To understand this discussion, start here and then follow the continuation links. Click on any of the images below to see a larger and more readable version.
When you pressed the “Install” button on the “try it” page, you would have seen the normal “Open or Save” dialog:
If you then clicked “Open”, CardSpace would have brought you the standard “Reputation and Privacy” dialog, showing the certified details of the HelloWorld identity provider, and asking if you want to install its card:
Armed with your new card, you would have begun the “usage” demo by going to the HelloWorld information card login page:
Clicking on the InfoCard image to log in, CardSpace would have shown the “Relying Party Reputation and Privacy” page for Identityblog. (If you normally use InfoCards at Identityblog, you won't see it. In order to avoid “clickthrough syndrome”, it only shows up when you start a new relationship with a relying party.)
Once you approve starting the identity relationship, you are taken to your CardSpace card selector, and your HelloWorld card will be illuminated, since in this demo, the relying party has asked for that kind of card:
When you click on the card, you can preview what will be sent to the relying party should you opt to proceed. To get any information out of the HelloWorld identity provider, you need to authenticate to it. The first version of CardSpace supports four ways to do this (more in a later piece). This demo uses the simplest mechanism – entering a password within the protected CardSpace environment:
Now you'll have a chance to review the contents which will be sent from the identity provider to the relying party:
The contents include “favorite snack” – an attempt to show the elasticity of the contents. If you decide to proceed, the HelloWorld token is transfered to the relying party, which displays it verbatim:
For those who are multi-tasking as they read this, I'll show the token full size to make sure the format and contents are as clear as possible.
In the next episode I'll start looking at what goes on under the hood. Continue here…
