Re: WebID default serialization for WebID 2.x

On Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 6:55 AM Henry Story <henry.story@gmail.com> wrote:

> > On 26. Jan 2022, at 00:58, Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com>
> wrote:
> > On 1/25/22 6:08 PM, Nathan Rixham wrote:
> >> On Tue, Jan 25, 2022 at 10:58 PM Kingsley Idehen <
> kidehen@openlinksw.com> wrote:
> >> On 1/25/22 4:29 PM, Nathan Rixham wrote:
> >>> On Tue, Jan 25, 2022 at 9:23 PM Kingsley Idehen <
> kidehen@openlinksw.com> wrote:
> >>> On 1/25/22 1:28 PM, Nathan Rixham wrote:
> >>>> Would a fair definition of a valid WebId then be something like: A
> URI is a valid WebIdentifier if it dereferences to a valid WebId-Profile
> describing the URI with the minimum set of required properties (type, name,
> public_keys)?
> >>> A WebID is a resolvable identifier that denotes an agent. It resolves
> to a WebID Profile Document.
> >>>
> >>>  How do you know it's a WebID before you resolve it?
> >> Good question!
> >>
> >> By deciding the want to denote yourself using a given identifier,
> relative to your profile document.
> >>
> >> Let me rephrase, and suggest looking at it the other way around: given
> a random IRI <y> how do I know <y> is a webid / refers to an Agent, without
> first resolving it? and as a sub point, is a "valid" webid?
> >
> >
> > You know it is a WebID because the spec says its is a URI that denotes
> an Agent. That's it, really :)
> >
>
> You used to know it’s a WebID because we had the cert ontology that
> related the WebID to a public Key.
> The core purpose of having a WebID was to tie it into the WebID-TLS
> authentication scheme.
>

Yes, exactly Henry, it used to be that you started with a thing you knew
was a webid and hoped it was a valid one. Great point.