It would be nice to publish a “secure” RSS feed. i.e. you get the feed that you’re allowed to have by logging in, using some sort of credentials. This way companies could feed clients’ data to them using RSS. Does this exist, and I don’t know it? Can it/Will it? Any ideas? It would be nice if this could happen for things like MSN groups, where you’d have to be a member of the private group to be able to get a summary RSS feed. Things like that would be GREAT!
Brian Hampson - Life and Other Things
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I dont know if it would work. RSS XML formats dont allow for such functionality. You would need to layer in some HTTP Authentication in order for it to work. Do-able, remaining existing standards compilant would be the main issue.
Not that I am an expert at all on the subject
You’re right. That’s the big problem. I think it’s too late now. It would have been nice to have this incorporated back then, when RSS was still pretty young.
To be honest I don’t know how it could have been, RSS is not really a standard but a subset utilising the XML standard. XML does not (and would not) allow for authentication because it is essentially a flat file that provides an extremely flexible way of storing and retrieving data.
RSS grew out of a simple modification of XML, there is no server transaction when a browser or client requests a .xml or .rss apart from the usual HTTP protocol stuff…
What you are suggesting could (can?) be done, but it would require a separate authentication layer followed by a dynamically created RSS feed on the server side selectively served as per a preset rules based system.