Re: Support for Verifiable Claims

I strongly agree with what Chris says below, especially:

> this should NOT be translated to "lack of support from browser manufacturers = no WG".
> It should be read as "we shouldn't build specs to create ecosystems –
> we should build specs to support ecosystems that develop."

> I would feel much more positively about this charter if …
> 2) it was explained why we NEED a WG here - i.e., what wall is the ecosystem hitting by doing work in an incubation?

From: Chris Wilson <cwilso@google.com>
Date: Wednesday, October 26, 2016 at 5:12 PM
To: Tantek Çelik <tantek@cs.stanford.edu>
Cc: Rinke Hoekstra <rinke.hoekstra@vu.nl>, "w3c-ac-forum@w3.org" <w3c-ac-forum@w3.org>, "public-webpayments-comments@w3.org" <public-webpayments-comments@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Support for Verifiable Claims
Resent-From: "w3c-ac-forum@w3.org" <w3c-ac-forum@w3.org>
Resent-Date: Wednesday, October 26, 2016 at 5:13 PM

To be clear - I share Tantek's concerns.  I think somewhere my position might have been misunderstood as "anti-verifiable claims work," which is not correct.

My concern is not that I don't think enough organizations think something should be done about verifying claims; my concern is about a pattern we've had in creating working groups to address abstract problem spaces, without concrete plans and concrete implementations.  The reason we've been championing incubation of new standards in CGs lately has been, as I put it at the TPAC meeting, to enable efforts to fail gracefully - that is, to avoid prematurely baked an abstract solution into a "standard" before it's been fire-tested in the real world.

I believe quite firmly that the role of incubations is to turn abstract solutions into concrete proposals, and test them out in the ecosystem before baking them into a Recommendation.  My biggest concern right now, as Tantek laid out, is that "support" that is not a direct process of "prototype, implement and ship", does not seem to lead to a concrete, real-world solution.  This seems to lead in the direction of designing an ecosystem on paper, baking it into a specification, and then deploying the ecosystem; that seems to repeat the XHTML mistake, to me.

Before it is claimed to the contrary, this should NOT be translated to "lack of support from browser manufacturers = no WG".  It should be read as "we shouldn't build specs to create ecosystems - we should build specs to support ecosystems that develop."

I would feel much more positively about this charter if 1) there were commitments to implement some product of the WG, and its deliverables were more concrete, and 2) it was explained why we NEED a WG here - i.e., what wall is the ecosystem hitting by doing work in an incubation?

On Wed, Oct 26, 2016 at 4:40 PM, Tantek Çelik <tantek@cs.stanford.edu<mailto:tantek@cs.stanford.edu>> wrote:
Out of curiosity, is this just a big cheerleading technology wishlist
thread, or are y'all actively implementing verifiable claims
prototypes and trying them on the open web?

(I didn't see "implement", "prototype", or "incubate" mentioned in any
of the chain of +1s previous in the thread, mostly just "contribute"
which I suppose we are all doing by emailing about it, but we can do
that within existing IGs/CGs.)

I want a verified pony as much as the next person, but at some point
the framing starts to look more like a solution looking for problems
(or problems aspirationally assuming they'll be solved by a claimed
foundational panacea) rather than something that actually benefits the
web platform directly.

E.g. perhaps pick one specific area that verifiable claims may
potentially benefit that needs something like it badly (up to
advocates to prototype/demonstrate workability to be sure), like
WoT/IoT, which is currently beset by the wide deployment and
misdirection[1] of quite a few "unverified" devices.

(just did a quick web search on "verifiable claims" "web of things"
and found a few pages that mention both, but nothing that actually
connected these two in any substantive way. Hard to believe this email
is the first suggestion thereof, earlier references welcome.)

Thanks,

Tantek Çelik
AB member
Web Standards Lead, Mozilla

[1] I.e. I assume y'all have seen:
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/10/hacked-cameras-dvrs-powered-todays-massive-internet-outage/



On Mon, Oct 24, 2016 at 1:35 AM, Rinke Hoekstra <rinke.hoekstra@vu.nl<mailto:rinke.hoekstra@vu.nl>> wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam also supports the Verifiable Claims WG Charter, and is looking forward to contributing.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Rinke Hoekstra
>
>
>
>> On 21 Oct 2016, at 20:20, j.j.spaanderman@dnb.nl<mailto:j.j.spaanderman@dnb.nl> wrote:
>>
>> +1 to the Verifiable Claims WG charter on behalf of DNB.
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Jurgen
>>
>> Van: Hakkinen, Mark T
>> Verzonden: vrijdag 21 oktober 2016 20:08
>> Aan: w3c-ac-forum@w3.org<mailto:w3c-ac-forum@w3.org>
>> Cc: public-webpayments-comments@w3.org<mailto:public-webpayments-comments@w3.org>
>> Onderwerp: RE: Support for Verifiable Claims
>>
>> +1 to the  verifiable claims working group charter http://w3c.github.io/webpayments-ig/VCTF/charter/

>>
>> Educational Testing Service supports this charter and looks forward to contributing to the work of the group.
>>
>> Mark
>>
>> --
>> Markku (Mark) T. Hakkinen, PhD
>> Managing Sr. Research Developer
>> Accessibility, Standards, and Assistive Technology Research Group
>> Center for Cognitive, Accessibility, and Technology Sciences
>> Educational Testing Service
>> Rosedale Road
>> Princeton, New Jersey
>> 08541 USA
>> +1 609 734 5014<tel:%2B1%20609%20734%205014>
>> mhakkinen@ets.org<mailto:mhakkinen@ets.org>
>> http://www.ets.org

>>
>>
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