Re: [Long] Request Opinion on DID Documents and “SANC” (proposed nested publishing system)

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On Tue, Feb 20, 2018 at 12:44 PM, Steven Rowat <steven_rowat@sunshine.net>
wrote:

> On 2018-02-20 12:33 AM, Adrian Gropper wrote:
>
>> Steven,
>>
>> The common denominator is one “owner” for the SANCs. Each SANC can be
>> described as a single resource or resource endpoint such as a URI or IPFS
>> address. Each SANC does not really need its own DID although, as Drummond
>> notes, it could. The author / owner operates an UMA standard authorization
>> server. Would-be users of any particular SANC would be pointed to the
>> authorization server for a license and present their requesting party DID
>> and associated credentials to the authorization server, maybe payment.
>>
>
> Thank you, that clarifies several more things for me; including the UMA
> standard, which I wasn't aware of.
>
> But, given blockchains, I am prompted to ask:
> Is such a (UMA-type) centralized access server to the SANCs absolutely
> necessary?
>

UMA authorization servers don't have to be centralized or federated. They
can be as self-sovereign as a blockchain wallet is, the difference being
that the blockchain wallet is not addressable, whereas the UMA AS is
addressable via a service endpoint in the DID Document.

>
> In other words, does it seem possible that the SANC / DID system could be
> built on a  blockchain ledger system, so that allowing access to the SANCs
> would be essentially built-in and decentralized?  (Even if some of the
> credentials asked for by the SANC / DID system might need to have been
> issued to would-be users from centralized servers originally?)
>

It depends. If everything about the SANCs and access to them is public,
then UMA may not be needed. Public blockchain ledgers and their smart
contracts are ill-suited to private information, be it business or personal.

