How to get DomainAuthenticationToken for our site?

We want to import user contacts after the successful login, how do we getDomainAuthenticationToken to call the contacts API webservice ?

[225 byte] By [mstestws] at [2008-2-20]

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# 1

Mstestws:

I recommend you start by reading the Getting Started with Windows Live Data article on MSDN. This article describes the steps your Web site needs to follow.

If you have a Windows machine with IIS, on the Windows Live Dat SDK, there is a complete code sample you can use to see how it works. You can also use the sample as a template for your own code. Copy and paste the files into an IIS directory and play with it. If you use it, I'll be interested on hearing any feedback or suggestion for improvements. If you are now using a Windows machine, or are not using IIS, I'll be interested on knowing what you are using. We want to provide template code for additional platforms in the future.

Here is a very short description of what your Web application needs to do. For more details, check the article and sample mentioned previousley and check the resources on the dev.live.com site:

Before accessing the contacts, your Web site needs to obtain permission from the user who owns those contacts. To get permissions, you send an HTTP 'Permission' request to Windows Live Data with the list of permissions you would like the user to grant to your site.
Windows Live Data will show the user a screen asking to grant or reject your petition. If the user grant the permissions to your site, Windows Live Data will return the Domain Token Authentication and the Owner Handle (Live ID). These two items are the credentials you need to pass Windows Live Data to access the user's Addr Book.
You can now send an HTTP request, passing the Domain Token Authentication and the Owner Handle you received before, to Windows Live Data to read, change, or modify the user's contact information. What you would be able to do depends on which permissions the user granted your site.

Let me know if you have questions or comments!

FedericoRaggi-MSFT at 2007-9-25 >

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# 2

I have checked the samples. But we don't want the user redirection into another webpage,
we have our own UI to accept username/password and we want to login programmatically with the user credentials and get contacts . We have our company's strict privacy policy for not storing username/password. Let me know what can be done here. We saw other sites doing the scraping, but wants to avoid doing it bcoz of dynamic changes of live.com content.

mstestws at 2007-9-25 >

# 3

mstestws:

Windows Live Data offers three authentication mechanisms:

Domain Authentication
Mutual SSL Authentication
RPS or WS-Trust Authentication

Domain Authentication is the simplest mechanism to implement for most sites, but If you have the Windows Live credentials (username and password) of a user, you can consider using RPS (Relying Party Suite) or WS-Trust authentication instead. Check the Introduction to Windows Live Data Authentication article for details on each method.

As an alternative, consider using the Windows Live Contacts Control instead of Windows Live Data. Check the Contacts page on dev.live.com.

Finally, remember that Windows Live Data is just on an Alpha stage: your feedback and comments are very important for us. Expect to see many changes and improvements in upcoming releases.

FedericoRaggi-MSFT at 2007-9-25 >

# 4

Should users ever give their name and password for one site to another site? Is that really behavior that we want to encourage amongst users? Doesn't this encourage dangerous behavior? Wouldn't the world be a much better place if users understood that they only use the name and password for a site on that site and no where else? If we teach users that it's o.k. to use their name and password for a site on many other sites then isn't it all but inevitable that they will hand over their name and password and hence their entire identity to the wrong site and really hurt themselves?

One of the biggest motivators for Windows Live Data is to enable users to share their Live data/services with non-Live websites and so benefit from those website's functionality without having to share their LiveID name and password. Windows Live Data puts the user firmly in control. They decide what data/services to share and can revoke permissions at any time.

I would hope that all sites that are asking users for LiveID name and passwords would, as Windows Live Data goes to Beta and V1, switch to Windows Live Data. Using a permissioning system is clearly better for user security and it also benefits sites that use it by providing them with a reliable programmatic interface that isn't going to change all the time.

YaronY.Goland at 2007-9-25 >

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