Author: Mike Hearn 2013-08-09 12:08:52
Published on: 2013-08-09T12:08:52+00:00
Bitcoin was created to eliminate the need for trusted third parties, whereas Persona is increasing their reach by storing keys and passwords on Mozilla's servers or email providers. However, if all key players support Persona in a transaction, Mozilla does not receive anything. Persona is a progressive system and is expected to improve its security and decentralization as it evolves. Users have the option to run their own IDP on a personal server using Firefox with a native implementation, eliminating the involvement of Mozilla servers. While X.509 certs can be issued for any arbitrary string, obtaining one from a CA can be challenging, making them less suitable for widespread end-user adoption compared to Persona. Despite being easier to use, Persona is not more or less centralized than other PKIs. Ultimately, the user at host pair string requires centralization via DNS, and SSL must connect to it to verify assertions, meaning that the regular SSL PKI is still present under the hood.
Updated on: 2023-06-07T15:32:23.103155+00:00