Presence and IntComm WG

[Peter Saint-Andre <>]

Dennis Baron wrote:
> > It's important to put some thought into "smart federation". Different 
> > organizations deploy these technologies in different ways. We have a 
> > very open federation model on the open XMPP network, but we have also 
> > recently deployed an intermediate certification authority that issues 
> > free digitial certificates to server admins, which you folks are welcome 
> > to use (perhaps accept connections only from other entities that have 
> > certificates). Another model would be for Internet2 to run its own CA. 
> > Another model might be used in say the financial industry, where 
> > business level agreements would be hammered out in advance between 
> > companies that want to interoperate. But it seems to me that the old 
> > "we'll connect with anyone" model of email is simply unacceptable these 
> > days, and that organizations want to federate in a more intelligent 
> > fashion this time around (i.e., for real-time communication).
>
> I think it would be great for the group to discuss this and recommend
> a model (if you'd be willing to join that would be great!).  I'm not
> sure another CA is needed.  (Which reminds me - I need to check w/JIS
> to see why jis.mit.edu has a certificate but mit.edu doesn't :-) !)
>
> I'm not sure we should abandon the "we'll connect with anyone" model
> altogether.  But I think organizations should authenticate any
> communications that comes from them.  

What do you mean by "authenticate" in this context?

> And users should be able to
> decide who can communicate with them, how, and when.  

Sure. We mostly already do that via the buddy list. A more formal 
approach is here:

http://www.xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0155.html

> But that's just
> my model - I'm interested in others' thoughts.  For cases like the
> financial industry there may be a need for company control over who
> can "talk" to whom - but I hope that universities will not find that
> necessary.

Agreed.

Peter

--
Peter Saint-Andre
XMPP Standards Foundation
http://www.xmpp.org/xsf/people/stpeter.shtml

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