From: cvs@openprivacy.orgCVS update: openprivacy/htdocs/notes
Date: Monday February 26, 19101 @ 18:17
Author: fen
CVSWEB Options: -------------------
Main CVSWeb: http://openprivacy.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/cvsweb.cgi
View this module: http://openprivacy.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/cvsweb.cgi/openprivacy/htdocs/notes
-----------------------------------
Update of /usr/local/cvs/public/openprivacy/htdocs/notes
In directory giga:/home/fen/projects/openprivacy/htdocs/notes
Modified Files:
whitepaper.shtml
Log Message:
cleaned up abstract and overview with elaine
*****************************************************************
File: openprivacy/htdocs/notes/whitepaper.shtml
CVSWEB Options: -------------------
CVSWeb: Annotate this file: http://openprivacy.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/cvsweb.cgi/openprivacy/htdocs/notes/whitepaper.shtml?annotate=1.17
CVSWeb: View this file: http://openprivacy.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/cvsweb.cgi/openprivacy/htdocs/notes/whitepaper.shtml?rev=1.17&content-type=text/x-cvsweb-markup
CVSWeb: Diff to previous version: http://openprivacy.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/cvsweb.cgi/openprivacy/htdocs/notes/whitepaper.shtml.diff?r1=1.17&r2=1.16
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Index: openprivacy/htdocs/notes/whitepaper.shtml
diff -u openprivacy/htdocs/notes/whitepaper.shtml:1.16 openprivacy/htdocs/notes/whitepaper.shtml:1.17
--- openprivacy/htdocs/notes/whitepaper.shtml:1.16 Mon Feb 26 16:52:14 2001
+++ openprivacy/htdocs/notes/whitepaper.shtml Mon Feb 26 18:17:40 2001
@@ -9,19 +9,20 @@
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff">
- <!-- $Id: whitepaper.shtml,v 1.16 2001/02/27 00:52:14 fen Exp $ -->
+ <!-- $Id: whitepaper.shtml,v 1.17 2001/02/27 02:17:40 fen Exp $ -->
<h1>OpenPrivacy - Building a Better Internet</h1>
<h2>Abstract</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>
- OpenPrivacy.org is building an Internet platform to take us into
- the next age - the age of personalized information. Basic to this
- goal is a platform that will provide people with complete control
- over their personal information and aid them in protecting their
- privacy while simultaneously enabling more efficient data mining
- and the access to specific market segments that advertisers crave.
+ OpenPrivacy.org is building an Internet platform to take us into the
+ next age - the age of personalized information. Basic to this goal
+ is a platform that will provide people with complete control over
+ their personal information and aid them in protecting their privacy
+ while simultaneously enabling more efficient data mining by
+ marketers and the access to highly desirable market segments by
+ advertisers.
</p>
<p>
OpenPrivacy creates a secure marketplace for anonymous demographic
@@ -29,19 +30,21 @@
reputation-based rating system that can be used for everything from
item selection and ordering to search result filtering. Further,
this system is completely open, allowing multiple communication
- mechanisms, languages and ontological meanings to co-exist - we
- thrive in diversity.
+ mechanisms, languages and ontological meanings to coexist. This
+ platform thrives on diversity.
</p>
<p>
- To accomplish our goals, we introduce three new concepts: Opinions,
- Reputations and Bias. These are all first class, signed objects
- that are created at will under a multitude of pseudonymous entities
- maintained by the user's client. A fourth concept, that of a
- <i>personal profile</i>, is created virtually from a collection of
- the first three objects in such a way that only the owner of the
- information can validate the connections between them, but others
- may, if granted access, mine for potentially profitable correlations
- while the owner of the profile maintains her anonymity.
+ To accomplish our goals, we introduce three new concepts:
+ <i>Opinions</i>, <i>Reputations</i> and <i>Bias</i>. These are all
+ first class, signed objects that are created at will under a
+ multitude of pseudonymous entities maintained by the user. A fourth
+ concept, that of a <i>personal profile</i>, is created virtually
+ from a collection of the first three objects in such a way that only
+ the owner of the information can validate the connections between
+ them. However, if granted access, others (marketers, advertisers,
+ online community builders and the like) may mine the profile for
+ potentially profitable or otherwise valuable correlations while the
+ owner of the profile maintains her anonymity.
