Re: FYI: Named Things with Hashes

On 6/5/13 12:16 PM, Melvin Carvalho wrote:
> Just came across this spec:
>
> *Abstract:
>
> *
> [[
>     This document defines a set of ways to identify a thing (a digital
>     object in this case) using the output from a hash function.  It
>     specifies a new URI scheme for this purpose, a way to map these to
>     HTTP URLs, and binary and human-speakable formats for these names.
>     The various formats are designed to support, but not require, a
>     strong link to the referenced object, such that the referenced object
>     may be authenticated to the same degree as the reference to it.  The
>     reason for this work is to standardise current uses of hash outputs
>     in URLs and to support new information-centric applications and other
>     uses of hash outputs in protocols.
> ]]
>
> http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6920
>
> This may be a useful way to name things in a portable way. And perhaps 
> have a distributed database of key value pairs, using read / write 
> technology.  The advantage of distributing things cryptographically 
> (as demonstrated for example by bitcoin) is that you also distribute 
> trust away from a trusted third party model, additionally you need to 
> incur the overhead of an HTTP request when performing some operations.

Examples of Linked Data URIs furnished in this manner:

1. 
http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/proxy-iri/fdab1586d2656212f68c758e7f6cee410cbf21c3 
-- URI that denotes a WebID Issues from W3C issue tracking system
2. http://bit.ly/10QjdG9 -- vapour report.



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Kingsley Idehen	
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OpenLink Software
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