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Suggestion to implement BrowserID / Persona as an alternative way to sign in to MediaWiki
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Description

BrowserID is an authentication mechanism by Mozilla with some similarities to OpenID, but more focused on privacy. [1][2]

MediaWiki should support BrowserID in three user actions: sign in, verify email address, and sign up. See my thoughts on the user interaction at [3].

This should probably be implemented as an extension, with a final goal of being deployed on Wikimedia sites.

It should be able to co-exist with the current password based authentication, while it might be good to be able to disable the password based authentication for new sites.

[1] Website: https://browserid.org/
[2] Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrowserID
[3] Thoughts on user interaction: https://sv.wiktionary.org/wiki/Anv%C3%A4ndare:Skalman/BrowserID


Version: unspecified
Severity: enhancement

Details

Reference
bz34565

Event Timeline

bzimport raised the priority of this task from to Medium.Nov 22 2014, 12:15 AM
bzimport set Reference to bz34565.

(In reply to comment #0)

This should probably be implemented as an extension, with a final goal of being
deployed on Wikimedia sites.

Well, going to that extent will require community discussion, although it is worth baring in mind as both an alternative to OpenID and a supplement to it. OpenID has been discussed for usage on WMF sites

Presumably with Mozilla deploying this to it's own sites and services last month, should be somewhat stable, or at least, not far from being

(In reply to comment #1)

Well, going to that extent will require community discussion, although it is
worth baring in mind as both an alternative to OpenID and a supplement to it.
OpenID has been discussed for usage on WMF sites

My point was just that the extension should be designed with a possible future Wikimedia integration in mind.

added this as background info and for tracking

As already negatively and positively - but not finally - discussed in the Wikitech-l http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/wikitech/301095

I formally suggest in this bugzilla, as a project for our paid contractors or to whom else

References:

Mozilla revamps BrowserID as Persona / Mozilla launches beta of Persona identity system:

Implementation resources / ideas / hints:

As of today, Mozilla announced their "Identity bridging" between their Persona and OpenID. SO I think is is justified to move the present bugzilla to our existing and mature Extension:OpenID bug tracker section.

+ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/04/persona-beta-2-launch/
+ http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Mozilla-verbindet-Persona-mit-OpenID-und-OAuth-1838303.html

Note that an extension already exists for Persona (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Persona). It does not yet support identity bridging, though.