Doug Kaye wrote to ask me about OpenID.net. I actually don't remember having ever seen it before, but it looks kind of cool. in OpenID, identities are just validated URLs--nothing more, nothing less. All the system does is say that you own a particular URL. I like the idea of a distributed identity system without any single points of failure. Glancing at the OpenID Wiki, it looks like there still quite a bit to do to make it all work. I'll have to dig into this sometime when I've got a bit of time.