12E/ Some problems with JSON-LD and Content Based Addressing

From IIW

Some problems with JSON-LD and Content Based Addressing

Wednesday 12E

Convener: Burak Serdar

Notes-taker(s): 

Tags for the session - technology discussed/ideas considered:

JSON-LD, RDF, JSON, digests

Discussion notes, key understandings, outstanding questions, observations, and, if appropriate to this discussion: action items, next steps: 

Main points

  • JSON-LD is not namespaces for json

  • @context does not enforce structure. It is a key mapping

  • @context does not define the semantics, it defines mapping to a terminology

  • JSON-LD is extremely difficult to understand and debug.

  • Readability ≠ Clarity

  • JSON data is usually self-explanatory without processing.

  • Go Motto: Clear is better than clever (https://dave.cheney.net/2019/07/09/clear-is-better-than-clever)

  • Expanded JSON-LD might be more workable in the VC domain, but then, it is JSON

  • Content based addressing (digesting)

    • Normalized representation

    • Self-contained (i.e. digested object should not have external links)

  • Is normalization really necessary? I believe it is not. Treat JSON as a BLOB, no normalization

  • Hashing self-contained objects is the key (e.g. no external @context)

    • There are ways of doing that even with external references

    • Manifests: JSON file pointing to all references

Other discussion points:

  • SAIDs: A SAID is equivalent to an envelope containing hash and payload.

  • Layered schemas example: weak-references to schemas (IRIs), strong references to schemas (digest)

Link to the document shared during the presentation: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IS8tOcrVvL2PcvzPk0JAYnZIVtcHsaXmyObk0bYA5TY/edit?usp=sharing

Link to the slides:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mrj2DiDGhASNfGY788odm-Mm3kABdqFUdegLAxePmWA/edit?usp=sharing

12:20:43 From Timothy Ruff : The problems with JSON-LD for VCs are many, both for security and semantics, and are detailed in Dr. Sam Smith's paper here:

https://github.com/SmithSamuelM/Papers/blob/master/whitepapers/VC_Enhancement_Strategy.md

12:23:07 From Timothy Ruff : For these reasons, GLEIF is not compatible with 1.0 of the W3C spec, but is compatible with 0.9. Here is their position paper about why:

12:23:28 From Brian Richter : @Timothy the vc spec ya?

12:23:45 From Timothy Ruff : Yes! Label Proper Graphs are the way forward.

12:23:59 From Timothy Ruff : @Brian - Yes, I meant the VC spec

12:25:22 From Timothy Ruff : If you guys read Sam's paper linked above, you'll have all the reason you need to avoid JSON-LD completely. The presenter is 100% correct: you only need JSON, JSON schema, and LPGs (label property graphs).

12:25:36 From Dmitri Zagidulin : Timothy: that paper is full of FUD, though..

12:25:58 From Timothy Ruff : That sounds like FUD. Need to be specific, refute Sam's points.

12:26:29 From Timothy Ruff : Sam backs up every point with references. FUD doesn't provide references.

12:27:51 From Timothy Ruff : This presenter is independently coming to the same conclusions, for the same reasons.

12:28:41 From Brian Richter : I have also started to come to these conclusions on my own

12:29:41 From Brian Richter : I believe there’s some parts of jsonld that can be saved though

12:30:02 From Timothy Ruff : Gotta run to another session. When I saw what this was about, I wanted to share these docs and head back. Done. Have fun debating the "FUD"! :)

12:37:37 From Dmitri Zagidulin : have hashlinks (the IETF draft) been considered for SAIDs?

12:37:55 From Kyle Den Hartog : https://github.com/kdenhartog/context-integrity

12:38:05 From Kyle Den Hartog : That’s the path I started working down

12:39:02 From Dmitri Zagidulin : nice, thanks Kyle

12:50:24 From Dmitri Zagidulin : I think I'd argue with the "JSON is self-explanatory" :)

12:53:43 From Brian Richter : I’ve seen a lot of “name” properties meaning a lot of different things

12:54:07 From Kyle Den Hartog : https://www.iana.org/assignments/jwt/jwt.xhtml

13:16:47 From Nuttawut (Finema) : Question: Does Sam Smith’s paper propose an alternative to JSON-LD?

13:20:32 From Dan Yamamoto : I agree with too-much complexity of JSON-LD/RDF ... but at the same time prefer its ability to combine heterogeneous documents issued by multiple issuers. Hope there might be kind of lightweight format with LD functionality in simpler way

13:24:04 From Burak Serdar : https://dave.cheney.net/2019/07/09/clear-is-better-than-clever

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