Re: Web Identity 1.0 -- Draft Spec

On 9 January 2014 16:21, Timothy Holborn <timothy.holborn@gmail.com> wrote:

> I think I've used, built every known webid enabled service / system /
> platform out there, i'll make a list at some stage: from a user
> perspective, it's very confusing...
>
> I honestly do not think it describes a human well, or acknowledge a
> specific human on a keyboard.  It's a necessarily element, like a bank-card
> to an account holder - but the card or the account, is not the person and
> the account / card can be labelled as to describe a relation, rather than
> the person: therein, agent.
>
> Webid to users means login with a certificate.  I've now got so many
> certificates, and I think I've even lost some - don't even remember the
> services I lost them from; and let's not get into early bitcoin mining
> testing; anyhow, it probably should mean, I have authorised devices,
> accounts, relationships, agreements: that can do predefined tasks without
> my direct intervention (unless I've set out a flag, or whatever).
>
> So, I recon the identity chain isn't finished yet, unless everything is
> public except for what programmers develop and manage specifically, which
> isn't the mission...
>
> Leaky abstraction threatening standards interoperability (not many webid
> users out there ATM) vs. one ring to rule them all - there's a few other
> options...
>
> In theory, every user becomes an identity provider to some level: even if
> it's simply acknowledging they own a computer and an account where they
> provide access to resources to others.
>
> At the moment, identity providers are centralised.  So I think it's
> functionally quite different.
>

If you are interested in some of the history of how the web came to be the
way it is today, this is a great post:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2009Aug/0000.html


>
> Just ideas, I'll keep thinking.
>
> Notes below.
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On 10 Jan 2014, at 1:04 am, Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com>
> wrote:
>
> On 1/8/14 10:27 PM, Timothy Holborn wrote:
>
> re: G+[1] i agree with Kingsley almost; and the underlying
> differentiation, is in seeking to define 'persona' as a separate 'identity'
> for the purpose of identity management.
>
>  Some ideas (sorry for the length; ideas are still draft).
>
>  *WEBID*
> There's a couple of different sorts of 'things' that interact.  WebID
> seems to make the most sense for 'things that speak internet' (and knows
> what to do with a cert).
>
>   WebID [2] seems to provide a method to deploy x509 with RDF, which is
> beneficial for IoT / WoT; therefore reinforcing identity / privacy methods,
> especially when applied to an RWW Account (LDP / RDF + storage + base
> services
>
>
> Not really. A WebID is a term that refers to the use of HTTP URIs for
> denoting (naming or "referring to") agents (entities such as people,
> organizations, sofware, robots, and anything else capable of mechanized
> operation). Its sole purpose is entity denotation, that's it.
>
> http://www.w3.org/wiki/WebID Or updated version
> https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/WebID/raw-file/tip/spec/index.html
>
> Unfortunately, during the early days of WebID, it got conflated with
> Discovery and Authentication, as reflected in your characterization above
> re. X.509  and RDF.
>
> In recent times the following have been established to be distinct:
>
> 1. WebID
>
>
> So, foaf?  What's different here from foaf.
>
> 2. WebID + TLS authentication protocol -- which is based on RDF, X509, and
> existing PKI.
>
> Once we establish that a WebID is simply a denotation mechanism, the rest
> of the stack can take shape without falling into the usual "leaky
> abstraction" tar-pit i.e., where a spec fails (woefully) when it simply
> seeks to push an agenda rather than deliver standard interoperability via
> loosely coupling or related parts. Put differently, the spec fails the
> jigsaw-puzzle-pieces test.
>
> [SNIP]
>
> --
>
> Regards,
>
> Kingsley Idehen	
> Founder & CEO
> OpenLink Software
> Company Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
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>
>
>
>