W3C Workshop on Identity in the Browser

OK, it is a a little old, but this was an interesting get together of identity community discussing the role browser can play in managing users identity and perhaps authentication. Although it did come up that in the age that more or more people use embedded apps, any identity solution based on the assumption of a runtime environment called a browser may not be sufficient.

What I feel was the most insightful comment though was in the last paragraph of Dick Hardt position paper titled "The
Chicken,
 the 
Egg
 and 
the 
Rooster:
Why
 Internet 
Identity
 is 
Still 
Unsolved":

Identity 
is 
more 
than 
authentication.
The 
success 
of 
Facebook
 et
.al. 
is
 driven 
by

access 
to 
information
 about 
the 
user 
rather 
than 
just 
which 
user 
it 
is. 
A
 broadly

adopted
 solution 
will 
enable 
the 
user 
to 
share 
profile 
information 
and 
delegate

authorization.

This is the key point that I some times referred to it as "Pizza and Delivery", authentication, SSO is like delivery mechanism, but RPs are interested in "information about the user" or attributes and profile, not how it is delivered to them. Much like people who order pizza are interested in pizza not how it is delivered.