[sugar] Integration with web apps (and Moodle specifically!)

[Ian Bicking]

Ivan Krsti? wrote:
> Martin Langhoff wrote:
>> - Identity mgmt. How does the OS deal with user accounts, student
>> identities and is there any way to assert that identity to a server?
> 
> Identity will be detailed in an upcoming spec, but the basic idea is
> that there will be an API to a system-wide identity service that can
> verify and issue digital signatures.

By "system-wide", do you mean global, country, or school-wide?  Will the 
browser effectively get a certificate (and thus the laptop and 
presumably the student who has a 1-to-1 relationship with the laptop?) 
Something like a client-side SSL certificate, though I don't know if SSL 
itself would be used.  (Isn't it possible to do unencrypted SSL?  I 
imagine the CPU overhead of SSL could be a problem)

So, basically, we then get a trusted identity for the student/laptop, 
but alone it doesn't give us any information about the student.  There's 
a privacy issue there; does the student have to confirm if they will be 
identified?  Do we allow multiple identities on a single laptop? 
Aliases and pseudonyms are one of the better ways to do anonymous 
communication, as it's pretty easy for the user to understand, and it's 
applicable anywhere a login is required.

If it is SSL, then this could extend to any communications between 
laptops.  Would it rely on caching information to be able to identify 
while offline?  So, if one child is connecting to a laptop they have 
connected to before, they can be identified without a connection to any 
centralized certificate authority.


-- 
Ian Bicking | ianb at colorstudy.com | http://blog.ianbicking.org