RE: Indexing/searching a corpus of (decentralized) self-sovereign data

Ker-pow!

If I run a company. I have lots of internal work product, protected IP, etc. I also have lots of public promotional material, position pieces, etc. The second category of stuff exists under the assumption that it will be indexed, consumed, combined, sampled and re-mixed without further involvement or negotiation of terms of usage from my company. If someone pushes my boundaries of acceptable use too far, I have the option to take action to resolve my perceived harm.

 

Things become potentially very problematic however if stuff in the first category gets indexed or consumed without my explicit authorization and / or (re)negotiation of terms of usage. So much so that if the wrong stuff gets into the wrong hands, it could destroy my business.

 

I would argue that both types of data can be ‘self-sovereign’ but they exist in special categories based on my risk assessment and my intent for the content. I know I’m using a business as an example, but I believe it translates well, or perhaps should inform how we think about individual data.

 

-S

 

From: Daniel Hardman <daniel.hardman@gmail.com> 
Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2022 6:09 PM
To: Michael Herman (Trusted Digital Web) <mwherman@parallelspace.net>
Cc: public-credentials (public-credentials@w3.org) <public-credentials@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Indexing/searching a corpus of (decentralized) self-sovereign data

 

I think this is to some degree a contradiction in terms. Data is self-sovereign only if its sovereign exercises authority over its consumption and use. Putting data into an index presupposes that it will be used in contexts that are divorced from the sovereign's involvement. While it is true that the sovereign can give prior consent to all future use, I think it then ceases to become self-sovereign data, by definition.

This is the essence of the beef I have with making W3C VCs part of the semantic web, as I wrote about here: https://daniel-hardman.medium.com/actors-objects-and-linked-data-7f60701af9bd 

 

On Tue, Nov 15, 2022 at 11:22 AM Michael Herman (Trusted Digital Web) <mwherman@parallelspace.net <mailto:mwherman@parallelspace.net> > wrote:

As I started to think about this, it turns out that it is not a straightforward problem (and hence, neither is the solution).

Is anyone aware of any previous discussions on this topic, articles, papers, etc. that analyze this problem and, perhaps, characterize what a solution might look like?

Thank you,
Michael

Best regards,
Michael Herman
Far Left Self-Sovereignist
First Principles Thinker

Self-Sovereign Blockchain Architect
Trusted Digital Web
Hyperonomy Digital Identity Lab
Parallelspace Corporation

[cid:image001.jpg@01D8F92F.8E60B030]