[tahoe-dev] [tahoe-lafs] #217: DSA-based mutable files -- small URLs, fast file creation

[tahoe-lafs]

#217: DSA-based mutable files -- small URLs, fast file creation
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 Reporter:  zooko           |           Owner:  zooko     
     Type:  enhancement     |          Status:  assigned  
 Priority:  major           |       Milestone:  eventually
Component:  code-mutable    |         Version:  0.7.0     
 Keywords:  mutable crypto  |   Launchpad_bug:            
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Comment(by zooko):

 > I haven't heard "diminishing" from anybody else, whereas I hear
 "attenuation" all the time.

 That makes sense.  I think there's a good reason for that, which is that
 the folks you are talking to (the modern obj-cap crowd) are working with
 the more general, programmable, dynamic kind of authority-reduction, since
 they are working at the programming language level.  I would be interested
 to see if the people who also have a foot in the operating system level
 use this or that terminology.  I'm not married to it, so maybe we could
 bring it up at the next friam that includes MarkM (terminology clarifier
 extraordinaire).  Currently I think it is useful to have two words -- I
 refer to "diminishing" a write cap to produce a read cap, and I also refer
 to "attenuation" of a storage authority in the accounting scheme (where
 there is more variety of what sorts of limitations can be combined with
 one another).  If that distinction isn't sensible or useful then I don't
 mind switching to "attenuation" from now on and letting that detail of
 lafs.pdf terminology become obsolete.

 I guess basically I think of diminishing a cap as one particular ''way''
 of implementing attenuation of authority.  It is a specific way that I am
 particularly interested in, and I hope to attract the interest of
 cryptographers who will write papers about "efficient off-line diminishing
 of capabilities using pairing-based cryptography in hyperelliptic curves
 of 2-rank one", or whatever brain-busting gobbledygook those
 cryptographers are always coming up with. :-)

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/ticket/217#comment:52>
tahoe-lafs <http://allmydata.org>
secure decentralized file storage grid