My current solution for the login problem is less than ideal. I use the java program Password Safe to save my accounts+passwords, which it generates randomly. The pass phrase for my password safe is pretty complex, and I change it on about an annual basis. The program re-locks the safe after 5 minutes of inactivity, so this is reasonably safe against casual compromise. Of course, keyboard shoulder surfing and a subsequent theft of my machine (or temporary control) could render it useless, but I’m willing to accept those risks and do what I can to maintain control of the laptop. If somebody steals my laptop, unless they can crack the encryption quickly, I feel pretty good that I’ll have enough time to restore from backup, change all the passwords, and set a new combination.

However, this is basically as good as our current “status quo” of online fractured identity can get. And I still don’t have anything to bring all of my online presence together.

I recall with fond memories watching Dick Hardt’s amazing Identity 2.0 presentation from the audience at OSCON 2005. I came away thinking to myself “oh good, somebody is on it.” I put it out of my mind as a systems administrator with a lot of things to think about on the backend, and no real concern for the frontend.

Fast forward 5 years, and I see that we’re not much better off now. Dick Hardt’s company Sxip produced Sxipper, which is pretty cool, but still puts it on the users to safeguard and manage their data. Oh and really, I never heard about it until I went looking for Sxip again, and I don’t know anybody using it, I think its just a cool curiosity, not a solution.

This really is an issue that affects people, but they may not know it. Look at the trouble this guy went through to make google accounts useful for people with multiple email addresses. As we start sharing and sending and moving data, our identities clearly can’t be defined as email addresses anymore. I have 3 that I use a lot, and a couple of others that just refuse to die for whatever reason. Changing them means trying to find every site on which I’ve used them. UGH.

OpenID was, and still is, a promising direction. There are some definite security pitfalls in the way its been done in the past, but I think they’ve solved most of them. It doesn’t really satisfy Dick’s Photo ID requirement where the issuer doesn’t get to know what you’re using it for. Still I love when I sign up for a site and I can use my OpenID login. I use my launchpad.net account for this, mostly because it was the first site that had a very clear “this is your open ID url” link.

FOAF-SSL or “WebID” also seems interesting as a way to promote social credibility and utilize existing technologies rather than try to invent the whole thing. Even twitter seems to have rudimentary support. But its still a long way off from being in control of our identity. Given the meager number of relying parties, I’d say it may not ever get there, which is too bad.

So now I’m just confused. How and when are we going to get this done? When can I say “this is me, here’s some proof that this is me, now lets get something done.”?

Social networks sort of try to do this with the social proof of many friends. But at issue there is how closed off those social relationships are. Facebook wants me *on Facebook*. They don’t want to enable me to also use myspace or my Ning community seamlessly.

Until we as users know why we’d want that, and somebody is able to provide it, I guess I’m just stuck with my password safe.

