2010/2/1
<sampo@symlabs.com>
Owen Thomas wrote:
> Hello Robin.
>
> May I pick you up there on what you say about "spanning borders", and
> apply
> Clique Space to it. The notion of Clique spanning and Clique Space
> federations model many collaborative endeavours of the physical world in a
> virtual context.
We are doing very similar research in the EU funded TAS3 project. Our
notion is to make the plumbing (e.g. metadata exchange and basic
trust establishment) fully automatic, but then rely on trust
computation and scoring to determine exatly how close collaboration
is possible with a given partner. This also connects with user
driven access control.
Our business model for building the Circles-of-Trust appears as
Annex E (really in the end of the document) of TAS3 architecture,
available from http:/zxid.org/tas3/ "TAS3 Architecture Deliverable".
Another interesting initiative in this same space is the
Internet of Subjects (IoS), http://www.iosf.org/ which advocates
that the institutional web of trust should be a not-for-profit
entity, such as a trust (pardon the pun) or foundation. This model
does not require government to perform this function, but it
clearly states that the entity should not have a commercial
conflict of interest. I am trying to architect
this such that multiple such foundations could coexist.
Indeed,
it looks as both organisations are on to a similar bone to myself.
However, there do seem to differences (merely complimentary - I
envisage that there would be mutual advantage to getting Clique Space and these
architectures to cooperate) and so let me attempt to explain some of
the differences in relation to Clique Space.
I have had a very quick look over TAS3 and IoS and these are some of the impressions I draw from each.
TAS3
appears to concentrate on a authorisation/authentication mechanism for
access to and transfer of electronically stored personal information.
In this regard, Clique Space differs in that it was primarily conceived
by me to handle real-time and near real-time operation of devices.
The page that is displayed directly from the IoS link you provide explains the organisations philosophy stating that the only one who ultimately owns personal data is the person to whom it relates. This is a similar philosophy to the one that motivated me to conceive Clique Space. Again, the notion of Personal Data Stores and the like leads me to conclude that IoS is based around information storage and retrieval, and not device activity.
So, a bit more on the technical side...
There are a few things to consider with regard to a device and the network infrastructure it uses; Clique Space is
neutral with regard to physical networks because devices may use
different physical networks to "the internet". Hence, while multiple
Clique Spaces might exist on one network (say, "the internet") one
Clique Space may also span multiple networks. The "one Clique Space -
multiple networks" paradigm may be achieved through federating multiple
sub Clique Spaces, but this may be complicated, and I would envisage it
would be easier simply to use Media Profiles, and do what is necessary
to bring physical access to other networks on an internet based Clique
Space through one or more Agent Devices that were underlying members of
the associated Agent Collaboration.
Now, regarding the proprietary technology of Institutional Web of Trust,
if this IPR gets released on royalty-free basis, but with revocation
of license in case of law suit, I would actually view this as valuable
founding capital for the foundation. It is pretty clear that such
universal CoT would be disruptive business model, so if the foundation
had in its portfolio a couple of patents, it could quite well defend
itself, and its users, against the hostile forces.
Cheers,
--Sampo