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Re: [higgins-dev] entities, and digital identities
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Hi Folks,
How does this group see these concepts (Digital Identities, Digital
Subjects) mapping onto the JAAS/Java 2 security concepts of Subject and
Principal? It seems to me that as currently formulated Digital
Identities correspond to a certain *type* of Principal (the Principal
interface semantics are basically a named unique identifier), and
Digital Subjects correspond (loosely perhaps) to JAAS Subject?...which,
once authentication is complete has associated with it via
authentication an arbitrary number of Principals and Credentials.
But I could be completely off-base about these relationships.
I do think this is practically important for Higgins because I
anticipate that the concepts of Subject and Principal will soon play a
much larger role in the Eclipse Platform APIs.
Scott
Paul Trevithick wrote:
Inline
-----Original Message-----
*From:* higgins-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:higgins-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] *On Behalf Of *Dale Olds
*Sent:* Thursday, March 09, 2006 4:38 PM
*To:* higgins-dev
*Subject:* [higgins-dev] entities, and digital identities
I would like to discuss some terms in the context of Higgins
interfaces and classes. At this point I would rather not revisit any
of these terms in the sense of the identitygang lexicon, but see if we
can reach a common understanding in a more narrow scope of Higgins
interfaces and code.
Entity
====
I know that "entity" is not in the interfaces or classes and is not
modeled directly, but I find it useful (and even necessary) to
describe things in the real world and we should be clear about what we
consider to be "real" and "things". I think "entity" is the most
likely term. Claims, attributes, digital identities, digital subject,
and principals all purport to be data about something -- some entity.
I think of an "entity" as anything that can be identified in human
conversation. This is very close to the identity gang lexicon, except
that it would include "concept" in the list with person, physical
object, animal, and juridical entity. In fact, I think of a juridical
entity as a conceptual entity that incurs legal policy. Also, note
that a false assertion is still a concept -- we can identify it and
talk about it.
So it is useful to think of an entity as anything that can be
identified in human conversation.
Yes. Humans and the topics of their conversations live in the “real”
world--the world of /entities/. In a digital system the entities
(which could include concepts (I justed added /concept/ to the Higgins
wiki’s definition of Entity)) are called /digital subjects, /or just
/subjects/ for short. The reason for the distinction is that subjects
can either (a) exist only in the digital world (and have no “real”
world equivalent) or (b) be digital representations of real world
entities.
BTW, sorry to /add/ complexity, but the distinction between /subject/
and /digital identity/ is also worth making here. As Nataraj
Nagaratnam (aka Raj) has tried to explain to me, a subject could be
represented by a collection of more than one /digital identities/, not
just one /digital identity./
There is much discussion on the identitygang list that two identities
can be identical -- but I think that's because the discussion strays
between entities (anything that can be identified) (subjects) and
digital identities (a chunk of data). Of course a particular chunk of
data (e.g. a set of attributes) can be insufficient to distinguish
between two entities, but humans CAN distinguish between the entities
or we could not talk about them. The distinction between entities may
be as simple as sequence or physical position, be we can identify them
or we could not discuss them.
Agreed.
Digital Identity
===========
In networked systems we commonly store data about an entity. I think
this corresponds most closely with Digital Identity. It consists of a
chunk of structured data.
Yes. Let me have a try. A /digital identity/ is represented as a chuck
of structured data that is “about” some subject within a given
context. There may well be other digital identities in other contexts
that are also about that same subject. There could even be N>1 digital
identities that are about the same subject.
At this point I see no difference between the terms attributes,
attribute value assertions, and claims when applied to that structured
data. Sometimes sets of attributes are stored as an entity within a
larger entity (e.g a user account within a directory service).
As I try to follow you, I’d say that a “user account” is a /digital
identity/. A /digital identity/ that is a about a /subject/ that
stands for a real world /entity/ called a user. A directory service is
(I think) modeled as a hierarchical set of /contexts/.
Sometimes a set of attributes are presented as part of some
interaction with another entity (e.g. name.password authentication,
update address book, present credit card info, etc.).
Yes. A digital identity containing the appropriate set of claims (a
special kind of attribute where the “claimant” of the value of the
attribute is known) is presented as part of some interaction…
Is this the difference between "digital subject", "digital identity",
and "claims" -- merely notions of persistence and larger or smaller
subset of attributes?
If so, it seems like the higgins interface can have class definitions
for digital identity, and attribute, and not (yet) need classes for
digital subject, claims, persona, party, etc.
Digital subjects are not modeled in Higgins. Only digital identities.
In the current version DIs have attributes, but very soon (v0.3) they
_will_ have claims as well as attributes.
A persona is just a synonym for DI. A party won’t be modeled either
because a party is a real person. Digital subjects won’t be modeled
explicitly either.
From what I have seen of the demo code, it seems like a Facet
corresponds to a digital identity. Is this where you see it going?
Yes. I apologize. One of the last steps in the milestone 0.3 plan is
to refactor the code to be consistent with the Higgins/idgang
definitions. You are correct. Every occurrence of Facet will be
replaced with DigitalIdentity (among other changes).
--Dale
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