Re: Signature in Wrong Position

On 01/17/2016 07:55 AM, Henry Story wrote:
> I was looking at the Linked Data Signatures document
> 
> https://web-payments.org/specs/source/ld-signatures/
> 
> I am not sure if this is the right list to discuss this.
> 
> I am really keen to have something like this to work, and I like most
> of it off the bat. But looking a bit closer I noticed what I think is
> a serious error that has an easy fix though.
> 
> The mistake is to put the signature *inside* the graph.

I don't have time to respond further, but I will when I do. This was a
design decision, not a mistake. Originally, it had to do with the
inability to express named graphs in RDFa. Subsequently, it was related
to a desire to hide as much unfamiliarity with graph technology from Web
developers as possible whilst still providing people with a signature
mechanism.

All that being said, there's no reason why you can't bundle things up in
a graph before signing them, for example:

{
  "someOtherMetaData": { ... },
  "someProperty": {
    "@graph": { core data }
  },
  "signature": { ... }
}

This is the approach taken in the Identity Credentials work, where an
Identity can possess credentials, each stored as a signed graph itself
-- and you can sign the entire Identity as well, whilst maintaining the
integrity of the signed credentials.


-- 
Dave Longley
CTO
Digital Bazaar, Inc.

Received on Monday, 18 January 2016 01:37:07 UTC