Adrian

>
> Steven
>
>
>> That leaves open the issue of how a SANC and the author’s DID are
>> discovered. Having a DID and DID Document for each SANC doesn’t really
>> address this issue. It has to be dealt with by the author at the time of
>> SANC publication either way.
>>
>> The benefit of using an authorization server is privacy for the resource
>> owner. They don’t have to publish their policies, just execute them and
>> issue an access token or not. This works nicely when the SANC is a portion
>> of a health record and our HIE of One project is a reference implementation
>> of the standards for both DID and UMA AS as applied to healthcare.
>>
>> Adrian
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 20, 2018 at 2:46 AM =Drummond Reed <drummond.reed@evernym.com
>> <mailto:drummond.reed@evernym.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     Steven, I caught this just before bed, so a few quick thoughts:
>>
>>      1. Using DIDs to identified works produced by an author (what you
>>         call SANCs) is indeed a classic example of what DIDs are
>>         designed for.
>>      2. It can work exactly as you describe, with every SANC getting
>>         its own DID and DID document.
>>      3. However given the closely related nature of some of the SANCs
>>         you describe, many of them that are logically related
>>         *could* also be described with DID service URL (see the DID
>>         Spec Completion Proposals
>>         <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aR8V_JUJdq1Sbi47wCV5aa-
>> dEY0e-V2RqwPNP5ci1bg/edit#>
>>         for details). This is basically a path rooted on a DID. The
>>         only real difference is that all the SANCs you described don't
>>         necessarily need their own DIDs and DID documents. But they do
>>         need to be rooted on a DID that the author controls.
>>
>>     It's just an optimization, but it could help with efficiency.
>>
>>     =Drummond
>>
>>     On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 8:18 PM, Steven Rowat
>>     <steven_rowat@sunshine.net <mailto:steven_rowat@sunshine.net>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>         Greetings,
>>
>>         (Please excuse the long post; I’ve shortened it several times
>>         but it’s
>>         a relatively complex proposal, so I don’t think I can present
>>         it well
>>         any shorter.)
>>
>>         I’m mulling an idea that a DID method might allow a nested
>>         publishing
>>         system that links all designated stand-alone works by a single
>>         author.
>>         I’ve been calling such works SANCs (“stand-alone nested chunks”).
>>         “Nested” because they include smaller chunks inside a larger work,
>>         like stand-alone chapters from a book, special-use paragraphs
>>         inside a
>>         chapter, sample excerpts from a piece of music, or
>>         self-explanatory
>>         Figures from a scientist’s data set.
>>
>>         I post here a first description of the idea, to ask if such a SANC
>>         publishing system seems technically feasible with DIDs. My
>>         hunch is
>>         that it’s an inevitable development when DIDs and linked data
>>         exist,
>>         and possibly people are already working on it elsewhere, though I
>>         don’t know of any at present.
>>
>>         I give a slightly longer summary and two examples below, and some
>>         rationale at the end for why this might be a valuable use of
>>         the DID
>>         system.
>>
>>         Any feedback appreciated.
>>
>>         Summary:
>>         In the proposed Stand-Alone Nested Chunk (SANC) system, a
>>         “stand-alone” work is any discrete work by an author that the
>>         author
>>         believes will have its own audience or use. Taking text as an
>>         example,
>>         a SANC could be as small as a single sentence, paragraph, or
>>         graphic
>>         deemed noteworthy; or as large as a series of books. Every
>>         SANC gets a
>>         DID Document. Every DID Document contains meta-data (and/or
>>         links) to
>>         facilitate end-user access to the parent section of a SANC;
>>         laterally
>>         to other SANCs at the same level; and to other larger works or
>>         groups
>>         of works, all of which are also SANCs. Depending on the
>>         implementation, portions of this linked access might use a
>>         permissions
>>         language like ODRL, including for payments, sample excerpts,
>>         and usage
>>         rights.
>>
>>         Example 1, Scientist:
>>
>>         Scientist M issues a report, “String Theory Today”, with Abstract,
>>         Purpose, Method, Graphs, Data (containing Figures), Discussion and
>>         Conclusions. Scientist M has published many different reports over
>>         his/her career. Five earlier reports were directly related to
>>         String
>>         Theory. From the current report, Scientist M believes that the
>>         Abstract, Data, Conclusions, and two of the Figures from Data,
>>         and the
>>         last paragraph of the Conclusions, would each be useful in various
>>         collaborations, including as stand-alone statements in news and
>>         science-preview sites.
>>
>>         Scientist M therefore, to get up to speed in the SANC / DID
>>         system,
>>         issues (or authorizes the issuing of) DID Documents for each
>>         SANC that
>>         is designated as a meaningful unit:
>>         —Scientist M him/herself; (1 DID Doc)
>>         —M’s full list of past reports; (a DID Doc for each report)
>>         —M’s group of String Theory reports; (1 DID Doc for the group)
>>         —M’s New report, “String Theory Today”; (1 DID Doc)
>>         —Abstract, Data, and Conclusions of the new report (3 DID Docs);
>>         —2 Figures from the Data; (2 DID Docs)
>>         —A paragraph from the Conclusions (1 DID Doc).
>>         Every DID Document contains a way to access all other works
>>         (SANCs) by
>>         the same author, including getting meta-data about the author and
>>         his/her works.
>>
>>         Example 2, Musician/lyricist/poet:
>>
>>         For each of the following:
>>         —“A thing of beauty is a joy forever”.
>>         —“No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn”.
>>         —“This is the way the world ends / not with a bang but a whimper”.
>>         Who wrote it? What larger work is it part of? What else did they
>>         write? Can we read their other work now? Do we have to ask
>>         permission
>>         or pay someone in order to get access to their work?
>>
>>         The proposed SANC / DID system could answer all these
>>         questions on the
>>         basis of the user encountering a single work by the author, of
>>         any size.
>>
>>         Discussion:
>>         The questions posed in Example 2 could equally apply to
>>         Example 1; and
>>         to any other examples that can be envisioned for other types
>>         of works.
>>         And an argument might be made that all these questions can be
>>         answered
>>         by searching the Internet, but I see at least two strong
>>         reasons why a
>>         SANC / DID system would be an improvement:
>>
>>         1. Author control:
>>         Currently, Google, Wikipedia, and various advertisers and
>>         plagiarizing
>>         sites constitute an industry feeding on the data that is created
>>         and/or enabled by authors. In the SANC / DID system, an author
>>         has the
>>         right to arrange and benefit from both the meta-data linking
>>         the SANCs
>>         and from the SANCs themselves.
>>
>>         2. More Effective Distribution:
>>         Young authors, or authors of any age who are just starting
>>         out, will
>>         often not be easy for an end-user to track down, even if their
>>         works
>>         have real value to the society. If an end-user can answer all the
>>         above questions easily, via a single work (SANC) they
>>         encounter by the
>>         author, it will increase the dissemination speed of that author’s
>>         works through the society, with much less middleman overhead.
>>
>>         Final note: I think there are a large number of people who
>>         might make
>>         use of a SANC / DID Document system to publish their work:
>>         novelists,
>>         journalists, filmmakers, bloggers, and so forth. And it isn’t
>>         limited
>>         to single persons: groups—any legal entity—could make use of it;
>>         including governments who have complex layered material they must
>>         supply; corporations with internal documents or user-manuals to
>>         manage; and educational institutions with intricately
>>         inter-related
>>         course materials.
>>
>>
>>         All feedback appreciated, especially detailed warnings. ☺
>>
>>         Steven Rowat
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Adrian Gropper MD
>>
>> PROTECT YOUR FUTURE - RESTORE Health Privacy!
>> HELP us fight for the right to control personal health data.
>> DONATE: https://patientprivacyrights.org/donate-3/
>>
>


-- 

Adrian Gropper MD

PROTECT YOUR FUTURE - RESTORE Health Privacy!
HELP us fight for the right to control personal health data.
DONATE: https://patientprivacyrights.org/donate-3/

Received on Tuesday, 20 February 2018 18:21:07 UTC