Subject: [domainrep] Review of: draft-ietf-repute-media-type-07

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 May 2013 19:45:10 -0700

{ This review is provided as part of document shepherding. /d }

Review of:    A Media Type for Reputation Interchange
I-D:          draft-ietf-repute-media-type-07
Reviewed by:  D. Crocker
Review Date:  19 May 2013

Summary:

This document is part of a set that defines a mechanism for requesting 
and retrieving assessment-related information (reputation) concerning an 
object. The document defines the response side, in terms of content 
semantics and form, and MIME-based encoding.

The specification is usable in its current form.

Detailed Comments:

Only one, and it's probably ok to ignore it...

> 3.1.  Reputon Attributes
...
>    rater-authenticity:  The level of confidence that the rated identity
>       is genuine, expressed as a floating-point number between 0.0 and
>       1.0 inclusive.  "Genuine" here means the identity being rated is
>       legitimately associated with the real-world entity it represents.
>       For example, a rater might claim a value of 1.0 here if it is
>       certain the rated identity "example.com" is associated with The
>       Example Widget Co, Inc., because it is used in a context where
>       both authentication and authorization on the use of that domain
>       name are assured; the binding between the rated identity and the
>       real-world identity is well established.

Hmmm.  Arguably, example.com is merely an identifier, as is "Example 
Widget Co, Inc", and both are tied to the company the latter refers to. 
  I'm not sure how sensitive this mechanism is to the kind of linguistic 
precision this point implies.

Separately, it occurs to me that the response doesn't otherwise cite 
Example Widget Co, Inc.  If rater-authenticity is provided and its 
meaning concerns association with some real-world entity, would it help 
to specify that entity, similar to the form of what's done in the 
explanatory text here?  It's possible the answer is no, as in "the 
reader doesn't need to know the details about the real-world entity, but 
I, the rater, am confident this identifier is linked to them." My guess 
is that it's ok to leave this as it is now, and add in more if 
experience dictates it.

d/
-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net