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LDS Account API?

Posted: Sun Jul 04, 2010 5:11 pm
by jgillespie
Is there any chance that an API will be made available for LDS Account authentication? OpenID compliant would be great :)

Posted: Sun Jul 04, 2010 6:23 pm
by russellhltn
The church does have a program for FamilySearch Partners. But I don't see any signs that anything like that will come to other areas. Given the sensitivity of the information, I tend to doubt it.

The church is engaging in limited open development, but that's not the same as partnering.

Posted: Sun Jul 04, 2010 9:22 pm
by jgillespie
Thanks for the reply. I'm not really interested in Family Search development right now, but the partner program looks great!

I agree that there would clearly be issues with granting external folks access to any Church servers/data/account information, but I'm more wondering if a non-Church-owned system could leverage the LDS Account system for authentication. There are several examples of widely deployed OpenID-compliant providers out there on the internet...things like Google Accounts (http://code.google.com/apis/accounts/) and MS Live ID (https://msm.live.com/app/). I'm not necessarily asking if the Church is considering becoming an OpenID provider, but more wondering if they are looking into offering an authentication service of some kind. A system like this would allow third-party systems to verify that an actor/user "controls an identifier" without the third-party "needing access to end user credentials" (http://openid.net/specs/openid-authentication-2_0.html).

I can think of a dozen cool uses of such an authentication service, but right now I am interested in advocating the use of a network access control system at our meeting house. I think it would be great if we could integrate LDS Accounts for NAC decisioning and policy enforcement.

Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2010 1:46 pm
by marianomarini
There is, around the world, many unofficial church sites that could use it to know if a user is a member.
I'm one of this potential user for several sites!:D

Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2010 4:25 pm
by russellhltn
jgillespie wrote:I can think of a dozen cool uses of such an authentication service, but right now I am interested in advocating the use of a network access control system at our meeting house. I think it would be great if we could integrate LDS Accounts for NAC decisioning and policy enforcement.
Sounds like a good idea. You might approach Tomw with the idea to see if it's something the church might do community development. Since the authentication happens inside the network, it might be allowed.
marianomarini_vi wrote:There is, around the world, many unofficial church sites that could use it to know if a user is a member.
I don't think the church wants to reveal if someone is a member or not. So I don't think that's going to happen.

Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2010 3:27 pm
by marianomarini
RussellHltn wrote: I don't think the church wants to reveal if someone is a member or not. So I don't think that's going to happen.
Can a non member have an LDSAccount?

Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2010 4:17 pm
by aebrown
marianomarini_vi wrote:Can a non member have an LDSAccount?
Yes. The registration process is obviously a little different (no member record number), but nonmembers can indeed obtain an LDS Account.

Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2010 12:04 pm
by marianomarini
Right. I test it after my post!
Too fast reply!!!:D

Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2010 8:13 am
by WelchTC
Right now to my knowledge there is no plan for LDSAccount API authentication for other applications to use. Sorry :(

Tom

Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2010 8:13 am
by WelchTC
marianomarini_vi wrote:Can a non member have an LDSAccount?
Yes they can.

Tom