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XML
Standards News;
W3C Kicks off 2 New Activities for 2001
By the end of January 2001, two significant new
W3C Activities were launched. These activities include the Device Independence
Activity and the XML Encryption Activity.
Device Independence Activity
The goal of the Device Independence Activity is to
promote single authoring for the Web for all access devices from desktop PCs to
in-car computers, TV, digital cameras, and mobile phones. Because
we all want to have seamless access to the Web, no matter what the access
device, vendors are currently designing products which take the adaptability of a wide range of devices into
account. The concern of the W3C is that without standards, we cannot guarantee
that devices will interoperate with each other or with the existing Web. This
could cause fragmentation of the Web space and make device independent authoring
almost impossible. Currently there are standardization efforts relating to
mobile Web and TV Web integration within individual standardization bodies.
However the W3C and its members are uniquely positioned to take the lead in the
development of overall device independence specifications that will preclude
incompatibility and achieve single Web authoring for all devices. The goal of the W3C is to work
towards worldwide standards for the technology involved, to the benefit of Web
users and content providers alike. The tag line for this new W3C Activity
is "Working towards
seamless Web access and authoring."
The Device Independence Activity
merges two existing W3C activities; the "Mobile Access Activity" and
"TV and the Web Activity." This new Activity replaces both the Mobile
Access and the TV & the Web
Activity. The Device Independence Activity Working Group will extend from February 2001 to January 2002.
The Device
Independence Activity will encompass a number of forums. These Include:
- TV
& the Web Interest Group: The
TV & the Web Interest Group is a public for discussion forum that collects
requirements on device independence from the TV community. The TV & the
Web Interest Group is relocated from the TV & the Web Activity to the
Device Independence Activity.
- Mobile
Access Interest Group: The
Mobile Access Interest Group is a public discussion forum about mobile
access. This group gathers comments and summarizes them as input to the
Device Independence Activity. The Mobile Access Interest Group is relocated
from the Mobile Access Activity to the Device Independence Activity.
- Device
Independence Working Group: (member-only
link) The first
Working Group in this Activity is the Device Independence Working Group. The
Device Independence Working Group will collect requirements on Web
access with various devices, study the domain-specific issues, find the
commonality among the issues, and review related specifications within and
outside W3C.
- CC/PP
Working Group: The CC/PP Working Group is developing an RDF-based framework for
the management of device profile information. The CC/PP Working Group
is relocated from the Mobile Access Activity to the Device Independence
Activity.
You can learn
more about the Device
Independence Activity
at their web site!
XML Encryption
Activity
The goal of the XML Encryption Activity is to
specify the necessary data model, syntax, and processing to encrypt XML
content. Encryption transforms plain text-data into confidential,
cipher-text data. This renders the data into a form that can be
safely stored or transmitted. Only the intended recipients, with the
matching decryption method can restore the data to its original form. Encryption
works by mathematically scrambling data in a
way that makes it unreadable to anyone except those possessing the key to
unscramble or decrypt it.
Encryption is an important activity for W3C because
it can provide security for applications that are using the Internet to exchange
payment and purchase orders, and other sensitive information. In view of recent
Web technology developments, the work of the XML Encryption activity will
specify an XML encryption format and features for encrypting XML in whole or in part.
The two most common types of cryptography are symmetric
key cryptography and asymmetric key cryptography. In symmetric key
cryptography, a message is encrypted and decrypted using the same key. The
key must be confidentially exchanged in a separate transmission. The other
cryptographic method, asymmetric cryptography, uses a public key. In this
case, every party to a communication has a public and private key that are
inversely related to each other. Any message encrypted with the publicly
available key can only be decrypted by its corresponding privately held key.
Note: While an entire XML document can be secured
using many of the existing cryptographic standards, many XML applications need
to encrypt portions such that some data can be secured, while other data
is still available. The XML Encryption Activity addresses this requirement.
You can learn more by visiting the XML
Encryption Working Group home page.
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