GssDefinitions - XDI.ORG Wiki

Definitions and Terminology

Introduction
Normative vs. Non-Normative Content
RFC Keywords
ABNF Notation
Conventions
Incorporation of XRI Glossary
Definitions

1. Introduction

This section defines all terminology conventions and definitons used in the Global Services Specifications (GSS).

2. Normative vs. Non-Normative Content

All pages in the GSS (including this one) are normative except the FrontPage and the pages under GssIntroduction.

For all normative pages, all sections are normative except those under the headings "Introduction", "Background", or "Implementation Notes".

3. RFC Keywords

In all normative sections of the GSS, the key words "MUST","MUST NOT","REQUIRED","SHALL","SHALL NOT","SHOULD","SHOULD NOT","RECOMMENDED","MAY", and "OPTIONAL" when used in capitalized form are to be interpreted as described in

IETF RFC 2119. When these words are not capitalized, they are meant in their natural language sense.

4. ABNF Notation

All ABNF (Augmented Backus-Naur Form) in the GSS uses the notation defined in

RFC 2234. Note that a number of standard ABNF productions, including the HEXDIG production, are also defined in RFC 2234.

5. Conventions

All terms appearing in the GSS as First Letter Uppercase or as an all-uppercase abbreviation are defined in this section (or in the XRI Glossary, see below.)

All items that appear in pink blocks are examples.

Example

All items that appear inside squiggly brackets "{ }" are variables (that do not include the squiggly brackets.)

6. Incorporation of XRI Glossary

This GSS Definitions section also incorporates by reference all glossary definitions in the XRI Specifications (see the final definition below).

7. Definitions

Agent: See XDI.ORG Agent.
Authentication Credential: The digital string or token registered with the GRS by a Registrar to enable authentication of a Registrant. Also called a Shared Secret.
Authority: A Resource that assigns identifiers or data values to another Resource. The term Authority includes both Registrants and Trustees. See also Network Authority, Organizational Authority, Personal Authority, and XRI Authority.
Community: As defined in the XRI Specifications, "The set of Resources that share a common identifier Authority, often (but not always) a common root Authority."
Community Cross-Reference: A Cross-Reference that is not a Global Cross-Reference, but is assigned within a Delegated I-Name or Delegated I-Number.
Community I-Name: An I-Name for an XRI Authority that begins with a Global I-Name and includes at least one Delegated I-Name after it. A Community I-Name may or may not be followed by a Local Path. See the InameInumberTechFaq.
Community I-Number: An I-Number for an XRI Authority that begins with a Global I-Number and includes at least one Delegated I-Number after it. A Community I-Number may or may not be followed by a Local Path. See the InameInumberTechFaq.
Community Policy: A policy that inherits and extends a Global Policy. Community Policies can be established by XDI.ORG Agents to add more specific terms and conditions than are specified in a Global Policy. Community Policies only apply to the members of a Community who have agreed to be bound by them.
Conformance Attestation: As specified in the Technical Specifications, a collection of assertions in machine-readable XDI format (and including or linked to an equivalent human-readable format) by a licensee of conformance to the Technical Specifications, including identification of the version(s) of the Technical Specifications implemented, the features implemented, the interoperability testing performed, or other such assertions as may be determined from time to time by XDI.ORG to be in the best interests of the XDI.ORG Community to ensure the interoperability and integrity of XDI infrastructure.
Contact Object: A data structure defined by the EPP (Extensible Provisioning Protocol) specifications for describing Registrant contact data. Contact Object data is used in Public Trustee Service. See GssPolicies/PublicTrustee Policies and GssTechSpecs.
Contact Page: An XRI-addressable web page that provides Contact Service by filling out an HTML form.
Contact Service: A service offered to Registrants by I-Brokers that allows the Registrant to receive contact requests that have been authenticated by the I-Broker.
Cross-Reference: As defined in the XRI Specifications, "An identifier assigned in one context that is reused in another context." Specifically an XRI cross-reference is an XRI or a URI used in the context of another XRI by enclosing it syntactically in parentheses. Cross-references enable the identification of the same abstract resource across two or more domains or applications. See the InameInumberTechFaq.
Data Protection Policies: The set of Global Policies and Community Policies required by the GSS for protecting Registrant, Registrar, and GRS data. Data Protection Policies include Security Policies, Privacy Policies, and Accountability Policies. See GssPolicies/DataProtectionPolicies.
Delegated I-Name: An I-Name assigned after a Global I-Name by an Authority other than XDI.ORG.
Delegated I-Number: An I-Number assigned after a Global I-Number by an Authority other than XDI.ORG.
Delegated Authority: The Authority accepting Delegation from a Delegating Authority.
Delegating Authority: The Authority providing Delegation to a Delegated Authority.
Delegation: The process of one Authority assigning control of an XRI namespace to another Authority by delegating an I-Name or I-Number that resolves to the target Authority. Delegation permits the construction of federated identifiers (identifiers that cross multiple Authorities).
Designated Global Services: Global I-Name Services, Global I-Number Services, Directory Services, Reputation Services, Public Authority Services, and Public Trustee Services as defined herein.
Directory Services: The Global Service of cross-referencing XRIs and XDI Resources in order to facilitate discovery, identification, and location of an XDI Resource by its associated XDI Resources. There are three Global Directory Services: Personal Directory Service, Organizational Directory Service, and General Directory Service.
Extended I-Name: An I-Name that includes a colon to distinguish the first portion (intended to reflect a real-world identifier) from the second portion (intended to establish global uniqueness.) Following are examples of Extended I-Names that extend the base I-Name "=Mary.Smith".

