Re: On the european response to Snowden

David, 

On Tuesday 27 January 2015 15:33:21 David Singer wrote:
> > 1) Signalling.
> 
> >       We saw a bit of this in the DNT discussions. How to create a signal 
conveying a user's explicit agreement for something or their preferences for 
something to one or more entities that may exist across multiple origins, in a 
secure untamperable way. This may eventually be superseded by:
> A challenging problem.  These signals and preferences tend to be small, and
> padding them and then signing them digitally would seem to be using a
> sledgehammer to crack a walnut.  But maybe the walnut is growing in
> importance.  Other ideas?

The mistake is to look for a universal solution. In fact, we could start by 
one useful semantic bucket. Once this is taken up, we can add other buckets. 
As there is no compulsory legal obligation, the only way to get PETs accepted 
is to offer benefits. This is hard in the absence of a legal system in an 
environment where you can collect everything and use it for every possible 
purpose. But it is meaningful in a regulated environment where it actually 
opens doors as it conveys permissions. 

 --Rigo