HTTPA

Sunday morning.  My time to fly into the never land of the internet to discover something interesting to ponder deeply.  Perhaps it is motivated by socially ingrained urge to go to church on Sunday.  Something I no longer do but maybe the essential urge to go deeper into meaning is still there.  So is the guilt related to the sin of not going.  If the internet of meaning is my church, I would feel guilty not going there this morning.  Sunday morning belongs to me not Somebody Else.  I relish my ownership of the meaning I create. 

Naked Capitalism ("Fearless commentary on finance, economics, politics and power")
launches me on more unexpected journeys/adventures/quests more than any other website.  It starts me on a road to somewhere that I do not known but eagerly go.

This link from Links at Naked Capitalism started me off this morning: Transforming the web into a HTTPA ‘database’ ZDNet.  Summary: Researchers under Tim Berners-Lee at MIT develop a new HTTP, dubbed HTTPA, a web protocol with accountability.

Tim Berners-Lee!  A true information hero.  It has to be great stuff!  This is going to be a most excellent road to ride!

A fantastic concept:  Rather than restrict information with controls at the source to prevent its release put the controls on where it goes and how it is used by whom.  Can you say "Accountability"?  No, that is an old school phrase.  New school:  "Because; Accountability".  Accountability, an increasingly rare attribute in the Information Age.  Accountability has a relationship to Transparency that is important.

This is how it would work as described at the ZDnet link

With HTTPA, each item of private data would be assigned its own Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), a component of the the Semantic Web.......................Data owner can then request an audit, identifying all the people that have accessed the data, and what they have done with it.

Two comments at the ZDnet call it a stupid idea.  Tim Berners-Lee is not stupid!

I like the idea.....because I have the same idea about money.  My kind of money that I talk about in so many ways at this blog site:  Money as an Object in an Object Oriented Information System.  In this system Digital Money Currency is a Super Class object with attributes and methods.  Instances of the class are units of Digital Dollar Currency (monetary value of one each) with unique identifiers.  The unique identifier could be a sequential serial number, an IPV6 number, or some unique permanent hash.

Users may spend money from their account but may also put qualification on how the recipient of that money may use or expend the money from their account.  The situation is that I give someone money for something but that reserve the information right to know that the money is used by the recipient in a way that I continue to have the right to know. 

For example:  I give money to a charitable organization.  It was my dollar to give.  I want it use for a specific purpose.  Each digital dollar I gave has a unique identifier and I want to see exactly who (what accounting entity identifier) that dollar goes to in order to assure myself that it was used for the intended purpose I gave it.  Yes, strings attached!  Strings that I can pull if I wish.  A string attached to each dollar.  Perhaps even to the extent that there is legal remedy if the dollar is not used in accordance with my qualification.  I my have given something but I retain the rights to control its use.

HTTPA is not a stupid idea.  Read all about it at this .pdf link

Wow! If I were either Oshani or Kaga I would treasure the photo of me with Tim Berners-Lee.  It would be worth something special beyond an enclosure to a resume!

More about the MIT Decentralized Information Group at this link.  Founded and led by Tim Berners-Lee.   It is the genesis from which this thinking about HTTPA derives.