Barack Obama's Change.gov Adds OpenID
OpenID has had a lot of big supporters, but this week President Elect Barack Obama's Change.gov added the ability for users to log in using an OpenID account and to post comments to sections of the website using OpenID. That's big news and is going to introduce a whole lot of people to the concept of federated identity.
Every other major player that has announced support for OpenID has in fact only allowed accounts with their company to be used as an OpenID elsewhere - they have not allowed other OpenIDs to be used to log in to their own sites. That means Barack Obama is cooler than AOL, MySpace, Google (except for Blogger.com comments) and Yahoo!. Maybe you already knew that, though.
The site uses the commenting plug-in system Intense Debate, which was recently acquired by Automattic, the makers of WordPress. Change.gov isn't allowing comments on every blog post they put up, just on particular pages set up to discuss particular issues. Nonetheless, it's pretty awesome.
You can see the OpenID implementation on this page for discussing health care policy. Thanks to Sebastian Küpers for capturing an image of the implementation under Creative Commons on Flickr.
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Very interesting and cool!
Two observations:
1) an example of how a small startup adopting something can in fact influence later on. No one cared when intense debate adopted the standard and now it's going to introduce the standard to millions of consumers
2) This is going to further agitate some members of the identity community, as OpenID grows as a catch all solution, of which it was never designed
Wow...this guy is on it! Looking forward to more innovative approaches =)
http://greentechbuzz.com
This is awesome. Very interesting how the the little guy and the government choose to do something like OpenID correctly but the big 4 are still limping it out weakly.
Glad to see Intense Debate get some major love. I just switched my site from Disqus over to Intense Debate solely due to the OpenID support.
FWIW, not able to log in via Typekey or Yahoo OpenID. Not sure if it's change.gov or a problem on 6A/Yahoo's side. But no doubt it'll be ironed out quickly. Bully for Barack!
Unfortunately, intensedebate's implementation of OpenID does not seem to include OpenID 2.0s support of XRI. But then again, a lot of them don't. (Including, apparently, the MoveableType OpenID authentication for comments)
=aldon.hynes
@ahynes1
seems cool , havn't tried it yet
Aldon, thanks for pointing this out. We'll take a look at enhancing our OpenID integration in IntenseDebate to include 2.0's support of XRI.
Yes, this is probably the best thing that could ever happen to the OpenID concept and to IntenseDebate in particular - they (and Automattic with them) must be incredibly happy about it. I wonder who will be the next to get this generous support.
I have decided that Obama needs to hire me as his emerging technology advisor. With his obvious interest in cutting edge tech, he needs someone who follows this space closely. ; ) Now to get through the 60 page application...
Posted by: Carla Thompson
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November 27, 2008 3:49 AM
will popularize openid no end. time to add it to your site's toolbox
Posted by: Joelle Nebbe
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November 27, 2008 5:18 AM
Big, Big boost for OpenID and the correct use of it, even. That is, not just re-issuing your own IDs, but actually accepting any OpenID! Yay!!! As someone else said, Obama is ON IT!
This is a great idea which will hopefully make a more open transparent government. I am an African and hope the trend picks up to where I am from
Finally, something is happening in Relying Party space. More! Go, go!
Posted by: patryk.net
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November 29, 2008 7:00 AM
Mr.President,
You have made a history by emerging to the top of the world to create a history. I have couple of questions , Mr. President.
Recent Mumbai attack reveals when you have started your campaign by telling to the republicans the war against Iraq is wrong, but to pakistan is the right right place to take action. Now you are going to clean up the whole mess. Also please take some interest in desolving the banned LTTE organization too.
Hope you will do your best after jan 20, 2009. Always my prayers are for you Mr.President.
Thank you.
Prem
Many western environmentalists have worked hard to protect our public lands from exploitation. For many years the Department of Interior has been the department of extraction. It has been handed over to Timber, Mining and Livestock Industry. These industries have raped and pillaged our public lands, leaving massive cut down forests, gravel pit mountains and giant feed lots for livestock.Our problem with Mr.Salazar is that he represents the livestock industry.
We, who live here, have fought hard to save the public lands for the wildlife and for our rivers and streams, that no longer support fish. We are facing massive extinction of many of our species. These industries slaughter wildlife, like wolves and buffalo, and pollute our rivers and streams and that no longer support fish.
Having put up with 8 terrible years. We have to take these people to court to save these species, that have no voice. We have waited too long to have a leader that will listen to the people, who own and love their public lands.
Maybe you, some how can find time to see for yourself our problems with the destruction of these lands.
Thank you
Irene Wright
5654 El Gato Lane
Meridian, Id
83642