Browser ID

Over the past year, Dirkjan Ochtman has been a consistent, constructive voice in the Persona community. His involvement has helped ensure that we stay true to Mozilla’s mission of open, transparent, and participatory innovation. More impressively ... [More] , Persona’s new backgroundColor feature is the direct result of Dirkjan’s efforts. We hope this interview highlights his contributions and inspires others to get involved. From the rest of us at Mozilla, thank you. Who are you? I’m Dirkjan Ochtman, a 30-year old software developer living in Amsterdam. I work for a financial startup by day; in my free time, I contribute to a bunch of open source projects, like Mercurial, Python, Gentoo Linux and Apache CouchDB. I also started a few things of my own. Have you contributed to Mozilla projects in the past? How did you get involved in Persona? I started using Firefox almost ten years ago, and I’d been watching Mozilla before that. The Mozilla mission of an open Internet resonates with me, so I tend to try and find stuff around the edges of the project where I can help. This year, I also became a Mozilla Rep. I find BrowserID/Persona compelling because I hate having to register on different sites and make up passwords that fit (often inane) security requirements. And you just know that many sites store passwords insecurely, leaking sensitive information when they get hacked. Persona allows me to authenticate with my email address and a single password; no more guessing which username I used. I trust Mozilla’s password storage to be much more secure than the average Internet site, and because Persona is open source, I can verify that it is. In addition to setting up Persona sign in on a small community site I run, I’ve also implemented my own Python-based Identity Provider. This means that when I use Persona, I control my own login experience. My Identity Provider uses Google Authenticator, so now I don’t have to remember any passwords at all. The documentation for building an Identity Provider was scattered and incomplete, so I helped improve that. From that work, I got to know some of the great people who work on Identity at Mozilla. What have you hacked on recently? There has been a long-standing issue that the Persona dialog contained too much Mozilla branding and did not sufficiently emphasize the individual websites that users were signing into. There was an issue about this on Github, but I seem to remember complaints on the mailing list from even longer ago. Of course, I prefer to use Persona over Facebook Connect or Twitter, so I decided to see if I could fix some of these issues. Luckily one of the Persona developers, Shane Tomlinson, was available to work on this at roughly the same time. To improve the branding balance, we first de-emphasized the Persona branding. I focused on allowing websites to specify a background color for the Persona dialog. This is important because it can make the dialog feel much more “at home” on a site. We had to work out some tricks to ensure that text stayed readable regardless of the background color specified. What was that experience like? It was great. I had no previous experience with Node.js, but getting the application up and running was easy. I got basic backgroundColor support working in a few hours, but it took a few nights to tweak things and write tests. Fortunately, Shane is also based in Europe, so we could easily work together. When Shane showed our work on the mailing list, response from the other developers was very positive. It would be really great if this helps drive Persona adoption amongst large websites. Any plans for future contributions? I’ll probably stay involved for the foreseeable future. Now that I know what I’m doing with the dialog, I would like to help out with further improvements to the login flow and website API. I’m also very interested in stabilization and/or standardization of the Identity Provider API. [Less]

