[cap-talk] sending anyone in the world a capability

[John Carlson]

On Oct 17, 2007, at 7:31 PM, ihab.awad at gmail.com wrote:

> On 10/17/07, John Carlson <john.carlson3 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>> Should we provide an interface such that anyone in the world can be
>> sent a capability, and that capability has just enough  
>> description ...
>
> May I restate this -- you want a capability, such as a YURL, to
> provide a "MIME type" or "interface type"? Like, is this of type
> EmailMessage, Employee or ReadOnlyAddressBook?

Basically, all I need to know is whether a capability that I receive
from you allows me to send messages to you, or if it is something else.
I am trying to bootstrap communication between parties.  I am trying
to get around the Y in YURL by providing a safe way for people to
introduce themselves.  Perhaps there are already plenty of ways
for people to introduce themselves, and I should forget it.  If we
can agree on an interface type that is "SendMessageTo:<fill-in-the- 
blank>"
I can build on that.

> I suspect your concern here is with security. In other words, how do I
> know that the interface of a YURL I'm given is "EmailMessage" rather
> than "InboxDataStealer"? ;) I think the answer here is that it's not
> possible to know: I choose to rely on an *object* or I don't, period,
> and the interface it claims to have is not part of the equation.

Perhaps a capability should have where it came from, which YURLs
already have.