LID Features and Benefits

From LID Wiki

What is LID?

Light-Weight Identity (aka LID) is a family of quite simple, but powerful personal digital identity protocols that empower individuals to keep control over and manage all aspects of their digital identities on-line. Some of these protocols were created at NetMesh; others, such as OpenID originated elsewhere or, such as Yadis, in collaboration with other vendors and developers.

By supporting LID, people, organizations, websites, networks, things and software agents can securely identify each other and conduct identity-related transactions, without having to rely on a third party that is somehow in control; this is in marked contrast to traditional digital identity technologies.

Digital Identity is Bad, isn't it?

Traditionally, digital identity technologies have been used as a tool for Big Government and Big Business. That, of course, is still ongoing.

However, more recently a range of innovation has occurred that enables User-centric Digital Identity. Because user-centric digital identity is decentralized and puts control in the hands of the users themselves, they do the exact opposite: they empower users to have control over who knows what about them in cyberspace, and what they can do with that knowledge.

What can LID do?

LID is the umbrella term for an ever-growing list of LID Services. So the possibilities are virtually unlimited! Among them are:

• single sign-on (SSO), which allows you to enter a password once at your own URL, and never have to remember another password again. Through cryptographic techniques, your password will never be shared with anybody, and you are at least as secure as before (and happier because of the fewer passwords). LID supports several SSO protocols, including OpenID.
• Conversely, if you run a website with protected content, by supporting LID you don't have to implement password management, user registration etc.
• authenticated messages from one user to another user. Unlike e-mail, which is full of spam and phishing attacks these days, LID authenticated messaging guarantees that nobody can pretend to be somebody else.
• published contact information in a manner that only those people who you trust can access it. For example, you wouldn't give your phone number to a stranger, would you? But your friends should be able to retrieve your new cell phone number at any time.

How does one use LID?

The family of LID protocols can and is supported by a range of software from seveal parties. Currently, it might be easiest for non-technical users to simply sign up for a free URL at mylid.net (a hosted LID service provided by NetMesh).

If you have an existing URL, such as your blog's, that you'd like to LID-enable, please refer to Turn Your Blog Into a LID URL.