Re: canonical RDF graph representations

On Tue, 2011-03-01 at 08:37 -0500, Peter Frederick Patel-Schneider
wrote: 
> This thrust for a canonical serialization puzzles me.  What problem
> would a canonical serialization solve?

The argument I've heard before is that if you want to sign an RDF graph
(as opposed to a specific serialization of that graph) then a good way
of doing that is to sign a canonical serialization.

There are at least two weaknesses in that argument, neither fatal.

First, it is possible to sign a graph without canonical ordering by
using a set hash [1]. 

Second, in some applications you don't actually need to sign the graph
but could sign a particular serialization.

Dave

[1] http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2003/HPL-2003-235R1.pdf

> 
> Peter F. Patel-Schneider
> Bell Labs Research
> 
> 
> From: Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: canonical RDF graph representations
> Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2011 07:13:08 -0600
> 
> > On 1 March 2011 10:50, Ivan Shmakov <ivan@main.uusia.org> wrote:
> >>        The “The case for generating URIs by hashing RDF content” paper
> >>        [1], dating back to 2002, mentions that “there is no current
> >>        canonical serialization standard for RDF”.  (Then, they suggest
> >>        their own canonical representation.)
> >>
> >>        I wonder, has such a standard been since proposed?
> >>
> >> [1] http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2002/HPL-2002-216.pdf
> > 
> > Yes, it's important to have a standard way canonicalize RDF, or, at
> > least, RDF/XML imho.  It's required for xmlsig, I think.
> > 
> > I think there was an issue with bnodes ... maybe it's something we can solve.
> > 
> > Maybe we can get this quickly to rec status?
> > 
> >>
> >> --
> >> FSF associate member #7257
> >>
> >

Received on Tuesday, 1 March 2011 13:59:41 UTC