Re: Position Paper for W3C Workshop on Identity

On 24 Apr 2011, at 01:56, peter williams wrote:

> We distinguish between web and webby here. Remember, webby means the
> TAG-authorized architecture - a set of design principles. Using a windows
> web service to mint or reissue a cert is "not webby" (though obviously web),
> since a "true" webby solution would use the HTML5 keygen tag. That keygen
> tag is crap at the issues of renewal/reissuance is ... besides the point (in
> very pure webby circles). Its canon.
> 
> What I want to hear (for our sakes) is that we can give on the webbiness,
> rather more than some of our rhetoric (here, said semi-privately). I don't
> want to alienate NSA/DoD, say, who do NOT use HTML5 keygen tag when issuing
> browsers certs (even though they use Mozilla a lot); and they NEVER will. I
> don't want them to feel they could never be an adoption community....because
> the very purity of the webbiness becomes a barrier. Those guys a VERY good
> security engineers, and they ONLY adopt if their use cases have really
> "internalized" the architecture of the standard - which thus has to mesh
> with their basic operational environments. If we start with a clash, this
> can never happen - since they use high assurance engineering methods.

Of course you can make your certificate anyway you choose! But if one did
not have the keygen tag we would have to build even uglier hacks to
get anything interesting going at the massive scale we need.

We certainly need to mention keygen in the talk, because otherwise
people won't understand how easy it is to distribute keys. There are proposals 
for keygen2 also out there, here for example:

http://webpki.org/auth-token-4-the-cloud.html

Henry



> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-xg-webid-request@w3.org [mailto:public-xg-webid-request@w3.org]
> On Behalf Of Henry Story
> Sent: Saturday, April 23, 2011 3:34 PM
> To: jeff@sayremedia.com
> Cc: Kingsley Idehen; public-xg-webid@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Position Paper for W3C Workshop on Identity
> 
> Agree on all below.
> 
> The version I was editing is here, if it makes it easier to see the diffs:
> 
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YMY_UEIuZzZRvPem5cWg1DuC5FqN2DejOBYPX_51
> q7s/edit?hl=en&authkey=CI7q4cIC
> 
> Henry
> 
> 
> On 24 Apr 2011, at 00:29, Jeff Sayre wrote:
> 
>> 
>>>> On 23 Apr 2011, at 19:08, Jeff Sayre wrote:
>>>>> Thus, WebID is not just for the Web.
>> 
>>> On 23 Apr 2011, at 1:21 PM, Henry Story wrote:
>>>> Agree, but one should pause at the word "just" here. It makes me wonder:
>>>> what else do we have that is bigger? It's a bit like saying Bill 
>>>> Gates
>> is just
>>>> rich....
>> 
>> Removing 'just' from my sentence would not make any sense. The point 
>> is that WebID has a practical role beyond the Web (big W). The 
>> Internet is bigger than the Web platform. Non-webby protocols can 
>> harness the power of WebID.
>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Anyway, when talking to browser vendors and builders, one should 
>>>> presume that their interest lies focused in the space just 
>>>> encompassed by this technology.
>>>> :-)
>>> 
>> 
>> Of course. The workshop is targeting browser vendors. Therefore, the 
>> browser-based Internet. As I've said several times before in this 
>> thread, our position paper thus needs to be Web (big W) focused.
>> 
>> I assumed Kingsley was making a larger point and not referring 
>> specifically to our position paper. That is the downside to threaded 
>> email discussions that tend to snake around, periodically going off topic
> a bit.
>> It can sometimes be hard to know what topic is being discussed. :)
>> 
>> BTW, why have we stopped using Google Docs? I assumed that you were 
>> just exporting an HTML version for people's reference and that we 
>> would continue our edits in Google Docs. It is impossible for anyone 
>> else to make corrections to the document in its present format.
>> 
>> I would say that at this stage, with the exception of a few edits and 
>> proofreading corrections, we are beginning to nitpick with the paper's 
>> details. Remember, *all* this paper needs to do is earn us a 
>> presentation invite. It does not need to be perfect in all respects 
>> with regards to describing WebID. We can go into more detail, be more 
>> precise, or paint a bigger picture in our 20-minute talk.
>> 
>> Jeff
>> 
> 
> Social Web Architect
> http://bblfish.net/
> 
> 
> 

Social Web Architect
http://bblfish.net/

Received on Sunday, 24 April 2011 10:41:21 UTC