Labelling & Classification using emerging protocols

Transcription

1 Labelling & Classification using emerging protocols "wheels you don't have to reinvent & bandwagons you can jump on" Stephen McGibbon Lotus Development

2 Assumptions The business rationale and benefits of classification and labelling are understood and accepted There is a desire to build a prototype quickly Interoperability is the wicked issue

3 Labelling and Classification are about Metadata (data about data) Generally accepted that we are data rich but information poor. Increasing acceptance that as we become information richer we aren't necessarily doing anything about increasing knowledge One of the reasons for both of these is that we are metadata poor Massive effort to address this (as we shall see)

4 Basic Proposition Information Security Labeling and Classification InfoSec Metadata They're one and the same thing => there are a whole load of metadata bandwagons you can jump on

5 Consumer bandwagons are the best! Consumer issues Parents don't want their kids corrupted by the net Adults don't want their privacy compromised by e-commerce Corporate issues Corporates want to control who sees what information and when Corporates want to retain confidentiality The biggest difference is the nomenclature

6 Metadata about what? metadata is machine understandable information about anything accessible/retrievable via a URI this includes databases Metadata may describe information source rather than just output (i.e. SQL script rather than just the report file) or elements inside the database or attributes of elements in the database Much effort to define tag sets to allow for standard classification etc.

7 MetaData Interoperability requires conventions about semantics - the meaning of elements structure - human readable structure - machine readable syntax - grammar to convey syntax and structure resource description communities eg DC HTML and RDF (XML)

8 Dublin Core Tag Set Dublin Core is a set of fifteen elements identified by international, interdisciplinary consensus as being 'core' to the process of describing diverse objects in such a way that they may be effectively discovered and evaluated. The Dublin Core is not a replacement for existing detailed metadata structures such as the library world's MARC or the geospatial community's Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata, but can rather be seen as a means of describing the essence - or 'core' - of both library books and maps- and many other types of digital and non-digital resource.

9 XML extensible Markup Language a metalanguage that lets you design your own markup language XML is an abbreviated version of SGML - think of XML as being SGML-- rather than HTML++. The v1.0 specification was accepted by the W3C as Recommendation on Feb 10, Strong industry backing document interoperability - SmartSuite/eSuite/Office

10 How does XML handle metadata? XML lets you define your own markup language There are no predefined elements in XML, because it is an architecture, not an application, so it is not part of XML s job to specify how or if authors should or should not implement metadata. However you can make full use of the extended hypertext features of XML to store or link to metadata in any format (e.g. Dublin Core, Warwick Framework, Resource Description Framework (RDF), and Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS)). HTML/RDF/XML rapidly emerging as the dream ticket

11 RDF - resource description framework a framework for metadata RDF will allow different application communities to define the metadata property set that best serves the needs of each community. RDF metadata can be used in a variety of application areas such as: in resource discovery to provide better search engine capabilities; in cataloging for describing the content and content relationships available at a particular Web site, page, or digital library; by intelligent software agents to facilitate knowledge sharing and exchange; in content rating for child protection and privacy protection; in describing collections of pages that represent a single logical "document"; for describing intellectual property rights of Web pages.

12 RDF - resource description framework a framework for metadata (continued) RDF will use XML as the transfer syntax in order to leverage other tools and code bases being built around XML. With digital signatures, RDF will be key to building the "Web of Trust" for electronic commerce, collaboration, and other applications. (source w3c)

13 RDF will provide (source w3c) interoperability of metadata machine understandable semantics for metadata a uniform query capability for resource discovery better precision in resource discovery than full text search a processing rules language for automated decision-making about Web resources language for retrieving metadata from third parties future-proofing applications as schemas evolve

14 RDF Built on the following rules A Resource - anything that can have a URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) A PropertyType - a resource that has a name and can be used as a property eg Author or Title A Property is the combination of a resource, a property type and a value <RDF:Description href=' <Author>Tim Bray</Author> <Home-Page RDF:href=' </RDF:Description>

15 RDF 101 characteristics Independence PropertyType is a resource therefore any independent organisation/person can invent them. Interchange Scalability RDF properties can be converted into XML RDF properties are simply 3 part records

16 RDF 101 characteristics (continued) Property Types are Resources PropertyTypes can have their own Properties and can be found and manipulated like any other resource Values can be resources e.g. Home-Page Properties can be resources So they can have properties too Avoids meta-meta-data, allows us to ask who said the home-page is whatever etc and when

17 Vocabularies RDF provides a model for metadata, and a syntax so that independent parties can exchange and use it. What it doesn't provide is any PropertyTypes of its own. Vocabularies are packages of property types eg. The CDF Submission predates RDF and therefore encodes its vocabulary directly in XML. CDF is the sort of application that is suited to RDF; RDF provides a unifying framework to which a future revision of CDF could evolve. TOG could/should work to define vocabulary(ies)

18 RDF Schemas used to declare vocabularies defined by a particular community define the valid properties in a given RDF description, as well as any characteristics or restrictions of the property-type values themselves are identified by the XML namespace mechanism exact details currently being discussed in W3C RDF Schema working group TOG could/should define the InfoSec Schema(s)

19 Convergence is starting Dublin Core and Web Metadata Standards Converge in Helsinki DUBLIN, Ohio, Nov. 7, The National Library of Finland and OCLC cosponsored the fifth metadata workshop Oct. 6-8 in Helsinki, Finland, with support from the National Science Foundation and the Coalition for Networked Information. Seventy-five experts from libraries, the networking research community, the digital library research community and content providers continued work begun in 1995 to reach consensus on conventions for describing resources on the Internet.

20 PICS Platform for Internet Content Selection Began W3C efforts in metadata in 1995 Basically a mechanism for communicating ratings of web pages from servers to clients. Labels contain information about contents of page PICS-NG (next generation) to address more general problem of associating descriptive information with internet resources based on PICS architecture... became RDF working group

21 Platform for Privacy Preferences - P3P The goal of P3P is to enable Web sites to express their privacy practices and enable users to exercise preferences over those practices. P3P products will allow users to be informed of site practices (in both machine and human readable formats), to delegate decisions to their computer when appropriate, and allow users to tailor their relationship to specific sites. Sites with practices that fall within the range of a user's preference could, at the option of the user, be accessed "seamlessly."

22 P3P (continued) Otherwise users will be notified of a site's practices and have the opportunity to agree to those terms or other terms and continue browsing if they wish. A result of such an "agreement" is that data from the user may be transferred to the site with the consent of the user.

23 P3P RDF/XML are the meta-data and encoding specifications that will be used for exchanging information in P3P. The W3C PICS effort allowed one to make simple statements about Web resources. RDF will provide a more generalized and sophisticated framework for discussing privacy practices and preferences.

24 Summary We are really just talking about "Security Metadata" RDF/XML provides the means Need a Vocabulary of InfoSec PropertyTypes will allow Policies that can use this metadata will allow applications that apply/respect these policies will allow OS that enforce these policies

25 Business Drivers needs to be more than just confidentiality and access control Knowledge Management eg usage, searching, clustering Document Management eg validity, copyright, dependencies etc

26 Business Drivers needs to be more than just confidentiality and access control Knowledge Management eg usage, searching, clustering Document Management eg validity, copyright, dependencies etc

27 Q&A XML FAQ W3C Metadata activity W3C RDF Homepage Introduction to RDF Metadata IBM's RDF for XML provides a Java implementation of RDF purl.org/metadata/dublin_core The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set Home Page