[Opensim-dev] The essence of "grid"

[Melanie]

I believe that, for technical purposes, a "grid" should indeed be 
seen as a trust domain. That was what the protocol was designed for 
and bending it to anything else would be very painful and not 
entirely successful, feature-wise. The Linden-designed protocol 
elements are best suited to that situation, and the HG ones are best 
suited to untrusted connections.
OSGrid really does straddle the fence in many respects, but I think 
it will change over time and become HG connected rather than 
grid-structured. The server-centric region handoff system doesn't 
allow for any level of content protection and being forced to share 
asset and inventory servers is no longer needed in the new 
architecture that Diva and I hashed out last night.
We would, indeed, arrive at a secure Hypergrid, and a true 3d 
internet, much sooner if we made that distinction and considered a 
"grid" as we know it today a trust domain.

 From that follows:
Region = Webpage
Grid = Website
Hypergrid = Internet

The operator of a complex, multipage website needs trust between 
it's pages, and so the operator of a complex HG site with many 
regions needs trust between them.

Melanie


Diva Canto wrote:
> As I zoom in on issues of trust and security, I'm getting to the point 
> where I need a sharp definition of "grid". What is a grid, besides being 
> a map/lookup service and a user accounts service?
> 
> a) nothing more than that
> b) a trust domain
> 
> If we choose b) then we need to think about OSGrid-like grids. How can 
> we trust that a collection of regions administered by different people 
> will behave? Can OSGrid-like grids survive without ToS being signed 
> between the grid operator and the region operators? What if the ToS is 
> such that it delegates to the region admins any liability on bad things 
> happening in their regions? -- that leaves the user with no central 
> authority to complain, which is as good as not having a trust domain.
> 
> If OSGrid-like grids (i.e. no contracts, or very loose ones; just a map 
> service) are to exist, then it's clear that b) doesn't hold in general. 
> It means that there can be grids that are simply a collection of regions 
> that come together in virtual space, but whose trustworthiness as a 
> whole doesn't exist.
> 
> The Hypergrid is specifically designed to cross trust boundaries. Should 
> the OSGrid-like grids become HG-ed sims that share the same map, and let 
> "grids" be, fully, trust domains?
> 
> You may think I'm getting into philosophy, but this is critical for the 
> technical work I'm doing right now related to authentication, 
> server-side vs client-side authority, etc. If we can assume that a 
> "grid" is a uniform trust domain with a central authority, things will 
> be simpler in many ways. If not, things will be a bit more complicated.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> 
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