From: cvs@openprivacy.orgCVS update: openprivacy/htdocs
Date: Tuesday February 27, 19101 @ 23:17
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
-----------------------------------
Update of /usr/local/cvs/public/openprivacy/htdocs
In directory giga:/home/fen/projects/openprivacy/htdocs
Modified Files:
opd.shtml
Log Message:
brought into line with the white paper (consistency!)
*****************************************************************
File: openprivacy/htdocs/opd.shtml
CVSWEB Options: -------------------
CVSWeb: Annotate this file: http://openprivacy.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/cvsweb.cgi/openprivacy/htdocs/opd.shtml?annotate=1.27
CVSWeb: View this file: http://openprivacy.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/cvsweb.cgi/openprivacy/htdocs/opd.shtml?rev=1.27&content-type=text/x-cvsweb-markup
CVSWeb: Diff to previous version: http://openprivacy.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/cvsweb.cgi/openprivacy/htdocs/opd.shtml.diff?r1=1.27&r2=1.26
-----------------------------------
Index: openprivacy/htdocs/opd.shtml
diff -u openprivacy/htdocs/opd.shtml:1.26 openprivacy/htdocs/opd.shtml:1.27
--- openprivacy/htdocs/opd.shtml:1.26 Tue Feb 6 15:47:59 2001
+++ openprivacy/htdocs/opd.shtml Tue Feb 27 23:17:35 2001
@@ -1,61 +1,111 @@
<!--#include virtual="/includes/top.html"-->
<!--#include virtual="/includes/navigation.html"-->
-<!-- $Id: opd.shtml,v 1.26 2001/02/06 23:47:59 burton Exp $ -->
+<!-- $Id: opd.shtml,v 1.27 2001/02/28 07:17:35 fen Exp $ -->
-<h3>Definitions</h3>
+ <h3>Definitions</h3>
-<ul>
- <li>
- <b>Nym:</b>
- OpenPrivacy ensures privacy while enabling useful communications
- through the use of strong, cryptographically secure pseudonyms, or
- <i>nyms</i>. A nym is generally comprised of a public key pair
- maintained by an entity, allowing for trust (or "reputation") to
- accumulate over time and usage. Every agent may be represented by one
- or more nyms.
- </li>
- <p>
- <li>
- <b>Reputation:</b>
- Information that adds subjective depth to an entity. Reputation data
- can include personal profile information, opinions, and accumulated
- bias. A reputation must include a unique signature to be valid, but
- the issuer need not be known nor identifiable
- Profile data, nyms, brokers and even reputations themselves can accrue
- <i>reputation capital</i> that has several useful properties:
- <dl>
- <dt>
+ <ul>
+ <li><b>Reference:</b> A pointer to an entity (generally a URI, often a
+ URL). Examples include a physical or virtual object, place, person,
+ pseudonym, web page or site, opinion, reputation, bias, profile, and
+ reputation calculation engine.
+ </li>
+ <p>
+ <li><b>Nym:</b> Short for "pseudonym," a nym is a fictitious name that
+ can refer to an entity without using any of its directly
+ identifiable characteristics, such as name, location, etc.
+ OpenPrivacy uses public-key pairs to represent a nym, with the owner
+ having sole access to the private part and the public part being
+ published to at least one external party. A long-lived nym is
+ useful in that it allows for trust (or "reputation") to accumulate
+ over time and usage. Often, we refer to the public key as the
+ "nym," as it is how the entity is know in the outside world.
+ </li>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <li><b>Principal:</b> 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 perform signature operations.
+ </li>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <li><b>Opinion:</b> A unique description of something (pointed to by a
+ reference). 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").
+ </li>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <li><b>Reputation:</b> A value that represents the collective opinion
+ of some reference. A reputation is really just another name for an
+ Opinion, as it is the calculated opinion of a Reference by the
+ issuing Reputation Calculation Engine. Reputations are ephemeral,
+ and the weight applied to an Opinion representing the reputation of
+ some Reference is subjectively applied by the end user (person or
+ program) that requests it. As Principals add their Opinion to a
+ Reference, it accrues (positive or negative) <i>reputation
+ capital</i> that has several useful properties:
+ <dl>
+ <dt>
<b><i>Secure</i></b>
- </dt>
- <dd>Reputations cannot be subverted, and the source of reputation
- assertions can always be traced. This provides
- non-repudiation as well as the mechanism with which to decide
- which reputation information to trust.
