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W3C Recommends XML Signature Syntax

Posted by michael on from the sealed-with-a-kiss dept.

__past__ writes: "The W3C released a recommendation on XML Signature Syntax and Processing. The interesting point is not only that this is quite an important step for secure XML processing (esp. with regarding to web services), but also because there are some possibly ugly patent issues."

3 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. what made the web work by Alien54 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    with the progress towards XML, etc. the WWW is moving away from those things that made the explosion of the WWW possible. The inherent simplicity in HTML, as something you could get the basics of in a few days of mild effort, or in a morning, if you were ambitious, is disappearing.

    What I am nervous about is that with the advance towards the more sophisticated technologies, the earlier simpler technologies will be "obsoleted". This may have implications for the democracy of the web slowing going away because only experts can do what used to be an everyman task.

    --
    "It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
    1. Re:what made the web work by NineNine · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Simplicity? XML is about as simple as you can get. XML is just straight text in tags similar to HTML. Of course, it's only go to do with data transfer, but XML is generally very simple. And for those people who don't know "data" from a hole in thr ground, there's no reason to use XML in the first place.

  2. XML is no longer simple by Carnage4Life · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Simplicity? XML is about as simple as you can get. XML is just straight text in tags similar to HTML. Of course, it's only go to do with data transfer, but XML is generally very simple. And for those people who don't know "data" from a hole in thr ground, there's no reason to use XML in the first place.

    In the good old days, XML was simple but this is no longer the case as the W3C has created more and more complex standards that seem to require a P.hD to understand.

    • Want to specify a structure for your XML? XML Schemas
    • Want to query XML? XQuery
    • Want to transform XML to some other format? XSLT
    • Want to use XML as a transfer format for RPC calls? SOAP.
    • Want to create links between XML documents? XPointer, XLink, and XML:Base are all needed.
    • Want to include XML files in each other? XInclude
    Many of the above standards are rather complex and difficult for most people to understand completely. This is besides the stuff one has to understand about XML infoset and XML namespaces to fully understand how to use XML properly.

    DISCLAIMER: The opinions in the above post are MINE ALONE and do not reflect the opinions, intentions or strategies of my employer.