[jdev] New project (DIAS)

[David Ammouial]

Hello,

These days, I am trying to make something out of an idea I had some time 
ago.

DIAS is yet another identity mechanism. It aims at allowing people to use 
their JID as a universal login in login-based systems like web forums, mail 
servers, etc., thus avoiding to create accounts and remember passwords 
again and again. The XMPP network, so, is used as a central user database, 
while benefiting from its decentralized, independant nature. 

The DIAS mechanism is a 3-way communication that allows you to prove that 
you own a particular JID without disclosing the password. The idea is that 
you first ask, via XMPP, a unique ticket to a third-party "agent" trusted 
by the other side, then you show the ticket to the other side when you have 
it. The other side only has, then, to access the ticket information shared 
by the agent, in order to trustfully know your JID.

You can read more at http://weeno.net/dias/ .

As you will see in the "implementation ideas" page, I wrote some minimal 
code in order to have a "proof of concept":
- Client (Python command-line interface)
- Agent (Python)
- Server (as a PHP page).

The PHP page used to have a corresponding agent running, but I can't have it 
running permanently at the moment, so it is probably necessary to run one 
yourself if you want to give the whole thing a try.

Since there are probably some (conceptual, technical, etc.) problems, I 
would be very happy to have some feedback here. I would also like to know 
of other related or similar projects (I already know some of them, like 
OpenID), since the problem that is raised is not new.

Regards.
-- 
David Ammouial
http://da.weeno.net/
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