Labs/Weave/Identity/Account Manager

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Account Manager

Help users manage their accounts.

The account manager is an evolution of the Firefox password manager and the Weave identity components (OpenID + auto-login). It will help users manage logins and profile information for each site, and it will automate currently manual tasks such as signing up for sites, generating passwords, etc. The focus is on "traditional" login methods (e.g., form + cookie), but it will also have some support for OpenID/federated logins.

Creating a new identity framework is a non-goal of this project, although some new file formats and protocols are in scope (see below for details).

Release Roadmap

• 0.1 (2009.11.06) - Initial release that spins off the Weave identity features and creates a basic account manager.
• 0.2 (2009.11.13) - TBD
• 0.3 (2009.11.20) - Alpha release

Use Cases

Automatic site registration, automatic password change

Diego is looking to improve his guitar skills, and wants to share some experiences with fellow guitar students. His friend recommends the site guitar.com, which he is a user of. Diego has never been there before, and clicks the "Sign Up" link to create an account. Firefox immediately negotiates with the site which information is required for a signup, and presents Diego with a summary. After Diego confirms the account creation, Firefox sends the information to guitar.com and creates a new account for him, with a random password (which Diego doesn't need to know). Next month, when Diego visits the site again, Firefox asks Diego if he would like to change his password to a new one (for higher security). Diego has the option of changing it, leaving it as-is, as well as letting Firefox change it silently for him in the future. Since Diego uses password sync, all of his other devices are able to log in using the new password after a sync.

One^HTwo Click shopping for the whole web

Ben decides to buy some flowers for his fiancee. He goes to his favorite neighborhood flower store's website and picks out just the bouquet he wants. When it comes time to check out and pay, he really wishes he didn't have to enter in all of his billing data. Since he has stored his identity and credit card information on the Weave server, the web site is able to automatically pull in this information from the server. The browser prompts Ben to grant access to the server for just this transaction, he says yes and his purchase is complete.

Requirements

UX

• Account Manager
  • List accounts with basic information
  • Filter by site
  • Open detailed viewer for an account

• Detailed account viewer
  • Show information the site has about you
  • Change information
  • Update information from global profile
  • Close account

• Global profile
  • User hcard info
  • Ability to blast out changes to sites that already have that info

• Notifications/workflows
  • Login requested by site -> new account creation / existing account UI
  • Profile data chooser for creating a new account

• Status indicator
  • Login not supported on this site (invisible, maybe)
  • Logged out / logged in / automatic login enabled / error
  • View profile details for this site (detailed acct viewer)
  • View error details (?)
  • Multiple account chooser

• Other [maybe]
  • Combine browser (Weave) login credentials with Fx master password
  • Layer on 2-factor auth for logging into the browser (e.g., send an SMS with a password)

Backend

• Heuristic engine
  • Log in, log out, basic status (logged in, etc)
  • Password change
  • Account creation automation / auto form-fill hcard info

• Interim site definitions
  • Jetpack API to add support for sites the heuristic engine doesn't work for

• Formal protocol/format definitions
  • Status: logged in/logged out/errors/etc
  • API endpoint query (discovery)
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Query information site has about you
  • Change/add/remove information/password/other account data
  • Cancel account