From: Carl Ellison <cme@TIS.COM>
Date: Fri, 1 Dec 1995 01:01:49 +0800
To: jamesd@echeque.com
Subject: Attribute-testimony example (was Re: The future will be easy to use)
In-Reply-To: <199511301622.IAA08718@blob.best.net>
Message-ID: <9511301638.AA05094@tis.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


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>Date: Wed, 29 Nov 1995 08:20:46 -0800
>From: "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com>
>
>From: Rich Salz <rsalz@osf.org>
>> > There is, of course, no way to interpret the semantics of this
>> > electronically.
>
>At 10:11 AM 11/30/95 EST, Carl Ellison wrote:
>> Of course not.  In the end, a human needs to make the decision based on
>> ASCII text.
>
>For those ascii texts that belong to a small and commonly used set,
>we can set our computers to automatically follow certain policies,
>and to bring to our attention "special case" texts that lie outside
>this set.

Exactly!

We haven't yet learned that small and commonly used set -- understandably,
since the field is so new.  I'd be willing to bet that association between
a key and a checking account would be on the list.  Beyond that, I don't
know.

Once an element of that set is identified, it can be assigned a codeword
(to make parsing easier).

For example, a general certificate might be:

- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Signing-Key-ID: f149b8e7e1f71e60964fff361dae2460
Signed-Key-ID: 76c68cb46a8e3de1509acaf4170feb10
Meaning: I have met this person, introduced to me as James, who signed
	with that key and I found him to be about 25 years old, roughly
	5'11" and with dark hair.  Beyond that I don't remember much.

- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
[...]   signature with the signing key
- -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----



While the specialized one might be:

- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Signing-Key-ID: bc2cb00144f223498fcc074eabb821d0
Signed-Key-ID: e05c601c4ec4af3aeb54a53171ed65da
Meaning: checking-account: 116 94265, First Security Bank

- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
[...]   signature with First Security Bank's key
- -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----



This format has several advantages over ASN.1, of course, but I won't
belabor that point here.

 - Carl

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