</p>
</blockquote>
<h2><a name="overview">Background</a></h2>
@@ -50,53 +53,58 @@
<p>
What you do tells a lot about who you are. For example, where you
live, for whom you work (and how much money you make), where you
- went to school, when, and what your grades were, what kind of car
- you drive, where you go to eat and what movies and plays you see,
- what magazines you subscribe to and what organizations you belong
- to, where you go on vacation and how much (and on what) you spend --
- all this data is collected by government agencies, corporations and
- direct marketers for the expressed purpose of giving you enhanced
- services and safety.
+ went to school, when and what your grades were, what kind of car you
+ drive, where you eat and what movies and plays you see, the
+ magazines to which you subscribe and the organizations to which you
+ belong, where you go on vacation and how much (and on what) you
+ spend -- all of this data is collected by government agencies,
+ corporations and direct marketers for the express purpose of
+ providing you with enhanced services and the improved lifestyle that
+ comes with them.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Of course, the problem herein lies in the fact that you have little
+ control over who collects this information and far less control over
+ how it is used, to whom it is sold, etc. While strong laws (such as
+ those that exist in the European Union) can attempt to stem the
+ abuse and misuse of personal information, in actuality it comes down
+ to the fact that the consumer simply has to trust those who hold the
+ power to do the right thing.
</p>
<p>
- Of course, the problem lies in the fact that you have little control
- over who collects this information and much less control over how it
- is used, to whom it is sold, etc. While strong laws (such as exist
- in the European Union) can attempt to stem abuse, in actuality it
- comes down to the fact that the consumer simply has to trust those
- with the power to do the right things.
- </p>
- <p>
Systems like the Anonymizer[<a href="#anon">anon</a>] and Freedom
[<a href="#free">free</a>] provide the essential anonymity needed to
- protect one's self from being watched while on line, but they lack a
- way to create and profit from a long-lived pseudonymous identity. In
- today's world, people want the enhanced services such as
- personalized home pages, recommended reading lists and respect
- within their community. Many systems have been created to address
- these desires, such as my.Yahoo.com, Amazon.com's recommendations,
- and Slashdot.org, but these have problems, too. A very basic issue
+ protect oneself from being watched while online, but they lack a way
+ to create and profit from a long-lived pseudonymous identity. In
+ today's world, people want enhanced services such as personalized
+ home pages, recommended reading lists and respect within their
+ communities. Many systems have been created to address these
+ desires, such as my.Yahoo.com, Amazon.com's book recommendations and
+ Slashdot.org, but these have problems, too. A very basic issue here
is that a person who develops a good reputation on one site cannot
carry that reputation with them to another. A deeper issue is that
- all your information is known by the creators of these sites to be
- used as they please.
+ all of your information is known by the creators of these sites and
+ can be used by them at will.
</p>
<p>
- OpenPrivacy provides a framework for building systems that support
- the concept of <i>reputation</i>. Reputations, which can be
- attached to any object (such as pseudonyms, purchase histories,
- physical objects (using an expanded URI namespace), reputation
- servers, and even reputations themselves, are pervasive and directly
- affect every aspect of OpenPrivacy enabled systems. One example of
- how it can be used is a privacy-enhanced personal portal with
- reputation-assisted search and publishing features [<a
- href="#jets">jets</a>]. We are also creating reputation calculation
- engines that will provide work-alike similarity for the communities
- created by Slashdot and Advogato. Because these projects are built
- on the OpenPrivacy platform, not only with their users enjoy
- enhanced privacy and security from spoof attacks, but also they will
- be able to publish selected portions of their profiles for access by
- the members of the other communities.