Over the past year, Dirkjan Ochtman has been a consistent, constructive voice in the Persona community. His involvement has helped ensure that we stay true to Mozilla’s mission of open, transparent, and participatory innovation. More impressively ... [More] , Persona’s new backgroundColor feature is the direct result of Dirkjan’s efforts. We hope this interview highlights his contributions and inspires others to get involved. From the rest of us at Mozilla, thank you. Who are you? I’m Dirkjan Ochtman, a 30-year old software developer living in Amsterdam. I work for a financial startup by day; in my free time, I contribute to a bunch of open source projects, like Mercurial, Python, Gentoo Linux and Apache CouchDB. I also started a few things of my own. Have you contributed to Mozilla projects in the past? How did you get involved in Persona? I started using Firefox almost ten years ago, and I’d been watching Mozilla before that. The Mozilla mission of an open Internet resonates with me, so I tend to try and find stuff around the edges of the project where I can help. This year, I also became a Mozilla Rep. I find BrowserID/Persona compelling because I hate having to register on different sites and make up passwords that fit (often inane) security requirements. And you just know that many sites store passwords insecurely, leaking sensitive information when they get hacked. Persona allows me to authenticate with my email address and a single password; no more guessing which username I used. I trust Mozilla’s password storage to be much more secure than the average Internet site, and because Persona is open source, I can verify that it is. In addition to setting up Persona sign in on a small community site I run, I’ve also implemented my own Python-based Identity Provider. This means that when I use Persona, I control my own login experience. My Identity Provider uses Google Authenticator, so now I don’t have to remember any passwords at all. The documentation for building an Identity Provider was scattered and incomplete, so I helped improve that. From that work, I got to know some of the great people who work on Identity at Mozilla. What have you hacked on recently? There has been a long-standing issue that the Persona dialog contained too much Mozilla branding and did not sufficiently emphasize the individual websites that users were signing into. There was an issue about this on Github, but I seem to remember complaints on the mailing list from even longer ago. Of course, I prefer to use Persona over Facebook Connect or Twitter, so I decided to see if I could fix some of these issues. Luckily one of the Persona developers, Shane Tomlinson, was available to work on this at roughly the same time. To improve the branding balance, we first de-emphasized the Persona branding. I focused on allowing websites to specify a background color for the Persona dialog. This is important because it can make the dialog feel much more “at home” on a site. We had to work out some tricks to ensure that text stayed readable regardless of the background color specified. What was that experience like? It was great. I had no previous experience with Node.js, but getting the application up and running was easy. I got basic backgroundColor support working in a few hours, but it took a few nights to tweak things and write tests. Fortunately, Shane is also based in Europe, so we could easily work together. When Shane showed our work on the mailing list, response from the other developers was very positive. It would be really great if this helps drive Persona adoption amongst large websites. Any plans for future contributions? I’ll probably stay involved for the foreseeable future. Now that I know what I’m doing with the dialog, I would like to help out with further improvements to the login flow and website API. I’m also very interested in stabilization and/or standardization of the Identity Provider API. [Less]

Over the past year, Dirkjan Ochtman has been a consistent, constructive voice in the Persona community. His involvement has helped ensure that we stay true to Mozilla’s mission of open, transparent, and participatory innovation. More impressively ... [More] , Persona’s new backgroundColor feature is the direct result of Dirkjan’s efforts. We hope this interview highlights his contributions and inspires others to get involved. From the rest of us at Mozilla, thank you. Who are you? I’m Dirkjan Ochtman, a 30-year old software developer living in Amsterdam. I work for a financial startup by day; in my free time, I contribute to a bunch of open source projects, like Mercurial, Python, Gentoo Linux and Apache CouchDB. I also started a few things of my own. Have you contributed to Mozilla projects in the past? How did you get involved in Persona? I started using Firefox almost ten years ago, and I’d been watching Mozilla before that. The Mozilla mission of an open Internet resonates with me, so I tend to try and find stuff around the edges of the project where I can help. This year, I also became a Mozilla Rep. I find BrowserID/Persona compelling because I hate having to register on different sites and make up passwords that fit (often inane) security requirements. And you just know that many sites store passwords insecurely, leaking sensitive information when they get hacked. Persona allows me to authenticate with my email address and a single password; no more guessing which username I used. I trust Mozilla’s password storage to be much more secure than the average Internet site, and because Persona is open source, I can verify that it is. In addition to setting up Persona sign in on a small community site I run, I’ve also implemented my own Python-based Identity Provider. This means that when I use Persona, I control my own login experience. My Identity Provider uses Google Authenticator, so now I don’t have to remember any passwords at all. The documentation for building an Identity Provider was scattered and incomplete, so I helped improve that. From that work, I got to know some of the great people who work on Identity at Mozilla. What have you hacked on recently? There has been a long-standing issue that the Persona dialog contained too much Mozilla branding and did not sufficiently emphasize the individual websites that users were signing into. There was an issue about this on Github, but I seem to remember complaints on the mailing list from even longer ago. Of course, I prefer to use Persona over Facebook Connect or Twitter, so I decided to see if I could fix some of these issues. Luckily one of the Persona developers, Shane Tomlinson, was available to work on this at roughly the same time. To improve the branding balance, we first de-emphasized the Persona branding. I focused on allowing websites to specify a background color for the Persona dialog. This is important because it can make the dialog feel much more “at home" on a site. We had to work out some tricks to ensure that text stayed readable regardless of the background color specified. What was that experience like? It was great. I had no previous experience with Node.js, but getting the application up and running was easy. I got basic backgroundColor support working in a few hours, but it took a few nights to tweak things and write tests. Fortunately, Shane is also based in Europe, so we could easily work together. When Shane showed our work on the mailing list, response from the other developers was very positive. It would be really great if this helps drive Persona adoption amongst large websites. Any plans for future contributions? I’ll probably stay involved for the foreseeable future. Now that I know what I’m doing with the dialog, I would like to help out with further improvements to the login flow and website API. I’m also very interested in stabilization and/or standardization of the Identity Provider API. [Less]

