And so says Peter Amstutz on 28/03/06 13:57...
> I think you lost me here. Searching for site ids / key fingerprints
> works because it cannot be forged. Creating a namespace of arbitrary
> strings, however, seems a lot more complicated?
Yeah. But remember I said something about signing data, like secure
DNS. Here's one possible way how it could work: if you dump all
properties of a record that are not signatures to XOD, using a
standardised whitespace convention, you get a string representation
which you can check against the signatures. If at least one signature
passes for at least one of the public keys in the record, then it's
accepted.
When a "server" receives an update, it's a bit more strict; it enforces
tree rules:
- any signatures that don't "pass" are dropped (not stored)
- at least one signature must "pass" the set of keys in the record
- at least one signature must "pass" the set of keys in the *previous*
contents of the record (before the update)
this easily allows you to expire a key, if you want to start using a
stronger one.
> Unfortunately such ideas quickly run into the harsh reality that as soon
> as such a system gained any traction it would likely be spammed to hell
> and back, rendering it useless. If you want to get complicated you can
> then have trust networks which help filter the on data quality, or you
> need a policing system like wikipedia to constantly fight against spam,
> but in any event experience has shown it is an extrodanarily difficult
> problem.
A separate system of "VOS.licio.us" tags could be done using the same
infra-structure. The pointer aliases, however, are more strict and
authoritative. For any given "node" in the hierarchy (eg "community",
"community/freesoftware") there is one entity in control, and a
procedure for creating new entries; so it would be like DNS once was, or
Usenet still is -- a new entry requires human intervention. I think
this works well enough; while Usenet is pretty much institutionalised
spam, there is very little spam in newsgroup *names*.
best,
Lalo Martins
--
So many of our dreams at first seem impossible,
then they seem improbable, and then, when we
summon the will, they soon become inevitable.
--
personal: http://www.laranja.org/
technical: http://lalo.revisioncontrol.net/
GNU: never give up freedom http://www.gnu.org/
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