Re: Relying Part & Last Two Lines of Playground [was: Re: Terminology poll]

Seeing the confusion over where "Relying Party" should go, some of the
language on the playground, and for those who were not on the call, here
is my view of how the three roles we are trying to name can be summed up:

1. Party A makes a claim
2. Party B relies upon a claim
3. Party C decides to share a claim

A typical interaction between these parties is:

A issues a claim to C.
C shares it with B.

Verifiable claims enable B to verify that A made the claim without A
knowing that C shared it and without B having to trust C.

If we were use to use the term "Relying Party", it would apply to Party
B. Whether or not B performs verification themselves or delegates that
check, I believe, is an implementation detail or should show up in a
more detailed diagram of *sub* roles.

What I think is most important here are the defining factors for each party:

Party A makes or "issues" the claim. This seems to me to be a good
reason to continue to support "Issuer" in this position. Others have
made good arguments I won't repeat here for this name and it seems to be
the popular choice as far as I can tell.

Party B relies upon or verifies the claim. This seems to be a good
reason to support "Verifier" for a single word or "Relying Party" if we
find two words acceptable.

Party C shares the claim with Party B. Naming this party seems to be the
most contentious. As stated, I believe its main role can be boiled down
to making a decision as to whether or not to share a claim; whether or
not to reveal information to another party that desires it for some purpose.

Of the choices, "Sharer" fits this neatly for me, though I can see how a
few other words could still work. "Presenter" is ok, but lacks the
element of decision which I think is important for this role. "Holder"
is also ok; it does seems to imply decision but it also places an
emphasis on holding onto the claim rather than the key action this role
is responsible for -- which is sharing the claim with party B.

"Presenter" seems to have no connection to rights or authorization,
"Holder" implies it strongly, and "Sharer" could go either way. As many,
but not all, of our use cases involve some sense of rights or
authorization to transmit the claim, it seems to me that "Sharer" splits
the difference between "Presenter" (no rights/authorization connotation)
and "Holder" (strong rights/authorization connotation) nicely.

If we were going to use two words for each party we could use:

A: Issuing Party
B: Relying Party
C: Sharing Party

But I'd prefer a single word for each. Also note that some of the
particular verbs used in the terminology playground, can be tweaked to
better work with any names we select. For example:

"The Sharer presents a Claim to the Relying Party."

Could become:

"The Sharer shares a Claim with the Relying Party."


On 06/27/2017 03:10 PM, Joe Andrieu wrote:
> We removed the split between verifier and inspector/relying 
> party/evaluator so that all four terms are potential options for the
>  entity that receives an entity profile from a
> holder/presenter/claimant.
> 
> 
> On Tue, Jun 27, 2017, at 02:29 PM, David Chadwick wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On 27/06/2017 00:22, Christopher Allen wrote:
>> 
>> A(n) *Relying Party* may present **Claims** directly to a 
>> **Verifier**. For example, providing a digital driver’s license
>> directly to a **Verifier**.
>> 
>> 
>> Not so. The verifier and relying party are (part of) the same
>> entity, also called the service provider in some systems.
>> 
>> So please redo your text with this in mind
>> 
>> regards
>> 
>> David
>> 
> 
> -- Joe Andrieu, PMP joe@joeandrieu.com <mailto:joe@joeandrieu.com> 
> +1(805)705-8651 http://blog.joeandrieu.com
> 


-- 
Dave Longley
CTO
Digital Bazaar, Inc.
http://digitalbazaar.com

Received on Tuesday, 27 June 2017 19:57:34 UTC