The next time you use Persona, it might look a little different. In response to user feedback, we’ve reduced the prominence of the Mozilla brand in the login dialog and completely eliminated the big “Persona” header. This keeps the focus on ... [More] individual sites, rather than the mechanism powering login. With Persona, your site is at the forefront: The dialog is also becoming more customizable. In addition to a siteName and siteLogo, websites can now set a backgroundColor so that the Persona dialog matches their site’s design. For example, to get a bright blue dialog, a site can simply call: navigator.id.request({backgroundColor: '#24ccff'}); We owe this feature to the efforts of Dirkjan Ochtman, a Mozilla community member and open source software contributor. Next week, we’ll publish a brief interview with Dirkjan highlighting his contributions. If you’d like to get involved, you can find the Persona team in #identity on irc.mozilla.org or on the dev-identity mailing list. Our code is open source and available on GitHub. [Less]

The next time you use Persona, it might look a little different. In response to user feedback, we’ve reduced the prominence of the Mozilla brand in the login dialog and completely eliminated the big “Persona” header. This keeps the focus on ... [More] individual sites, rather than the mechanism powering login. With Persona, your site is at the forefront: The dialog is also becoming more customizable. In addition to a siteName and siteLogo, websites can now set a backgroundColor so that the Persona dialog matches their site’s design. For example, to get a bright blue dialog, a site can simply call: navigator.id.request({backgroundColor: '#24ccff'}); We owe this feature to the efforts of Dirkjan Ochtman, a Mozilla community member and open source software contributor. Next week, we’ll publish a brief interview with Dirkjan highlighting his contributions. If you’d like to get involved, you can find the Persona team in #identity on irc.mozilla.org or on the dev-identity mailing list. Our code is open source and available on GitHub. [Less]

The next time you use Persona, it might look a little different. In response to user feedback, we’ve reduced the prominence of the Mozilla brand in the login dialog and completely eliminated the big “Persona” header. This keeps the focus on ... [More] individual sites, rather than the mechanism powering login. With Persona, your site is at the forefront: The dialog is also becoming more customizable. In addition to a siteName and siteLogo, websites can now set a backgroundColor so that the Persona dialog matches their site’s design. For example, to get a bright blue dialog, a site can simply call: navigator.id.request({backgroundColor: '#24ccff'}); We owe this feature to the efforts of Dirkjan Ochtman, a Mozilla community member and open source software contributor. Next week, we’ll publish a brief interview with Dirkjan highlighting his contributions. If you’d like to get involved, you can find the Persona team in #identity on irc.mozilla.org or on the dev-identity mailing list. Our code is open source and available on GitHub. [Less]

