means by which to authenticate users, allowing for approaches ranging from the common (such as passwords) to the novel (such as smart cards or biometrics).

The final version of OpenID is OpenID 2.0, finalized and published in December 2007. The term OpenID may also refer to an identifier as specified in the OpenID standard; these identifiers take the form of a unique Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), and are managed by some "OpenID provider" that