   External User Verification
  I think I might try to create a game based on the forums here, and it would be nice to ensure that the usernames in the game correspond to the usernames here without needing someones password to prove it, so here's a feature I'd like to request.Allow users to set an identification string in their profile, which will act kind of like a password, and add a script to check it.The script would be passed the username, a random string, and a sha1 hash, the script would concatenate their username, the random string, and their identification string, hash it, and compare it to the passed hash value.The script would return a text file, containing 'bad user' if the user doesn't exist, 'unset' if their string is empty, 'invalid' if the hashes don't match, and 'valid', if they do match, possibly followed with extra information that could be seen publicly from their profile.There's no big hurry, it's just something I'd like to see 'some day'.   
  Why not simply PM them a confirmation code?   ;  That would be kind of hard to automate with the logging in and the mapping of user names to user ids. I suppose it could work, though.   ;Quote:Original post by smart_idiotThat would be kind of hard to automate with the logging in and the mapping of user names to user ids. I suppose it could work, though.Well every user here has an ID# that you might be able to use...A users profile is http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/profile.asp?mode=display&id=10835Sending a PM to that user is http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/pmcompose.asp?sendto=10835Maybe you could use the member search function to look up their ID# and then do as Sneftel suggested and PM them an authentication..?hthJack   ;  IMO, it would be best to have something that works somewhat like Microsoft's .Net Passport system, but with arbitrary pages. I'm not sure how exactly it would be implemented, but from a user's POV they would clink a link on an arbitrary site, be taken to gamedev.net's login page if they aren't logged in, and would then log in and be sent to the original site and GDNet would send the user name to the originating site somehow (I guess it could just send a standard http post or get, and the originating site would know it was gamedev by the IP of the connection).I'm not sure I like the idea of access to external sites limited to gamedev members, but if it's going to exist it might as well have a nifty interface(from the POV of both users and developers) =-)-Extrarius   ;  I wasn't planning on preventing access to non-gamedev people, they'd just have their names mangled in some way (probably given a prefix) and basically be equivalent to Anonymous Poster.   