+ OpenPrivacy provides a framework for building intercommunicating
+ systems that support the concept of <i>reputation</i>. Reputations,
+ which can be attached to any object such as pseudonyms, purchase
+ histories, physical objects (using an expanded URI namespace),
+ reputation servers, and even reputations themselves, are pervasive
+ and directly affect every aspect of OpenPrivacy-enabled systems.
+ One example of how this framework can be used is as a customizable
+ privacy-enhanced personal portal with reputation-assisted search and
+ publishing features [<a href="#jets">jets</a>]. We are also
+ creating reputation calculation engines that will provide work-alike
+ similarity for the communities created by the likes of Slashdot and
+ Advogato. Because projects such as these are built on the
+ OpenPrivacy platform, not only with their users enjoy enhanced
+ privacy and security from spoof attacks, but they will also be able
+ to publish selected portions of their profiles for access by the
+ members of these and other communities. Likewise, advertisers can
+ avail themselves of targeted, high-quality profile information with
+ the full cooperation and confidence of a pseudonymous user.
</p>
<h3>Philosophy</h3>
<p>
@@ -281,7 +289,7 @@
able to act anonymously, as they perceive a need to be able to
track the actions of suspected criminals via such methods as
electronic wiretaps and physical surveillance. As more business
- moves on line, the FBI in particular has proposed and supported
+ moves online, the FBI in particular has proposed and supported
numerous bills that extend their ability to watch people as they
work, communicate, travel, make purchases, surf the Internet, and
generally go about their daily lives. If law abiding citizens have
@@ -325,7 +333,7 @@
reprisal from one's superiors.
</p>
<p>
- While these characteristics carry through to the on line world,
+ While these characteristics carry through to the online world,
there is a growing desire for personalized services that anonymity
cannot satisfy. People want personalized services, and portals such
as my.Yahoo.com, community sites ranging from Slashdot to iGolf, and
@@ -408,38 +416,40 @@
<p>
<dt><li><b>Principal</b></dt>
<dd>
- A generally pseudonymous, opinion-making entity. A principal
+ An identifiable, pseudonymous, or anonymous entity. A principal
can be uniquely referenced by its public key. Any static entity
that can be referenced can in theory be a principal, the only
- requirement being that it can store a private key and sign
- opinion objects.
+ requirement being that it can store a private key and perform
+ signature operations.
</dd>
<p>
<dt><li><b>Opinion</b></dt>
<dd>
A unique description of something (pointed to by a reference).
- Uniqueness is satisfied by attaching a hash to the opinion such
- that no two opinions are exactly the same. (Note: in most cases
- this hash with be created from the signature of the principal.)
- An opinion may appear as a statement, such as "I live in San
- Francisco", where the reference is "San Francisco" and the
- description is "where I live".
+ Uniqueness is satisfied by attaching a hash, generally created
+ from the pricipal's signature, to the opinion such that no two
+ opinions are exactly the same. An opinion may be clearly
+ subjective (as in "openssl is a good cryptography package") or
+ appear as a statement (as in "I live in San Francisco," where
+ the reference is "San Francisco" and the description is "where I
+ live").
</dd>
<p>
<dt><li><b>Reputation</b></dt>
<dd>
- A value returned from a reputation calculation engine that
- represents the collective opinion of some reference. A
- reputation generally takes the form of an opinion itself, as it
- is the calculated opinion of the reputation calvculation engine.
+ A value that represents the collective opinion of some
+ reference. A reputation generally takes the form of an opinion
+ itself, as it is the calculated opinion of the reputation
+ calculation engine.
</dd>
<p>
<dt><li><b>Bias</b></dt>
<dd>
- While reputations generally reflect many opinions of a single
- reference, a bias is an accumulation of opinions from a single
- principal. Biases may be divided by area or type of reference
- (such as one's opinions on politics).
+ While reputations generally reflect the sum of many opinions of
+ a single reference, a bias is an accumulation of opinions from a
+ single principal. Biases may be divided by area or type of
+ reference (such as groups of political or demographically
+ descriptive opinions).
</dd>
<p>
<dt><li><b>Profile</b></dt>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon Feb 26 2001 - 18:17:43 PST