Re: Strong authentication for PayPal versus WebPayments

On 05/08/2014 01:11 PM, Anders Rundgren wrote:
> It seems that the Web Payment CG have found the holy grail, where 
> linked data obviates the need for authentication in its traditional 
> sense.

Sarcasm on a mailing list is rarely helpful, it's often misinterpreted
and leads to further miscommunication, which eats into all of our
precious time. :)

Linked Data is just a means to an end. It's not a holy grail. No one has
said that it obviates the need for authentication.

You need both Linked Data and strong authentication (among other
technologies) to build a good Web-based payment solution. You need to be
able to express all the complexities of a commercial transaction -
expressing a product (HTTPS, Linked Data, digital signatures),
expressing an offer for sale of said product (HTTPS, Linked Data,
digital signatures), initiating payment (HTTPS, Authentication,
Authorization, Linked Data, digital signatures), and finally delivering
a digital receipt (HTTPS, Linked Data, digital signatures).

There are other things that you need to be able to do as well, such as
clearing money between payment systems (ACH, Bitcoin, Ripple, etc.) and
ensuring that licensing is expressed and consumed by the ecosystem.

We're actively trying to figure out where authentication, authorization,
distributed clearing, etc. fits into the overall picture. We also need
to understand if, after we put all of this stuff together, we have a
solution that is both technically sound and that is also easy for
developers to deploy.

We have this proposal on the table to address the NASCAR login problem,
transmit payment provider details, and provide solid multi-factor
authentication:

http://manu.sporny.org/2014/credential-based-login/

Outlining the problems that you see with that approach would be more
helpful.

-- manu

-- 
Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
blog: The Marathonic Dawn of Web Payments
http://manu.sporny.org/2014/dawn-of-web-payments/

Received on Thursday, 8 May 2014 21:04:51 UTC