RE: Semantic Web Hackings

[Jason Diamond <jason@injektilo.org>]

Hello.

> I'm simply suggesting that email boxes are "owned" and therefore it is
> easier to assert statements when using them as a unique identifier for a
> persons interface to the Web. Look at Dan's FOAF stuff -
> http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1

I don't understand what you mean. It's just as easy for me to make
assertions about mailto:jason@injektilo.org as it is about
uuid:D147430A-2394-4acf-8E3C-FA08F9622182.

Dan's FOAF stuff doesn't necessarily use email addresses as the main URI for
a person--it merely mentions that mailboxes could be a good example of a
URI. A person's actual mailbox is asserted using the foaf:mbox property.
This would be redundant if a person's URI was required to be their mailbox.

> If I said I "owned" an http:// URI, how easy would that be to prove
> (ignoring TLDs - not everybody owns a TLD)?

How can you prove you own mailto:sean@mysterylights.com? Why would you want
to?

You'd mentioned digitally signing your assertions for security reasons.
Think about using a network retrievable URI with an RDF file on the end of
it to identify people, instead. If this were the case, then I think that it
would be reasonable to assume that the only authorized assertions that could
be made about that person would be the assertions found in that file.
Theoretically, the only person who could modify that file is the person who
"owns" that web space.

Using this approach has a couple advantages as far as I can tell. There's
plenty of free web space for everybody. This gives a person an actual place
to stick their assertions that the rest of the world can query using today's
technology. It also solves the problem of what to do about one email address
being shared by more than one person? Each person could have their own RDF
file with their mbox property set to the same email address.

Sorry if I'm being too practical. I think this is definitely a cool idea but
would like to see it be usable. If we could hammer out a schema, I'd be
willing to work on a web-based tool that lets users enter information about
themselves and gives them the RDF file that they could then stick wherever
they pleased (or even POST it to their web space for them).

Jason.