Namecoin Forum

I've just written a quick-and-dirty specification for authenticating Namecoin IDs without the need for a user agent program to create signatures. It works by delegating authentication to an OpenID Connect server. In this way, users can have control over who they trust to authenticate them, and can switch trust providers easily, while not requiring any support for Namecoin or NameID on the user agent. This would allow websites and other services to provide Namecoin as a primary form of authentication.

The specification is currently here: https://gist.github.com/VShell/616025eba6d38f69fd34

Any comments are welcome.

Hi! Are you aware of http://nameid.org ? Is it similar?

Hi phelix,

Yes, I am aware of NameID. The problem with NameID is that it requires a browser plugin or other custom software on the computer you're logging in from. My proposal does not necessarily require this, however, it does require that you trust the administrator of the OpenID Connect server (which could be yourself, on a home server, and likely will be in the project I am working on).

A service ("Relying Party") could reasonably support both logins with this proposal and with NameID, for users with different security requirements.

Shell