Re: Web Identity 1.0 -- Draft Spec

On 1/8/14 10:27 PM, Timothy Holborn wrote:
> re: G+[1] i agree with Kingsley almost; and the underlying 
> differentiation, is in seeking to define 'persona' as a separate 
> 'identity' for the purpose of identity management.
>
> Some ideas (sorry for the length; ideas are still draft).
>
> *WEBID*
> There's a couple of different sorts of 'things' that interact.  WebID 
> seems to make the most sense for 'things that speak internet' (and 
> knows what to do with a cert).
> WebID [2] seems to provide a method to deploy x509 with RDF, which is 
> beneficial for IoT / WoT; therefore reinforcing identity / privacy 
> methods, especially when applied to an RWW Account (LDP / RDF + 
> storage + base services).

Not really. A WebID is a term that refers to the use of HTTP URIs for 
denoting (naming or "referring to") agents (entities such as people, 
organizations, sofware, robots, and anything else capable of mechanized 
operation). Its sole purpose is entity denotation, that's it.

Unfortunately, during the early days of WebID, it got conflated with  
Discovery and Authentication, as reflected in your characterization 
above re. X.509  and RDF.

In recent times the following have been established to be distinct:

1. WebID
2. WebID + TLS authentication protocol -- which is based on RDF, X509, 
and existing PKI.

Once we establish that a WebID is simply a denotation mechanism, the 
rest of the stack can take shape without falling into the usual "leaky 
abstraction" tar-pit i.e., where a spec fails (woefully) when it simply 
seeks to push an agenda rather than deliver standard interoperability 
via loosely coupling or related parts. Put differently, the spec fails 
the jigsaw-puzzle-pieces test.

[SNIP]

-- 

Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	
Founder & CEO
OpenLink Software
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