Category Archives: Inrupt

Data Wallets Using the Solid Protocol

Posted on by

I am the Chief of Security Architecture at Inrupt, Inc., the company that is commercializing Tim Berners-Lee’s Solid open W3C standard for distributed data ownership. This week, we announced a digital wallet based on the Solid architecture.

Details are here, but basically a digital wallet is a repository for personal data and documents. Right now, there are hundreds of different wallets, but no standard. We think designing a wallet around Solid makes sense for lots of reasons. A wallet is more than a data store—data in wallets is for using and sharing. That requires interoperability, which is what you get from an open standard. It also requires fine-grained permissions and robust security, and that’s what the Solid protocols provide…

Continue reading Data Wallets Using the Solid Protocol→

Inrupt’s Solid Announcement

Posted on by

Earlier this year, I announced that I had joined Inrupt, the company commercializing Tim Berners-Lee’s Solid specification:

The idea behind Solid is both simple and extraordinarily powerful. Your data lives in a pod that is controlled by you. Data generated by your things — your computer, your phone, your IoT whatever — is written to your pod. You authorize granular access to that pod to whoever you want for whatever reason you want. Your data is no longer in a bazillion places on the Internet, controlled by you-have-no-idea-who. It’s yours. If you want your insurance company to have access to your fitness data, you grant it through your pod. If you want your friends to have access to your vacation photos, you grant it through your pod. If you want your thermostat to share data with your air conditioner, you give both of them access through your pod. …

Continue reading Inrupt’s Solid Announcement→

Inrupt, Tim Berners-Lee’s Solid, and Me

Posted on by

For decades, I have been talking about the importance of individual privacy. For almost as long, I have been using the metaphor of digital feudalism to describe how large companies have become central control points for our data. And for maybe half a decade, I have been talking about the world-sized robot that is the Internet of Things, and how… Continue reading Inrupt, Tim Berners-Lee’s Solid, and Me→

WWW inventor announces Solid, a push to create a decentralized web users can trust

Posted on by

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, has not been hiding his disappointment with the direction in which his invention was taken. “The web has evolved into an engine of inequity and division; swayed by powerful forces who use it fo… Continue reading WWW inventor announces Solid, a push to create a decentralized web users can trust→