[cap-talk] Capabilities giving up control?

[Mark Miller]

On Jan 18, 2008 8:51 AM, David Hopwood
<david.hopwood at industrial-designers.co.uk> wrote:
> Jed Donnelley wrote:
> [...]
> > I really think the sense in which we have been using
> > "authority" on this list (sorry MarkM) is an entirely
> > different concept.  Namely the closure of what sort
> > of access can be obtained by using all available
> > permissions.  Sadly, I don't think this fits very
> > well with the human social notion of "authorize",
> > e.g. (from:
> > http://www.thefreedictionary.com/authorize ):
>
> Please let's not redefine terms in mid-argument. MarkM's choice
> of "authority" to mean the transitive closure of available
> permissions will do fine for the time being; it's concise, useful,
> and no less well-chosen than many other technical terms.


I use "authority" to mean the effects one can cause. If Alice has
permission to write to file C and Alice gives Bob an object that
enables Bob only to cause even numbers to be written to C, then Bob
has the authority to cause even numbers to be written to C. How would
you describe this authority in term of a transitive closure of
available permissions?


-- 
Text by me above is hereby placed in the public domain

    Cheers,
    --MarkM