The next time you use Persona, it might look a little different. In response to user feedback, we’ve reduced the prominence of the Mozilla brand in the login dialog and completely eliminated the big “Persona” header. This keeps the focus on ... [More] individual sites, rather than the mechanism powering login. With Persona, your site is at the forefront: The dialog is also becoming more customizable. In addition to a siteName and siteLogo, websites can now set a backgroundColor so that the Persona dialog matches their site’s design. For example, to get a bright blue dialog, a site can simply call: navigator.id.request({backgroundColor: '#24ccff'}); We owe this feature to the efforts of Dirkjan Ochtman, a Mozilla community member and open source software contributor. Next week, we’ll publish a brief interview with Dirkjan highlighting his contributions. If you’d like to get involved, you can find the Persona team in #identity on irc.mozilla.org or on the dev-identity mailing list. Our code is open source and available on GitHub. [Less]

The next time you use Persona, it might look a little different. In response to user feedback, we’ve reduced the prominence of the Mozilla brand in the login dialog and completely eliminated the big “Persona" header. This keeps the focus on ... [More] individual sites, rather than the mechanism powering login. With Persona, your site is at the forefront: The dialog is also becoming more customizable. In addition to a siteName and siteLogo, websites can now set a backgroundColor so that the Persona dialog matches their site’s design. For example, to get a bright blue dialog, a site can simply call: navigator.id.request({backgroundColor: '#24ccff'}); We owe this feature to the efforts of Dirkjan Ochtman, a Mozilla community member and open source software contributor. Next week, we’ll publish a brief interview with Dirkjan highlighting his contributions. If you’d like to get involved, you can find the Persona team in #identity on irc.mozilla.org or on the dev-identity mailing list. Our code is open source and available on GitHub. Note: These changes will go live in the next few days. [Less]

The next time you use Persona, it might look a little different. In response to user feedback, we’ve reduced the prominence of the Mozilla brand in the login dialog and completely eliminated the big “Persona” header. This keeps the focus on ... [More] individual sites, rather than the mechanism powering login. With Persona, your site is at the forefront: The dialog is also becoming more customizable. In addition to a siteName and siteLogo, websites can now set a backgroundColor so that the Persona dialog matches their site’s design. For example, to get a bright blue dialog, a site can simply call: navigator.id.request({backgroundColor: '#24ccff'}); We owe this feature to the efforts of Dirkjan Ochtman, a Mozilla community member and open source software contributor. Next week, we’ll publish a brief interview with Dirkjan highlighting his contributions. If you’d like to get involved, you can find the Persona team in #identity on irc.mozilla.org or on the dev-identity mailing list. Our code is open source and available on GitHub. [Less]

Over the last few days, news reports indicate that US government agencies are involved in broad surveillance of phone and Internet traffic. The exact extent of this surveillance is not fully understood. The Mozilla Identity Team joins the rest of ... [More] Mozilla in calling for a thorough investigation of these surveillance activities. We also join security professionals like Bruce Schneier in highlighting the importance of transparency of surveillance activities: Knowing how the government spies on us is important. Not only because so much of it is illegal – or, to be as charitable as possible, based on novel interpretations of the law – but because we have a right to know. So, with that said, let’s talk about Mozilla Persona in this context, and more broadly about Mozilla-provided user services. Mozilla stores some user data to provide these services. As per our privacy policy, we store only what we must to provide the features we build and validate with users and developers. Mozilla’s Manifesto clearly shows how we focus on user sovereignty, whether we’re discussing Firefox or Persona. Some have called on us to move Persona servers outside the US to escape the now-revealed surveillance activity. We don’t think that would help, and even if it did a bit, we think we can be much more productive by focusing on other areas. First, it’s not clear to us that other governments have any less intrusive surveillance activities. Second, as a US company, Mozilla is subject to US Laws, wherever we host our servers. Third, we’d rather not engage in an arms-race with US government agencies. We’d rather focus on efforts to change the Law to respect user data wherever it lives. It’s also worth pointing out that we do take certain technical measures to limit the data we collect. We’ve designed Persona so that the identity provider – including the fallback Identity Provider that we run – does not learn your browsing history. We consider that a good security practice, not specifically because of surveillance, but generally because collecting data without a user benefit just creates risk. Mozilla will always do its utmost to serve and protect users, with a combination of technology and policy. We want to make sure the Law helps us do that. Help us by signing the petition. [Less]