=Mary.Smith:Montana
=Mary.Smith:England
=Mary.Smith:Ireland
=Mary.Smith:Rose
=Mary.Smith:Rose.Petal
=Mary.Smith:Iris
=Mary.Smith:2000
=Mary.Smith:2001

External Synonym: A Synonym assigned by a different XRI Authority than the XRI with which it is synonymous. See the XRI Resolution V2.0 specification.
GCS: See Global Context Symbol.
General Dictionary: The collection of XDI Resources established and maintained by XDI.ORG or its delegate(s) acting as a General Authority to provide generic identifiers, definitions, taxonomies, and ontologies to facilitate global data sharing by members of the XDI.ORG Community.
General Authority: The XDI Resource representing the general public, i.e., the Authority responsible for generic concepts, subjects, or topics whose identity is established by linguistic, cultural, or scientific convention.
General Service: A Global Service offered by XDI.ORG acting as General Authority identified using the Global Context Symbol “+”.
Global Context Symbol (GCS): As defined in the XRI Specifications, the XRI syntax characters specified to represent the abstract global context of a Authority, specifically “=” for Personal Authorities, “@” for Organizational Authorities, "!" for Network Authorities, “+” for General Authorities, and “$” for standards bodies. See the InameInumberTechFaq.
Global Cross-Reference: A Cross-Reference registered directly in a Global Registry Service as a Global I-Name or Global I-Number. See the InameInumberTechFaq.
Global I-Name: An I-Name registered in a Global Registry and thus immediately preceeded by a Global Context Symbol. For example, "=example" and "@example" are Global I-Names. See the InameInumberTechFaq.
Global I-Name Services: The Global Services required to register, reassign, and resolve Global I-Names in a Global Registry. There are three Global I-Name Services: Personal I-Name Service, Organizational I-Name Service, and General I-Name Service.
Global I-Number: An I-Number registered in a Global Registry and thus immediately preceeded by a Global Context Symbol plus a "!" character. "!!1000", "=!(!1234!5678A1B2!9876)", and "@!(!1234!5678A1B2!9876)" are examples of Global I-Numbers. See the InameInumberTechFaq.
Global I-Number Services: The Global Service of registering, resolving, and retiring Global I-Numbers. There are four Global I-Number Services: Personal I-Number Service, Organizational I-Number Service, General I-Number Service, and Network I-Number Service.
Global Policy: A policy established and published by XDI.ORG, such as in the GssPolicies section of the Global Services Specifications (GSS). Global Policies are intended to apply to XDI.ORG agents and in certain cases to Registrants. In the latter case they are designed to be incorporated into Registration Agreements so they can be inherited and extended by the Community Policies established and published by XDI.ORG Agents and Registrants. See also Data Protection Policies.
Global Registry: A Registry offering one of the Global Registry Services.
Global Registry Services (GRS): The set of Global Services for registration and resolution of global XRIs using the XRI Global Context Symbols (GCS), including Global I-Name Services and Global I-Number Services.
Global Registry Service Provider (GRSP): A Global Service Provider (GSP) that provides Global Registry Services.
Global Service Provider (GSP): An entity authorized under contract with XDI.ORG to provide Global Services.
Global Service Specifications (GSS): These specifications published by XDI.ORG governing the operation of each Global Service, including the specifications for Conformance Attestations and other mechanisms for ensuring interoperability, to be initially provided to XDI.ORG, in each case, by the primary GSP for the applicable Global Service prior to the commencement of such Global Service, and to be maintained by XDI.ORG as a service to the XDI.ORG Community.
Global Services: The set of XRI registration/resolution operations or XDI interactions that shall be publicly offered by XDI.ORG to facilitate interoperability of XDI infrastructure, including but not limited to the Designated Global Services.
GRS: See Global Registry Services.
GRSP: See Global Registry Service Provider.
GSP: See Global Service Provider.
GSS: See Global Services Specifications.
I-Broker: A provider of XRI registration/resolution and XDI trusted data sharing services. Some i-brokers serve as XDI.ORG-Accredited Registrars.
I-Name: A reassignable XRI as defined by the XRI Specifications.
I-Number: A persistent XRI as defined by the XRI Specifications.
Identifier Authority: See Authority.
Independent I-Number: See Network I-Number.
Internal Synonym: A Synonym assigned by the same XRI Authority as the XRI with which it is synonymous. See the XRI Resolution V2.0 specification.
IRI: Internationalized Resource Identifier, the standard for multi-linqual Web identifiers that use the Unicode Character Set (UCS) as specified by RFC 3987. See the W3C IRI web page.
LAU: See Local Access URI.
