[cap-talk] On revocation and the use of wrappers and In Defense of Identities

[Jed Donnelley]

At 04:09 AM 12/9/2006, Valerio Bellizzomi wrote:
>On 07/12/2006, at 17.35, Marcus Brinkmann wrote:
>...
> >> Brinkmann and Walfield's "Critique of the Hurd" complains that EROS
> >> imposes such a limit (He states it incorrectly at 4.  The actual number
> >> is 20)
>
>I'm not sure that unlimited delegation makes sense in any case. When you
>have delegated 10 or 20 times it is largely sufficient for any real job.
>Already at 15 delegations you have somewhere 15 modules in your delegation
>chain, your application is very complex. What application would do that
>much delegation?

Minor point.  Tracked delegations can be unwrapped (under control of
the server and it's policies of course) at any point.  For example if
A -> B -> C and C exercises a granted permission to fetch or otherwise
exercise her given permission to get a new permission with no delegation
path, no problem.  Naturally this can't happen all the way back to a
root if we're tracking with responsibility and revocation, but it can
happen in many cases.  E.g. if I delegate control of a DNS name from
me to you, after that point I no longer have control and the delegation
path can be collapsed.

--Jed  http://www.webstart.com/jed-signature.html