my.info.card: my Infocard Identity Selector Plugin Development Blog

Kim said that I was wrong on the cookie phenomena when "infocard" authentication was used...

well, I'm not too sure about that.. Here's my exercise details to crosscheck if I really was wrong.

I cleared by browser cache, cookies..... everything to start with a clean slate...
The following screenshot shows the existing cookie list from my browser.. (note: no identityblog.com cookies)

Then I logged into identityblog using my "infocard" ID, And tried to post a comment. The screenshot below shows that the comment form was not filled out with my info.... However after the comment posted, it showed that the comment was posted by me... using the info that my "infocard" had...

The following screenshot shows the cookie list in my browser AFTER infocard auth. Notice that the cookie name is wordpressuser_MYSESSIONID & wordpresspass_MYSESSIONID

Then I logged out and the cookies disappeared... Neat stuff. Kim was right, the cookies get established when one logs in and then destroyed when one logs out.... or closes the browser, which is a nice thing because it was session based... usually the cookies exist for a period of time till the session timeout value exceeds the set limit. But in this case the session was immediately destroyed regardless of whetherI logged out or closed my browser... nice... really nice... IMPRESSIVE....

Then I posted a comment without authentication, and by filling out info in the comment form. The following screenshot shows what I did.

Actually I made a small error at this point.. I had posted a comment without logging out. I simply forgot to hit the "logout" button in the process of ALT-TABBing between this blog post and his blog. So I Hit the logout button and THEN posted the following comment:

As soon as I did that, I noticed that Kim's blog server set 3 cookies as the following screenshot depicts: (note the cookie names, they start with comment_author_MYSESSIONID, comment_author_email_MYSESSIONID, comment_author_url_MYSESSIONID.

Now I login with infocard again... and post a comment as the following screenshot shows:

...In short, Once a user uses the forms to post comments, the regardless of the "infocard" auth, the cookies persist in the browser....
However the form gets posted by the "authenticated user" regardless of the info one fills in the comment form.... But after the user logs out, he still can post comments without authentication and the persistent cookies take precedence....

INFERENCE: Kim's wrong 50%, I am wrong 50%. We are both 50% wrong.... ROTFL...

AH! with these screenshots, I do not think I need to explain more, You dear readers of my blog/s, can be better judges of what works and what does not

Cheers for now. That was a fun exercise...

update/note : Please refrain from sending me emails that the cookie list screenshots were not from using ie7, but were from Firefox. Do not ask me how I did it (not right now), I shall announce how to use Firefox to authenticate using infocards in due time... when the time is right...