Category Archives: mozilla

getting web sites to adopt a new identity system

Posted on April 30, 2013 by ben

My team at Mozilla works on Persona, an easy and secure web login solution. Persona delivers to web sites and apps just the right information for a meaningful login: an email address of the user’s choice. Persona is one of … Continue reading →

Posted in identity, mozilla, web | 3 Comments

Identity Systems: white labeling is a no-go

Posted on April 25, 2013 by ben

There’s a new blog post with some criticism of Mozilla Persona, the easy and secure web login solution that my team works on. The great thing about working in the open at Mozilla is that we get this kind of … Continue reading →

Posted in identity, mozilla, security | 3 Comments

Firefox is the unlocked browser

Posted on March 19, 2013 by ben

Anil Dash is a man after my own heart in his latest post, The Case for User Agent Extremism. Please go read this awesome post: One of my favorite aspects of the infrastructure of the web is that the way … Continue reading →

Posted in identity, mozilla, privacy, web | 4 Comments

the Web is the Platform, and the User is the User

Posted on February 28, 2013 by ben

Mid-2007, I wrote two blog posts — get over it, the web is the platform and the web is the platform [part 2] that turned out to be quite right on one front, and so incredibly wrong on another. Let’s … Continue reading →

Posted in identity, mozilla, web | 7 Comments

connect on your terms

Posted on August 23, 2012 by ben

I want to talk about what we, the Identity Team at Mozilla, are working on. Mozilla makes Firefox, the 2nd most popular browser in the world, and the only major browser built by a non-profit. Mozilla’s mission is to build … Continue reading →

Posted in identity, mozilla, privacy, security, web | Leave a comment

encryption is not gravy

Posted on April 30, 2012 by ben

When designing a secure service that stores user data, you might be temped to say “let’s make sure the data is encrypted.” That statement implies that you’re proposing adding goodness, without taking anything away. Something like “I’d like some of … Continue reading →

Posted in cryptorealism, mozilla | 21 Comments

a simpler, webbier approach to Web Intents (or Activities)

Posted on February 9, 2012 by ben

A few months ago, Mike Hanson and I started meeting with James, Paul, Greg, and others on the Google Chrome team. We had a common goal: how might web developers build applications that talk to each other in a way … Continue reading →

Posted in mozilla, web | 11 Comments

encryption is (mostly) not magic

Posted on December 21, 2011 by ben

A few months ago, Sony’s Playstation Network got hacked. Millions of accounts were breached, leaking physical addresses and passwords. Sony admitted that their data was “not encrypted.” Around the same time, researchers discovered that Dropbox stores user files “unencrypted.” Dozens … Continue reading →

Posted in crypto, mozilla, privacy, security, web | 14 Comments