The universal log-in system from Mozilla, Persona, has reached its second beta today. The company hopes that Persona can become the ubiquitous log-in system for the web, but it faces stiff competition. Both Facebook and Google already have universal log-in systems that have more traction. Facebook Connect is attempting to be the ubiquitous log-in system, but many users complain that they don’t want apps or sites to have access to their social network. That’s where Persona comes in.
While other log-in systems require users to create an account with a specific website or service, Persona will work with existing accounts and services. Persona currently supports Yahoo accounts and Mozilla is working on adding more supported accounts in the future. Lloyd Hilaiel, the technical lead for Mozilla Persona, says that Persona is “designed from the ground up to be federated and distributed.”
What this means is that Persona is an open authentication system that will work with whatever apps or services that adopt it. Mozilla’s own Firefox OS will adopt the Persona standard for log-in.
Persona does offer better privacy controls than either Facebook Connect or Google+ Sign-in since it won’t access your account, but there are some security concerns. As with other universal log-in systems, if your Persona credentials are compromised, that leaves all other sites that services that you use vulnerable. Both Google and Facebook offer two-factor authentication systems but Persona currently does not. Mozilla will have to work closely with sites and services to implement Persona. Still, it’s a tough sell as there are many alternatives like OpenID that haven’t really taken off.
Source: Mozilla
