[cap-talk] "ambient authority" on wiki.erights.org

[Rob Meijer]

On Mon, June 15, 2009 05:53, Rob Meijer wrote:
> On Mon, June 15, 2009 01:22, David-Sarah Hopwood wrote:
>> Rob Meijer wrote:
>>> On Sun, June 14, 2009 15:46, David-Sarah Hopwood wrote:
>>>> That is why I/we think the Wikipedia article is correct in describing
>>>> "ambient authority" primarily as a way of exercising permission (and
>>>> therefore authority) rather than primarily as a category of systems.
>>>
>>> At this step you lost me. To me neither "a way of exercising
>>> permissions"
>>> nor "a category of systems" could fit a definition of "xxxxxx
>>> authority".
>>
>> Well, perhaps the term should have been "ambient permission".
>>
>> I am skeptical of the value of trying to change it now, though.
>>
>>> I feel a definition of "ambient authority" should be described as a
>>> "subset" of the authority of an actor.
>>
>> You might feel that, but that does not seem to be the concept that
>> Mark Miller and Dean Tribble coined the term "ambient authority" to
>> describe.
>
> Possible, but I would doubt anyone, especially including these two should
> be happy if ambient authority did end up to mean something that increased
> the ongoing confusion about permissions versus authority.
>
> Lets for a moment introduce the term 'ambient permissions' in order to get
> to the core issue.
>
> I would think, given your above statements, that you would feel the
> following might be a fair definition of "ambient authority":
>
> 1) "The subset of the authority of an actor that it derives from its
> ability to use ambient permissions in a non designating way."
>
> Where I would feel the following might be a more useful definition (thus
> including static permissions):
>
> 2) "The subset of the authority of an actor that it derives from its
> ability to use ambient permissions. (either in a designating or non
> designating way)."

Oops, I forgot about the transient nature of authority for a bit, so there
are actually four possibilities for what ambient authority would include:

1) "The subset of the authority of an actor that it derives from its
    ability to use ambient permissions, directly, in a non designating
    way."
2) "The subset of the authority of an actor that it derives from its
   ability to use ambient permissions (either in a designating or non
   designating way) directly"
3) "The subset of the authority of an actor that it derives from its
    ability to use ambient permissions (directly or indirectly), in a non
    designating way."
4) "The subset of the authority of an actor that it derives from its
   ability to use ambient permissions (either in a designating or non
   designating way, either directly or indirectly)."

I would say 4 would be the one I would opt for as it is the most
linguistically intuitive one. It appears both Allan and David feel it
should either be 1 or 3 if I understand them correctly.

I am really interested to learn which one  Mark or Dean would pick.

If it is 1 or 3, than how do we classify authority from static
permissions? If it is 1 or 2, than how do we classify authority that comes
from ambient access to proxies?

Rob.