019

Verification

Interesting, there's a drop-in apache module for persona-based auth:

• https://github.com/mozilla/mod_authnz_persona

Implementations

WordPress

Using BrowserID plugin.

MediaWiki

Using Persona extension.

SeltzerCRM

Persona Auth Module

First-pass (not tested, development version, probably broken): https://github.com/sudoroom/seltzer/tree/persona_auth

A dead-simple verification plugin that allows users to authenticate using an email address via persona. Uses MIT-licensed verification library Auth-BrowserID and based on SeltzerCRM's User Module, both are dependencies.

pseudo code

1. include BrowserID.php verification library class (gpl-compatible Mozilla license)
2. create alternative Persona-based login form
3. ensure login form shows up in the right places
4. write handler to catch the POST login request, perform an assertion, add user id to session data, and respond in affirmative
5. shouldn't need to write handler to catch the GET logout request, existing logout should simply clear session data

notes

Relevant sections of code: https://github.com/elplatt/seltzer/blob/master/crm/modules/user/user.inc.php#L467-L498 https://github.com/elplatt/seltzer/blob/master/crm/modules/user/user.inc.php#L623-L687

Helpful thoughts: Confirms idea of how this could work http://stackoverflow.com/a/18930982 Demonstrated hack example in php http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-2126891.html

Libraries: Looks like I want to use this: https://github.com/fmarier/auth-browserid namely: https://github.com/fmarier/auth-browserid/blob/master/docs/demo.php