Suggested Reading

This volume describes an open architecture for an important new kind of national information infrastructure which we call the Digital Library System (DLS). The architectural framework includes the DLS functional components, the methodology by which the participating systems communicate with each other, and active, mobile software components, called Knowbots, which perform services for the users. Subsequent volumes will address detailed technical aspects of the architecture such as the design of Knowbots and the protocols required to bind the DLS components together.

The following paper was written by the authors over a period of approximately 16 months during the period November 1993 to May 1995 in an attempt to explore a set of open research issues and to integrate them with certain ideas of a small group of researchers who had been briefed on the notions inherent in the Digital Object Architecture that one of the authors (Kahn) had been developing at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI). 

The deployment and widespread use of global information systems like the Internet may dramatically reduce the production and distribution costs usually associated with information dissemination. With digital technology, anyone can become an information provider, able to generate and distribute ideas at little or no cost. This technology facilitates dynamic and efficient forms of creativity or innovation, such as the integration of various digital materials to manifest sounds, images, graphics, or industrial designs – all linked in interesting, innovative, or entertaining ways.

This article discusses the use of “digital objects” to represent “value” in the network environment. Deeds of trust, mortgages, bills of lading and digital cash can all be represented as digital objects. The notion of “transferable records” structured as digital objects is introduced, along with references to its application in real financial situations. Even in a formal information system, anonymity reflects the desire of a holder of value to remain incognito, except as he or she wishes to be made known.

Digital object repositories are on the cusp of resolving the long-standing problem of universal information access in the Internet.

Since it was first introduced in the early 1970s, the Internet has met the growing needs of an everwidening community of users with great benefits to individuals, organizations, governments and their associated disciplines. Yet, along with that growth and evolution has come an increasing downside, namely traffic that intrudes and may disrupt productive uses of the Internet. Worse yet, concerns exist that such unwanted and unwarranted intrusions may cause more extensive damage in the future. 

This paper is a joint response on the part of the authors to a request from the G-20 Financial Stability Board (FSB) for an engineering study to determine which scheme for the management of ISO 17442-compliant Legal Entity Identifiers (LEIs) best serves the purposes of the global LEI system that is being developed under the auspices of the G-20 FSB with the active contributions and participation of the Private Sector Preparatory Group (PSPG). 

The purpose of Recommendation ITU-T X.1255 is to provide an open architecture framework in which identity management information can be discovered. This IdM information will necessarily be represented in different ways and supported by various trust frameworks or other IdM systems using different metadata schemas. This framework will enable, for example, entities operating within the context of one IdM system to have identifiers from other IdM systems accurately resolved. 

Much energy has been spent over the past few years on what is often called Software Defined Networking (SDN). In some efforts there appears to be a distinction drawn with respect to certain basic terminology: namely, the meaning of the concepts “program” and “data;” and how they may apply in the context of SDN.

There is no apparent reason to deviate from the definition of Digital Entity as specified in Recommendation ITU-T X.1255 (9/2013). It is important to adopt neutral terminology in order to avoid confusion in practice. In addition to “block,” there have been many different words, such as “container,” “cryptolope,” “package” or more generally “digital object,” that have been used over the last two decades to identify the concept of a logical entity or data structure that may embody digital information subject to various rights or interests, or in which there is value, that, when processed, may manifest this information incorporated in this form of expression.

The notion of thoughts, ideas and other information fixed in a tangible medium of expression for purposes of reproducing, displaying or communicating the information to others has its origins in antiquity. Both the information itself and its symbolic expression are purely conceptual entities until fixed in a material object. When an intangible means of expression, in which symbolic logic is represented as or converted to machine-independent data structures in digital form, and structured as digital objects (i.e., digital entities), this implementation may be viewed as the logical equivalent of fixation in a material object; and, in this context, we are viewing a block as a particular way of structuring a digital object, and a blockchain in itself as a digital object that incorporates one or more objects.