Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Identity for Data - MyDataClaims

I've been tinkering with a new concept (at least it's new for me). It's a way to prove that you were in possession of particular data at a particular time. I hope people will find this useful to protect copyright on their creative works, or a way to protect ideas before revealing them to others, or a way to keep rights to your own ideas that you had prior to beginning work for a new employer that makes you sign away your rights to ideas conceived while employed there, etc.

Anything you can represent digitally (even a sketch on a napkin can be digitally photographed) can be given an identifier, and be tagged with descriptive attributes. And a set of attributes including at least one identifier constitutes an identity (in this case identity for data). I call this identity a DataClaim.

A DataClaim is a signed SAML assertion about some data, with an identifier based on a hash of the data, and including attribute assertions about the individual in possession of the data, a timestamp, and some other info. It will be interesting to get some feedback on this concept. Please take a peek at the following URL:


It's not quite in production yet, but the functionality is pretty much in place. After my upcoming vacation I plan to generate a new keys and certificates for signing the SAML assertions, and then I'll declare an official launch of MyDataClaims.

Let me know what you think.