Multi-protocol User-centric Identity

Johannes Ernst replies to yesterday’s post on Multi-protocol Identity Implementations:

Let’s take this a step further. If user-centricity is really what we are after, it follows that I am my own identity provider in many circumstances, doesn’t it? (Even if I let somebody else manage the server that runs the code and stores the data.) There seems to be a C2C model as well. What might the dynamics be there? That’s the truly decentralized, peer-to-peer version of identity …

Paul Madsen makes a similar point, commenting

Users acting either as their own Identity Providers or as direct identity consumers will present a different set of challenges of multi-protocol support for the sites with which they interact.

Assuming we are talking about widespread adoption, I think the user experience will be key here. Only a few hardy souls are going to tolerate managing several personal identity providers (PIPs). What we need is some higher level UI that might let us manage several credentials, each with their own protocol - perhaps a sort of ‘metasystem’ to make sense of it all?

Err…