- From: Henry Story <henry.story@bblfish.net>
- Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2011 11:05:07 +0100
- To: Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com>
- Cc: public-xg-webid@w3.org
On 21 Dec 2011, at 19:08, Kingsley Idehen wrote: > On 12/21/11 12:55 PM, Mo McRoberts wrote: >> On 21 Dec 2011, at 17:47, Kingsley Idehen wrote: >> >>> I used to think so until Henry expressed questionable suggestions about URI handling that breaks the abstraction re. WebID verifiers. >> I’m think it was actually Peter initially, but I could be wrong; Henry just revisited the issue, and took a safe (from a security perspective, if broken from a web arch angle) default position. >> >> I’m not sure why that prompted this whole thread. Just saying “redirection (and indirection!) are a fundamental part of web architecture, we just need to settle on how they’re handled from a security perspective” would’ve been a perfectly decent answer to Henry’s question… >> >> M. >> > > Here is how I would frame a security problem (something I've done in the past). > > An owl:sameAs relation exists in a graph somewhere along the de-reference trails. A verifier follows the link and finds match. Or said verifier applies inference and makes a union and then gets a match. In either case, one deftly placed relation have tipped the apple cart. > > Solution: implementers of WebID verifiers have to factor in crawl depths and relation semantics. Suggestion could go as far as seeking signed claims for specific relations. BTW -- this doesn't have to be part of the WebID spec, it's just a note for engineers. I think following owl:sameAs relations is better left to the authorisation part. Requiring it of the Authentication part, makes the entry point into WebID harder, as it adds a bit of a reasoning layer. The spec states that the WebID should point to a WebID Profile and that this should contain the key. Now it is true that the spec currently has a pointer from the html to other representations too. Anyway I have not implemented this part, and I wonder how many people have. This is also not something we have discussed. Perhaps we should open an issue on this one. I can see that there are other things to follow up on here. What about seeAlso links, or alternative relation links, or what perhaps a movedTo relation? But should someone still be using that WebID if they have a new WebID somewhere else? So this opens up a lot of interesting questions. > > The ultimate challenge for WebID is this, you are going to have variation re. product quality. That's fine, a spec can't control actual engineering, it can only provide the specs for the act of engineering. > > The Internet was broken security wise before the WWW came along. WebID has a great shot of fixing this problem, but it really has to understand and honor the age-old practice known as separation of powers. > > The WebID spec shouldn't be about encouraging implementations that are fundamentally technology Camels -- the usual product of attempting innovation by committee. A spec must sit distinct from implementation engineering. ok. > > -- > > Regards, > > Kingsley Idehen > Founder& CEO > OpenLink Software > Company Web: http://www.openlinksw.com > Personal Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen > Twitter/Identi.ca handle: @kidehen > Google+ Profile: https://plus.google.com/112399767740508618350/about > LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kidehen > > > > > > Social Web Architect http://bblfish.net/
Received on Thursday, 22 December 2011 10:05:41 UTC