MyOpenID.com Release (“Hullabaloo”)

We’ve implemented some new anti-phishing features on MyOpenID.com over the last couple of days.

• Personal Icon: A personal icon is a picture that you can specify that is presented to you in the title bar of MyOpenID every time you visit the site. The image is shown based on a cookie that is not tied to your account. This aids in fighting phishing as you’ll get used to seeing the same picture at the top of the page every time you sign in. If you don’t see it, then something might be up. Carl worked on this feature for us over the last few days and employed some of the techniques discussed on the list to make it happen.
• SafeSignIn: The SafeSignIn feature was inspired by Simon Willison and was implemented by Mike on our Identity Provider team. SafeSignIn is an option that users can set on their settings page that makes it so you cannot be redirected to your MyOpenID.com to enter a password. You are required to either use a bookmark or login enter the address in your location bar in the browser. This is an optional feature but we highly recommend you enable it.

Scott has blogged about this as well (with pretty pictures and everything) as well as Simon Willison. We’re really hoping this will help keep our users secure while the discussions continue in the OpenID community on how best to address phishing.

If you’d like to take advantage of these features for your OpenID enabled site or your own personal domain, you might want to check out our affiliate program or read up on how to delegate from your own domain.