- </dd>
- <dt>
+ </dt>
+ <dd>Reputations cannot be subverted, and the source of reputation
+ assertions can always be traced. This provides
+ non-repudiation as well as the mechanism with which to decide
+ which reputation information to trust.
+ </dd>
+ <dt>
<b><i>Transitive</i></b>
- </dt>
- <dd>Reputations are transitive <i>(within the constraints of a
- well-defined domain)</i>. For example, if A trusts B as a
- source of local news, and B trusts C for local news, then
- it could be determined that A trusts C for local news.
- </dd>
- </dl>
- </li>
- <p>
- <li>
- <b>Agent:</b>
- Any individual, organization or electronic entity that
- <i>creates</i>, <i>filters</i>, <i>gathers</i> and/or
- <i>publishes</i> reputation data.
- Doing so enables entrance into the OpenPrivacy system for purposes of
- joining the anonymous demographics marketplace.
- Agents have an internal state and can initiate communications
- with peers when set conditions are met.
-
- <p>
-
+ </dt>
+ <dd>Reputations are transitive <i>(within the constraints of a
+ well-defined domain)</i>. For example, if A trusts B as a
+ source of local news, and B trusts C for local news, then it
+ could be determined that A trusts C for local news.
+ </dd>
+ </dl>
+ </li>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <li><b>Bias:</b> While reputations generally reflect the sum of many
+ opinions of a single reference, a bias is an accumulation of
+ opinions that represent the views of a single principal. Biases
+ may be divided by area or type of reference (such as groups of
+ political or demographically descriptive opinions). A RCE uses
+ one or more Bias collections in the couse of its calculations.
+ </li>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <li><b>Offer Template:</b> A set of seemingly disparate opinions can
+ be grouped together (in a bias-like structure) for the purpose of
+ finding best matches in a universe of unconnected data. A
+ reputation service that receives an offer template may advertise
+ prizes for parent nyms that can validate ownership of a subset of
+ the template.
+ </li>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <li><b>Profile:</b> A collection of pseudonymous opinions (also in a
+ bias-like structure) that an entity claims that it can prove
+ belong to a single (parent) entity. (The proof itself is called
+ <i>validation</i>.)
+ </li>
+ </p>
+ <li>
+ <b>Agent:</b> Any individual, organization or electronic entity that
+ <i>creates</i>, <i>filters</i>, <i>gathers</i> and/or
+ <i>publishes</i> reputation data. Doing so enables entrance into
+ the OpenPrivacy system for purposes of joining the anonymous
+ demographics marketplace. Agents have an internal state and can
+ initiate communications with peers when set conditions are met.
+ </li>
+ </p>
+ <p>
OpenPrivacy Agents inter-communicate using "Profile Reputation
Objects," based on the XMLDsig standard, providing a secure,
capability-based environment for information sharing.
@@ -63,78 +113,103 @@
function as a client (or "Primary Agent") for a local user and as a
server (or "Secondary Agent") providing reputation and potentially
other services ("facilities") for remote agents.
- </li>
- <p>
- <li>
- <b>User:</b>
- An end point of communications. Also, an intelligent agent (e.g., a
- human).
- </li>
- <p>
- <li>
- <b>Reputation Server:</b>
- A Reputation Server is an agent that can respond to reputation
- requests such as <tt>putReputation()</tt> and
- <tt>getReputation()</tt>.
- In addition, reputation servers provide the communications and storage
- platform for <i>Reputation Calculation Engines</i>.
- </li>
- <p>
- <li>
- <b>Reputation Calculation Engine (RCE):</b>
- In order to make full use of the OpenPrivacy platform, use of and
- calculation with reputations is called for. Human users act as
- intelligent reputation calculation engines and add value to the system
- by adding reputations to entities and objects. An automated
- reputation calculation, part of an <i>infomediary agent</i>, has the
- ability to:
- <ul>
- <li>incrementally refine Reputation/Opinion accumulation into a Bias
- <li>use Bias to (pre-)calculate responses
- <li>modify (edit) one's own Bias or create a Bias
- <li>attach confidence quotient to returned results
-
- </ul>
- </li>
- <p>
- <li>
- <b>Broker</b> or <b>Broadcatch</b>
- <a href="/bibliography.shtml#infomediary"><b>Infomediary</b></a><b>:</b>
- A broker is a reputation server that has added intelligence for some
- domain. Generally, a broker is capable of adding value to
- profile and reputation information by collecting, sorting, indexing,
- matching or otherwise enhancing connections between data.
