Wednesday, June 28, 2006

PeopleAggregator Authentication Woes

I'm trying to play around with the PeopleAggregator alpha.

PeopleAggregator offers multiple options for logging in.

When I tried to use my mudman.videntity.org OpenID identity I saw this error message from Videntity
openid.mode:error openid.error:Malformed trust_root
No prob, I have others. When I tried my mudman.pip.videntity.org OpenID identity I saw this from Verisign
Application Error - Sorry, it appears that you have found a bug. Our developers have been notified and are at work to correct the situation.
Running out of options, Flickr was next.

When using Flickr, I see a consent message as shown.

So somebody named Test(or is it Phil) wants permission to show me MY pictures?

After giving 'Phil' what he wants I'm successfully logged in.

When I then attempt to modify my PA profile I see the second pic.



But, I used Flickr to log in so that I wouldn't be required to provide a password? Despite the password being indicated as required info for the profile, I was able to save changes.

After logging out, I then tried to log in again using the same Flickr identity. I see



So now it seems I can't delete this profile.

When I created another profile (using a local account name and password) I saw to my surprise that Marc Canter was automatically added as a 'relation' of mine. I have never met Marc so this isn't some incredibly insightful matching engine. This does help to explain why he is already at 126 relations for himself.

Some of these issues have nothing to do with PeopleAggregator. Some are of course because PeopleAggregator is alpha and so will have bugs to be fixed. The interesting ones hilite how difficult it will be to build an experience to explain/convince/assuage the public in Peoria why the fact that they don't have to provide a password is a good thing.

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