Hello, deep buried in the discussion around a way to find/trace an authoritative hcard on the uf-discuss mailing list [1] I proposed the idea of having the possibility to digitally sign microformatted content [2][3]. Nick Drago then helped to put the discussion of my 1st format proposal into the uf-Wiki [4].
I am going to shortly share some benefits of a Microformat for digital signatures I see here. I am really looking forward discussing it either here or on the discussion page on the WiKi. - Why a new Microformat? I think signing a "Microformat" (aka Microformatted Content) shall be possible within "Microformats" (so itself a microformat). Such as XML can be signed and the Signature stored in XML as well. - Why signing Microformatted content? Microformats facilitate reuse of semantically annotated content. It allows services and applications to cut&paste, convert, re-publish, link-to, cite Microformatted content. In any of these cases it might be interesting to see who the original author was. Additionally viewers want to verify authorship. Digital Signatures offer just this, Origin-Authentication. - Why use digital signatures and not some "Trace-Back-Mechanism" [1] Trace-back allows to find a "bigger", more complete version of Microformatted content. Trace-back only verifies that the pointer used for trace-back is now "self referencing". Trace-back will then verify the content's source based on a URI/URL. IMHO trace-back is a weaker "form of authenticity" than that achieved by a digital signatures. Also digital signatures are more versatile: -- Digital signatures add authenticity without the need to trace links back to some URL, so reduces the overhead if the content at view is "authoritative enough". -- Digital signatures allow to add authority to content that is placed on foreign URLs (e.g. Signing your whole Comment you left on a foreign Blog). I can come up with more good reasons, but I stop now, leaving room for your, much welcomed, thoughts :-) Henrich. [1] http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-discuss/2007-January/thread.html#8265 [2] http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-discuss/2007-February/008628.html [3] http://microformats.org/discuss/mail/microformats-discuss/2007-February/008661.html [4] http://microformats.org/wiki/digital-signatures _______________________________________________ microformats-new mailing list [email protected] http://microformats.org/mailman/listinfo/microformats-new