Local Access URI (LAU): A concrete URI at which an XRI authority accepts requests for access to a local resource via one or more local access protocols (e.g., HTTP or HTTPS). One of the values returned in an XRI Descriptor during XRI resolution. See the ResolutionTechFaq. See also XRI Authority URI (XAU).
Local I-Name: An I-Name in the Local Path.
Local I-Number: An I-Number in the Local Path.
Local Path: One or more XRI segments that follow the Authority segment in an XRI, i.e., that follow the first single slash character. See the InameInumberTechFaq.
Network Authority: An Authority that represents a routable network endpoint with one or more concrete XRI Authority URIs (XAUs) or Local Access URIs (LAUs) at which XRI resolution and XDI interaction services are available. Network Authorities correspond to the GCS character "!". See the InameInumberTechFaq.
Network I-Number: A Global I-Number or Community I-Number assigned under the Global Context Symbol "!".
Network I-Number Service: An I-Number Service for Network Authorities identified using the Global Context Symbol "!".
OASIS: The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, a non-profit standards body for open XML e-business standards. OASIS hosts the XRI and XDI Technical Committees. See http://www.oasis-open.org.
Open Source or Free Software License: A license certified by the Open Source Initiative or the Free Software Foundation or any equivalent license that does not restrict the open public review, modification, distribution, and evolution of the source code of a product or service.
Open Standard: As defined on September 13, 2004 at http://www.perens.com/OpenStandards/Definition.html, a specification whose licensing ensures that it is publicly available to implement, that it maximizes end-user choice of vendors and implementations, that it does not require a royalty or fee to implement with the potential exception of compliance certification, that it does not discriminate against vendors or implementations, and that it permits extensions or subsets that are consistent with the standard yet may preclude predatory "embrace and enhance" practices.
Operational Test and Evaluation (OT&E): The set of technical and procedural tests administered by a GRSP that a Registrar must pass before they can be fully accredited. See GssPolicies/RegistryPolicies.
Organizational Authority: An Authority representing any legal entity or Resource other than a Personal Authority, General Authority, or Network Authority.
Organizational Service: A Global Service for Organizational Authorities identified using the Global Context Symbol “@”.
OT&E: See Operational Test and Evaluation.
Personal Authority: An Authority representing a natural-born person.
Personal Service: A Global Service for Personal Authorities identified using the Global Context Symbol “=”.
Primary GSP: A contractor to XDI.ORG that has overall responsibility for the provisioning, management, and operation of a Global Service according to these Global Services Specifications (GSS). In the case of Global Registry Services (GRS), the Primary GSP (called a GRSP) maintains the master Registry and makes it available to each Secondary GSP to mirror as specified by the GSS. See GSP and GRSP.
Proxy Resolver Service: An HTTP service which accepts XRI resolution requests in the form of HTTP URIs and returns HTTP redirects to Local Access URIs. See the ResolutionTechFaq.
Public Authority Service: The Global Service of providing resolution of globally-registered XRIs via one or more public network endpoints. There are three Global Public Authority Services: Standard Public Authority Service, which provides generic XRI resolution; Trusted Public Authority Service, which provides digitally-signed resolution service conformant to the XRI Specifications (not specified in the V1 GSS); and Public Proxy Resolver Service, which provides Proxy Resolver Service for XRIs in the XDI.ORG Community. See the ResolutionTechFaq.
Public Proxy Resolver Service: A Proxy Resolver Service offered by the Public Authority Service. See the ResolutionTechFaq.
Public Trustee Service: The Trustee Service offered by XDI.ORG to Registrants to provide an alternative means of authentication in case they lose access to their Shared Secret. See the DataProtectionTechFaq.
Registrant: An Authority (individual or organization) that enrolls with a Registrar to obtain Global Services.
Registrar: An I-Broker accredited by an XDI.ORG-authorized Global Registry Service Provider (GRSP) to provide GRS registration services to Registrants. See GssPolicies/RegistrarPolicies.
Registrar Agreement: The legal document that must be executed between an I-Broker and a GRSP in order for the I-Broker to become an XDI.ORG-Accredited Registrar. See GssAgreements.
Registration Agreement: The legal document that must be executed between a Registrant and a Registrar in order for the Registrant to obtain a Global Registry Service. See GssAgreements.
Registry: The XDI Resource maintained by a Global Registry Service Provider (GRSP) to provide Global Registry Services (GRS).
