Pete over at Rasterweb wrote in response to my post on “Walled Garden” weblogs:
Drupal offers more control over users and user permissions than Movable Type. It might do what’s needed for walled garden posting.
Drupal’s a nice system, but it doesn’t do what I really want: I’d like a system which does not require the user to set up an account. I’d like to get a token in the request that says “I’m Jane User, and here’s my assertation that I’m Jane User”, and since Jane User is my friend and her assertation could be verified (though a public directory, or because someone I trust has signed her key), she gains access to the friends and family-only materials on the server without signing in. And, the key piece is that this may be the first time she’s been on the site.
Live Journal can do that because all the journals are part of the application, and I sign on once. Any LJ user can recognize me as their friend, and I get access to their friends-only materials.
The godsawful piece is the public key infrastructure.
