Do We Agree on the Problem We're Trying to Solve?

Drummond Reed drummond.reed at cordance.net
Fri Jun 8 23:21:48 UTC 2007


>>> Dick Hardt wrote:
>>>
>>> The persistent URL or XRI *is* a master directory. What do you do
>>> when the persistent identifier is compromised, goes out of  
>>> business ...
>>>
>>> That is problem B.
>>>
>>> Canonical IDs do not solve B.
>>
>> I completely agree that B is a hard problem. However Canonical IDs  
>> solve B
>> if the identifier authority for the Canonical ID follows business and
>> operational practices intended to solve B.
>
>And I think there is a solution that does not require a single,  
>central registry.

Agreed. However XRI as a language for identifier interoperability is a
superset of the portion of XRI that enables native XRI registries, thus XRI
Canonical ID architecture can be used with any registry providing
persistent, verifiable identifiers (XRIs, URLs, Handles, URNs, etc.)

>One of the other issues with the registry is it is challenging to  
>provide directed identities.

Agreed that it is challenging for *global* registries to provide directed
identities. You'd want to drop down one or more levels of delegation.

=Drummond 




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