Re: JSON-LD vs JWT for VC

Manu and Anders,

Thank you very much for the technical info that you’ve provided.  It’s very helpful.


> On Oct 29, 2018, at 7:57 AM, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com> wrote:
> 
> On 10/27/2018 02:46 PM, Dean Kevin Poulsen wrote:
>> JWS isn’t compatible with Linked Data (at least, it's not
>> practical).
> 
> Linked Data Signatures use JWS detached signatures as the encoding.
> 
> I understand that those that are not down in the details probably don't
> know about this, but to say that they're not compatible is just plain
> not true.


Manu,

When I say that JWS (and I’ll now say CBOR) isn’t compatible with Linked Data, I’m saying that Linked Data tables that are encoded aren’t accessible as Linked Data (Semantic Web) data sources without decoding them first.  As such, their usefulness in Linked Data distributed database applications is questionable.  

Our intention is to use signed JSON-LD VC as data sources in distributed database (Semantic Web) applications.  Having to decode Base64 or CBO (concise binary objects) diminishes the usefulness of these signed data sources.

As we discuss the available options, I wonder if the JWS (or COSE) signature standards minus the Base64 (or concise binary) encoding might be viable.  I’ll take a closer look at that possibility.

Thanks,
Kevin