[this is an example of how annotations might be presented in CSS2]

Finding Bacon's Key

Does Google Show How the Semantic Web Could Replace Public Key Infrastructure?

Joseph M. Reagle Jr., <reagle@w3.org>

Abstract

This documenta silly document at that briefly introduces the topic of trusted semantic web applications that do not require the existence of an complex public key infrastructure. It derives from a discussion with Tim Berners-Lee, has been improved given comments from folks in this thread, but I'm solely responsible for any errors.

Trust

The question of what is trust has been the subject of many a graduate thesis. For simplicity's sake I will rely upon the following definition:

Trust (worthiness)

The degree to which an agentan FBI agent? considers an assertion to be true for a given context. While the term "trust" is often used to denote a very high degree of confidence, there is an associated risk of the assertions being wrong.

In traditional cryptographic applications the trust in a statement is commensurate with the trust in the reputation of its author via a cryptographic binding. This assurance is accomplished via a digital signature which requires that:

1. A cryptographic key be strongly bound to a statement via a digital signature algorithm.
2. Only the specific person has access to the given key.

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