Technology

How it works

The community sticks to some basic rules: different websites perform the task they are good at. This means that there are a couple of different websites that make up the Gearjunkies community.

We started out the community by recognizing that if you sign up as a Gearjunkie, you should create an identity that you can use for as many purposes as possible, and we didn't want to limit this to Gearjunkies.com. Therefore, we designed a system that is specialized in fulfilling this requirement, with the features and flexibility that you would expect, but also with privacy and the 'user is in control'-philosophy in mind.
The result is the Gearjunkies Network!

Next, we figured out that it is cool to be able to have discussions about our beloved gear, so we started out with our forum, the Kitchen! Of course, we connected this forum to the Gearjunkies Network, so you can use your Gearjunkies account for logging into the forum!

And of course, Gearjunkies is connected to the Gearjunkies Network as well! For now, the newsletter is a personalized service, but in the near future, a lot of new cool features will be unveiled at Gearjunkies!

To make it all happen, you must create your account. To create your account, the Gearjunkies Network websites are deployed:

• the RegistrationService (maintain your account)
• the AuthenticationService (login to your account)
• the Backend (safely manage account data)

With basic tasks in mind, the technology that is used is explained here.

Signing up

Signing up as a Gearjunkie happens at the Gearjunkies RegistrationService, that can be found at http://rs.gearjunkies.com.
This website is connected to the Gearjunkies Accounts database (called the Backend), and maintains all new registration of and modifications to accounts of the Gearjunkies Network.

One important thing to remember here is: all the information that you enter at the RegistrationService, is only known at the RegistrationService and is only used for logging you into the Gearjunkies Network! Your personal information, your password, etc, is never sent to any other website within the Gearjunkies Network. Some exceptions apply though, this is explained in the Information Exchange part below.

 

 

 

 

Logging in

When you have your Gearjunkies account, it is time to start using it, either at the Kitchen or at Gearjunkies.com. Using your account means that you have to log in. Logging in a network is different from logging in at a website, since the website does not know whether you have an account with the network or not, remember: the information you submitted to the RegistrationService is never sent out, you are in control!.

Logging in happens at the AuthenticationService, found at http://as.gearjunkies.com. You will never go there directly, but will always be redirected to this website whenever you need to log in. The AuthenticationService is a website that has access to account information (from the Backend), and as such is capable of validating your password.

When you succesfully logged in (you identity is authenticated), the AuthenticationService sends you back to the website that wanted to know who you are in the first place, but you will be given a piece of information (refered to as loginticket) that the website can use to learn who you are. This information is made up of your login name.

From this point, the website knows who you are and can start offering you services based on your login name. In practice this means that when you are logged on to the Kitchen and you can post messages in the forums, see what forums contain new messages for you, etcetera.

Logging in another website

When you are logged in to the Gearjunkies Network, you are essentially logged in to all of the services that the Gearjunkies Network is made up of. The only thing you need to do is provide the website you are visiting with a loginticket. And the login ticket is available to you whenever you are logged in at the AuthenticationService, which you have already done at this stage! Just choose the Login option at the Website where you want to login, and the login process will happen, but this time without having to type your password again!

The session that you have with the AuthenticationService does time out after a certain period though.

Logging out

If you decide that you want to log out, you have to log out at every website that you are logged in to. But when you select the log out option at the website, you will explicitly be also logged out of the AuthenticationService.

Please note: Consider the scenario where you are logged in to Gearjunkies.com and to the Kitchen. If you select the Logout option at the Kitchen, you are logged out of the Kitchen and logged out of the AuthenticationService. When you return to Gearjunkies.com, you are probably still logged on there (unless your session timed out). Make sure that when you want to log out completely, log out at all the Websites that you logged in during your login session!

Information Exchange and protection

The foundation of the community technology is based on one basic rule: the user has control over his or her information at all times. This concept is part of all the entities in the framework. Whenever a user registers at the RegistrationService, his or her information is stored for authentication use only. And when a user enters information for its own user profile at a website, that information is only known at that one website.

However, the network is also meant to help the user, and because of this an exception is made when it comes to the user's email address. Both the RegistrationService as well as different websites use email to communicate with the user, therefore the user's email address must be known at different places within the network. To accomplish this, the user's email address is exchanged between the RegistrationService and the website whenever the user visits the website for the first time. So a copy of the user's email address is stored at the website.

Furthermore, the user's name and maybe other attributes that may be collected in the future could of interest. Whenever information of the RegistrationService is absolutely necessary to be sent to other websites, this could be accomplished. But at all times the user is in control of its information, so if this would occur, this will announced and the user will be able to restrict this.

All this is designed and implemented to make sure that your privacy is guaranteed and you know, at all times, what is going on with your personal information. For more information about what is going on with account information, the RegistrationService offers an the latest information about websites in the network.