RE: Requirements Document

At 9:09 AM -0400 8/21/01, Brian Rosen wrote:
>There certainly is scope for dealing with agents that are across the wire
>from the sender (I send location to a server that authenticates and
>provides my location to others on my behalf).

There are senders and receivers. What you are talking about is a
receiver who may become a sender, and calling this receiver-sender an
"agent". I'm just clarifying terminology.

> I want the object to be able to be used in such a circumstance.
>The issues of how the delegation is done, and how the authentication
>between the ultimate receiver and my agent is, I think, also beyond
>any strict requirement.

I disagree. The delegation rights for the information must be
encoded in the location message.

> My agent could receive my delegation by out-of-band means. It
>could authenticate by out-of-band means.

I suppose it could. But why is that desirable? Even if it is, we
still need a way to change the delegation privileges in-band. We
don't want to force people to go out-of-band to change the delegation
privileges. That would be inconvenient in many circumstances.

> The requirements document can say that the user must delegate and
>define the scope, lifetime and privileges of such delegation, but it
>can't specify what limits to such delegation there might be, nor the
>mechanism that it might use.

It can be a requirement that there must be a mechanism for
delegation, and that mechanism transmits the scope, lifetime and
privileges of the delegation.

-- 
john noerenberg
jwn2@qualcomm.com
   --------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Peace of mind isn't at all superficial, really.  It's the whole thing.
   That which produces it is good maintenance; that which disturbs it
   is poor maintenance.
   -- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig, 1974
   --------------------------------------------------------------------------