The Secure Public Data Repository?

jducoeur writes "So Hailstorm has died an unlamented death. But the demand for the idea of an information repository isn't going to go away -- users demand convenience, and this would be convenient. So here's a timely question looking for wild speculation: how would a truly secure, public data repository work? How would your data be stored? Would it be centralized or distributed? How would you grant access to specific elements within it? What would the business case for running such an archive be? Maybe if we can come up with a good design now, we can head off the next inevitable bad one..."

Comments

Ocean Store

[nweaver]

The Oceanstore project at Berkeley is aiming to do just that: create a distributed storage model to provide a global, distributed, persistant storage resource.

XNS by OneName

[kindbud]

Here's a model that is implemented and attempting to gain adopters. It supports:

• User authentication and authorization across multiple trust domains
  
• Automated exchange, management, and auditing of consumer information, based on permissions and in compliance with government regulations
  
• Automated customer registration and updating
  
• Automated management of public key infrastructure security solutions
  
• Synchronization of permissions, entitlements, and other context-based user information
  

They were fairly actively seeking clients during the Bubble Years, but understandably things are not rolling along so well these days. Anyone care to comment on what is available at their site? It seems to implement everything people say they want in a single-signon solution. That's probably why it hasn't been widely adopted, too much control is given to the owner of the information (that'd be YOU). :)