Reputation Services: The Global Service of aggregating feedback on XDI Resources by other XDI Resources to enable discovery, identification, location, and evaluation of a Resource by its reputation. There are three Global Reputation Services: Personal Reputation Service, Organizational Reputation Service, and General Reputation Service.
Resource: As defined in the XRI Specifications, "anything that can be named or described."
Secondary GSP: A contractor to XDI.ORG responsible for providing a secondary instance of a Global Service in addition to that provided by the Primary GSP. In the case of Global Registry Services (GRS), the Secondary GSP shall mirror the master Registry maintained by the Primary GSP. See GSP and Primary GSP.
Shared Secret: See Authentication Credential.
Synonym: An XRI that is not character-for-character equivalent to another XRI but which resolves to the same XDI resource. In the GRS, every Global I-Name has at least one Global I-Number and one Network I-Number as a synonym. See the InameInumberTechFaq. See also Internal Synonym and External Synonym.
Technical Specifications: The specifications defining and governing the technical interoperability and integrity of XDI infrastructure, including the XRI Specifications, the XDI Specifications, Conformance Attestation specifications, and any other specifications designated from time to time by XDI.ORG. See GssTechSpecs.
Trustee: An Authority assigned by another Authority to act on the assigning Authority's behalf, particularly with regard to a GRS registration. See Public Trustee Service and the DataProtectionTechFaq.
Trustee Service: The service of acting as a Trustee, particularly with regard to safeguarding a Shared Secret and providing an alternative means of authenticating an Registrant. See the DataProtectionTechFaq.
URI: Uniform Resource Identifier, the standard for Web identifiers as specified by RFC 3986, which obsoletes the former RFC 2396.
Wait List: A future GRS feature under which Registrars may offer Registrants the ability to register on a waiting list for a Global I-Name that has already been registered. If the registration of that i-name expires or is terminated, the first Registrant on the waiting list is notified and will have a predetermined time period in which to register the i-name. Wait list service is not offered under the V1 GSS. See GssPolicies/RegistrarPolicies.
XAU: See XRI Authority URI.
XDI: XRI Data Interchange as defined by the XDI Specifications.
XDI.ORG: The public trust organization created to steward intellectual property rights and other contributions to public XRI and XDI infrastructure and to provide community governance of open, publicly-available Global Services for XRI registration/resolution and XDI interaction. See http://www.xdi.org.
XDI.ORG-Accredited Registrar: A Registrar that has been accredited by a Global Registry Services Provider (GRSP) to provide GRS registration services. See GssPolicies/RegistrarPolicies.
XDI.ORG Agent: A Global Service Provider (GSP) or XDI.ORG-Accredited Registrar who is acting under the authorization of XDI.ORG.
XDI.ORG Community: The community of resources addressable using XRIs that ultimately resolve from the XDI.ORG Global Registry Services (GRS).
XDI Resource: A Resource identified with at least one XRI and that supports interactions via XDI.
XDI Specifications: The Open Standard specifications for a generalized, extensible service for identifying, addressing, sharing, linking, and synchronizing XDI Resources as designated from time to time by XDI.ORG; currently the specifications published by the OASIS XDI Technical Committee.
XRI: An Extensible Resource Identifier as defined by the XRI Specifications. XRIs include any type of an I-Name or I-Number, or any combination of these types. See the InameInumberTechFaq.
XRID: See XRI Descriptor.
XRI Authority: The Authority identified by the authority segment of an XRI. An XRI Authority may be identified by a Global I-Name, a Community I-Name, a Global I-Number, a Community I-Number, or a Cross-Reference. See the InameInumberTechFaq.
XRI Authority URI (XAU): A concrete URI at which an XRI authority accepts XRI resolution requests. One of the values returned in an XRI Descriptor during XRI resolution. See the ResolutionTechFaq.
XRI Descriptor: An XML document containing XRI resolution data and metadata as defined by the XRI Specifications. See the ResolutionTechFaq.
XRI Redirect: As defined in the XRI Specifications, an XRI Descriptor that contains an External Synonym but does not contain XAUs or LAUs for an XRI, so it effectively redirects the XRI resolution client to another XRI Authority.
XRI Specifications: The Open Standard specifications for abstract identifiers used by XDI technology as designated from time to time by XDI.ORG; currently the specifications published by the OASIS XRI Technical Committee. The GSS incorporates by reference all glossary definitions from the XRI Specifications. See GssTechSpecs and the InameInumberTechFaq.