- <i>Note: Brokers are built on top of the OpenPrivacy platform and
- therefore are generally outside the scope its requirements.</i>
- </li>
-</ul>
-
-<h3>Assumptions</h3>
-
-<h4>Basic</h4>
-<ul>
- <li>Users have access to personal information access and buying habits
-</ul>
-
-<h4>Advanced</h4>
-<ul>
- <li>Users can collect their own net surfing habits
- <li>Users can anonymize themselves from the net
- <li>Users can authenticate purchases with
- <ul>
- <li>sellers
- <li>banks
- <li>credit card institutions
- </ul>
- <li>Authenticating institutions will participate by employing anonymous
+ </li>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <li>
+ <b>User:</b>
+ An end point of communications. Also, an intelligent agent (e.g., a
+ human).
+ </li>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <li>
+ <b>Reputation Server:</b>
+ A Reputation Server is an agent that can respond to reputation
+ requests such as <tt>putReputation()</tt> and
+ <tt>getReputation()</tt>.
+ In addition, reputation servers provide the communications and storage
+ platform for <i>Reputation Calculation Engines</i>.
+ </li>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <li>
+ <b>Reputation Calculation Engine (RCE):</b>
+ In order to make full use of the OpenPrivacy platform, use of and
+ calculation with reputations is called for. Human users act as
+ intelligent reputation calculation engines and add value to the system
+ by adding reputations to entities and objects. An automated
+ reputation calculation, part of an <i>infomediary agent</i>, has the
+ ability to:
+ <ul>
+ <li>incrementally refine Reputation/Opinion accumulation into a Bias
+ <li>use Bias to (pre-)calculate responses
+ <li>modify (edit) one's own Bias or create a Bias
+ <li>attach confidence quotient to returned results
+
+ </ul>
+ </li>
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ <li>
+ <b>Broker</b> or <b>Broadcatch</b>
+ <a href="/bibliography.shtml#infomediary"><b>Infomediary</b></a><b>:</b>
+ A broker is a reputation server that has added intelligence for some
+ domain. Generally, a broker is capable of adding value to
+ profile and reputation information by collecting, sorting, indexing,
+ matching or otherwise enhancing connections between data.
+ <i>Note: Brokers are built on top of the OpenPrivacy platform and
+ therefore are generally outside the scope its requirements.</i>
+ </li>
+ </p>
+ </ul>
+
+ <h3>Assumptions</h3>
+
+ <h4>Basic</h4>
+ <ul>
+ <li>Users have access to personal information access and buying habits
+ </ul>
+
+ <h4>Advanced</h4>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ Users can collect their own net surfing habits
+ </li>
+ <li>
+ Users can anonymize themselves from the net
+ </li>
+ <li>
+ Users can authenticate purchases with
+ </li>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ sellers
+ </li>
+ <li>
+ banks
+ </li>
+ <li>
+ credit card institutions
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+ <li>
+ Authenticating institutions will participate by employing anonymous
authentication mechanisms
- <li>A <a href="http://world.std.com/~cme/html/spki.html" target="_new">
- PKI</a> exists for authentication purposes
- <li>Users will have their systems online 24x7 (e.g., via cable or DSL
+ </li>
+ <li>
+ A <a href="http://world.std.com/~cme/html/spki.html" target="_new">
+ PKI</a> exists for authentication purposes
+ </li>
+ <li>
+ Users will have their systems online 24x7 (e.g., via cable or DSL
modems) for purposes of autonomous local encryption and
authentication operations
- <li>P3P and other commercial and home-grown systems will provide
+ </li>
+ <li>
+ P3P and other commercial and home-grown systems will provide
negotiation mechanisms to enable autonomous operations.
-</ul>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
<!--#include virtual="/includes/bottom.html"-->
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Feb 27 2001 - 23:17:36 PST