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Re:Persona is distributed. Today. by StavrosK on Tuesday March 26, 2013 @08:54PM (#5447075)
Does this mean that your browser can cache the signed cert and log in to websites automatically without needing to even contact the provider again?

I'm guessing there's some sort of timestamp there, to prevent someone from just stealing the cert and logging in to whatever they want as that user.

Re:Persona is distributed. Today. by badida on Tuesday March 26, 2013 @11:41PM (#5447669)
Yes, that is exactly right, and it's also why certs are short-lived (hours). When certs are renewed, the site the user plans on logging into is not revealed to the Identity Provider.
Re:Persona is distributed. Today. by brendn on Tuesday March 26, 2013 @11:42PM (#5447672)
By my understanding, yes and yes. The third-party service caches the public key (with timestamp) and the browser caches the signed certificate (with timestamp). The timestamp gives the credentials a relatively short TTL to prevent a stolen cert from being used indefinitely.
Re:Persona is distributed. Today. by marcioaguiar on Tuesday March 26, 2013 @09:24PM (#5447192)
not different from someone stealing your cookies.
Re:Persona is distributed. Today. by StavrosK on Tuesday March 26, 2013 @09:27PM (#5447199)
Cookies can be invalidated. Signatures, not so much.
Re:Persona is distributed. Today. by sp332 on Wednesday March 27, 2013 @09:37AM (#5449271)
It's possible to revoke a certificate. Not sure if that's what you're supposed to do in this case, but it's possible.