Better Authentication

There are circumstances when having a built-in authentication scheme is not practical. For these we should enable a wiki site to be wrapped in a layer that protects the site.

With wiki sites being owned by individuals there is only a single question that concerns us, "Are you the site owner?"

Here are early some explorations on how to provide better login experience for wiki farms, and for users developing mobile apps. The aim is to provide backward compatibility with Persona, while moving over to a better security model.

Cap’n Proto is an insanely fast data interchange format and capability-based RPC system. Think JSON, except binary. Or think Protocol Buffers, except faster - capnproto.org

Configuring each OAuth provider requires two steps: i) regestering our wiki installation, as an app, with the OAuth provider, and ii) configuring Federated Wiki to use the shared secrets created.

Caddy is a lightweight, general-purpose web server for Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD and Android. It is a capable alternative to other popular and easy to use web servers.

Let’s Encrypt is a free, automated, and open certificate authority (CA), run for the public’s benefit. Let’s Encrypt is a service provided by the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG). Let's Encrypt ISRG

A WebID is an HTTP URI that denotes ("refers to" or "names)" an agent on HTTP based networks e.g., the Web or an enterprise Intranet.

Watching Let's Encrypt I had to admire the mechanisms but see them as some sort of band-aid over earlier mistakes. Or are our goals themselves misguided?

We list and maybe even review authentication systems and interfaces that will show the range of what might be expected of wiki in diverse circumstances.

# See also

Here are early some explorations on how to provide better login experience for wiki farms, and for users developing mobile apps. The aim is to provide backward compatibility with Persona, while moving over to a better security model.