checking for gcc... gcc
checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out
checking whether the C compiler works... yes
checking whether we are cross compiling... no
checking for suffix of executables...
checking for suffix of object files... o
checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
checking for gcc option to accept ANSI C... none needed
checking dependency style of gcc... gcc3
checking for g++... g++
checking whether we are using the GNU C++ compiler... yes
checking whether g++ accepts -g... yes
checking dependency style of g++... gcc3
checking for ranlib... ranlib
checking for bash... /bin/sh
checking for perl... /usr/bin/perl
checking for python... /usr/bin/python
checking for ar... /usr/bin/ar
checking for ant... no
checking Checking EXTERNAL_PATH set to... /usr/local/src/scribetest/thrift/contrib/fb303
checking whether to enable optimized build... yes
checking whether to enable static mode... yes
checking Checking thrift_home set to... /usr/local
checking for boostlib >= 1.33.1... yes
configure: creating ./config.status
config.status: creating Makefile
config.status: creating cpp/Makefile
config.status: creating py/Makefile
config.status: executing depfiles commands
EXTERNAL_PATH /usr/local/src/scribetest/thrift/contrib/fb303
[root@wolverine fb303]# make
make all-recursive
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/local/src/scribetest/thrift/contrib/fb303'
Making all in .
make[2]: Entering directory `/usr/local/src/scribetest/thrift/contrib/fb303'
make[2]: Nothing to be done for `all-am'.
make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/scribetest/thrift/contrib/fb303'
Making all in cpp
make[2]: Entering directory `/usr/local/src/scribetest/thrift/contrib/fb303/cpp'
make all-am
make[3]: Entering directory `/usr/local/src/scribetest/thrift/contrib/fb303/cpp'
if g++ -DPACKAGE_NAME=\"libfb303\" -DPACKAGE_TARNAME=\"libfb303\" -DPACKAGE_VERSION=\"20080209\" -DPACKAGE_STRING=\"libfb303\ 20080209\" -DPACKAGE_BUGREPORT=\"\" -DHAVE_BOOST= -I. -I. -I.. -Igen-cpp -I/usr/local/include/thrift -I/usr/local/include/boost-1_37 -Wall -O3 -MT FacebookService.o -MD -MP -MF ".deps/FacebookService.Tpo" -c -o FacebookService.o `test -f 'gen-cpp/FacebookService.cpp' || echo './'`gen-cpp/FacebookService.cpp; \
then mv -f ".deps/FacebookService.Tpo" ".deps/FacebookService.Po"; else rm -f ".deps/FacebookService.Tpo"; exit 1; fi
In file included from gen-cpp/FacebookService.cpp:6:
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h:28: error: `facebook::thrift' has not been declared
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h:28: error: `Service' has not been declared
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h:28: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `_return' with no type
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h:72: error: `facebook::thrift' has not been declared
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h:72: error: `Service' has not been declared
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h:72: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `parameter' with no type
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h:1077: error: `facebook::thrift' has not been declared
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h:1077: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `Service' with no type
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h:1077: error: expected `;' before "success"
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h: In member function `bool facebook::fb303::FacebookService_getLimitedReflection_result::operator==(const facebook::fb303::FacebookService_getLimitedReflection_result&) const':
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h:1086: error: `success' was not declared in this scope
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h:1086: error: 'const class facebook::fb303::FacebookService_getLimitedReflection_result' has no member named 'success'
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h:1086: warning: unused variable 'success'
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h: At global scope:
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h:1107: error: `facebook::thrift' has not been declared
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h:1107: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `Service' with no type
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h:1107: error: expected `;' before '*' token
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h:1241: error: `facebook::thrift' has not been declared
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h:1241: error: `Service' has not been declared
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h:1241: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `_return' with no type
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h:1243: error: `facebook::thrift' has not been declared
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h:1243: error: `Service' has not been declared
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h:1243: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `_return' with no type
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h:1434: error: `facebook::thrift' has not been declared
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h:1434: error: `Service' has not been declared
gen-cpp/FacebookService.h:1434: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of `_return' with no type
gen-cpp/FacebookService.cpp: In member function `uint32_t facebook::fb303::FacebookService_getLimitedReflection_result::read(apache::thrift::protocol::TProtocol*)':
gen-cpp/FacebookService.cpp:1795: error: 'class facebook::fb303::FacebookService_getLimitedReflection_result' has no member named 'success'
gen-cpp/FacebookService.cpp: In member function `uint32_t facebook::fb303::FacebookService_getLimitedReflection_result::write(apache::thrift::protocol::TProtocol*) const':
gen-cpp/FacebookService.cpp:1821: error: 'const class facebook::fb303::FacebookService_getLimitedReflection_result' has no member named 'success'
gen-cpp/FacebookService.cpp: In member function `uint32_t facebook::fb303::FacebookService_getLimitedReflection_presult::read(apache::thrift::protocol::TProtocol*)':
gen-cpp/FacebookService.cpp:1851: error: 'class facebook::fb303::FacebookService_getLimitedReflection_presult' has no member named 'success'
gen-cpp/FacebookService.cpp: At global scope:
gen-cpp/FacebookService.cpp:2614: error: `facebook::thrift' has not been declared
gen-cpp/FacebookService.cpp:2614: error: variable or field `getLimitedReflection' declared void
gen-cpp/FacebookService.cpp:2614: error: `int facebook::fb303::FacebookServiceClient::getLimitedReflection' is not a static member of `class facebook::fb303::FacebookServiceClient'
gen-cpp/FacebookService.cpp:2614: error: `Service' was not declared in this scope
gen-cpp/FacebookService.cpp:2614: error: `_return' was not declared in this scope
gen-cpp/FacebookService.cpp:2615: error: expected `,' or `;' before '{' token
gen-cpp/FacebookService.cpp:2633: error: `facebook::thrift' has not been declared
gen-cpp/FacebookService.cpp:2633: error: variable or field `recv_getLimitedReflection' declared void
gen-cpp/FacebookService.cpp:2633: error: `int facebook::fb303::FacebookServiceClient::recv_getLimitedReflection' is not a static member of `class facebook::fb303::FacebookServiceClient'
gen-cpp/FacebookService.cpp:2633: error: `Service' was not declared in this scope
gen-cpp/FacebookService.cpp:2633: error: `_return' was not declared in this scope
gen-cpp/FacebookService.cpp:2634: error: expected `,' or `;' before '{' token
gen-cpp/FacebookService.cpp: In member function `void facebook::fb303::FacebookServiceProcessor::process_getLimitedReflection(int32_t, apache::thrift::protocol::TProtocol*, apache::thrift::protocol::TProtocol*)':
gen-cpp/FacebookService.cpp:3070: error: 'class facebook::fb303::FacebookService_getLimitedReflection_result' has no member named 'success'
make[3]: *** [FacebookService.o] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/scribetest/thrift/contrib/fb303/cpp'
make[2]: *** [all] Error 2
make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/scribetest/thrift/contrib/fb303/cpp'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/scribetest/thrift/contrib/fb303'
make: *** [all] Error 2


I googled around but found nothing. I tried logging into #thrift on Freenode, and “SteveC_” informed me that he had the same problem, and pointed me at this thrift bug report that explains it a little better. It would seem that Thrift is no longer in the ‘facebook’ namespace, but rather ‘apache’. This makes perfect sense. However, fb303 still expects it to be facebook. So, on Steve’s advice of replacing the word ‘facebook’ with ‘apache’ in the fb303 tree, I did this in fb303:

find . -type f | xargs perl -p -i -e ‘s/facebook/apache/g’

And the make continued a little further until I hit this:


make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/scribetest/thrift/contrib/fb303/cpp'
Making all in py
make[2]: Entering directory `/usr/local/src/scribetest/thrift/contrib/fb303/py'
/usr/bin/python setup.py build
running build
running build_py
error: package directory 'fb303' does not exist
make[2]: *** [all-local] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/scribetest/thrift/contrib/fb303/py'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/scribetest/thrift/contrib/fb303'
make: *** [all] Error 2


However, this error seemed to be irrelevant, as ‘make install’ put fb303 where it was supposed to go.

Building scribe, the same ‘find’ command from above was required. I ran it after running into the first ‘no such thing as facebook’ error, and the make continued, and scribe seemed to work just fine.

Hopefully this will find its way into google’s indexes and help somebody.