Yesterday, I talked about using a VeriSign security token with your VeriSign PIP OpenID. I kinda gleaned over the fact that you can use the PayPal Security Key. And that is actually a big deal…

PayPal Security Key

You want, neh… you need a PayPal Security Key and here’s why:

1. The PayPal Security Key is only $5 compared to the $30 for the VeriSign Keychain Token. (Note: The two photos aren’t to the same scale. The tokens are actually the same size):

2. The PayPal Security Key makes use of VeriSign’s backend, so it’s just as secure as VeriSign’s own VeriSign Keychain Token. (PayPal’s security token is in actuality just a rebranded VeriSign security token.)

3. The VeriSign Keychain Token can only be used with VeriSign PIP. The PayPal Security Key can be used with PayPal, eBay, and VeriSign PIP. That doesn’t mean that PayPal and eBay support OpenID; that simply means that you need to enter the number displayed on the screen in addition to your PayPal/eBay username and password when logging in.

VeriSign PIP

When VeriSign developed their PIP framework, they did it right:

1. You’re forced to use SSL when accessing their site:

Even if you go to http://pip.verisignlabs.com/, you’ll be redirected to the secure, certificate-fied https://pip.verisignlabs.com/.

2. It makes use of a site key by showing your personal icon:

…not that site keys are that great, since they can still succumb to man-in-the-middle attacks, but they’re better than nothing.

3. It maintains and display logs of your security token usage. By clicking on the My Activities link on the right panel, you’ll see:

And these three things are all good to have. You need that much more security for your OpenID identity since OpenID is meant to be used on multiple websites. And since multiple websites will potentially have the same OpenID for you, it needs to be kept that much more safe and secure.

[Update] You can also have multiple OpenIDs in the same VeriSign PiP account which I just recently found out about.

SeatBelt
VeriSign also has a new Firefox plug-in called SeatBelt that detects your VeriSign OpenID login status:

…and asks you if you want to login if it detects that you just went to a page asking for your OpenID:

You can’t add too much more convenience without sacrificing security than that.