Wave Systems Corp. (fka WAVXQ)

[rwk]

Bull_Dolphin / attestation

My understsanding (ie.IMO), is that attestation is the process by which, in this case, a document manager vault would determine the identity of the entity requesting access to a document. Without attestation functionality, this determination is neccessarily based upon private pass codes that each entity would neeed to have for each document that they were interested in. The vault keeper would the permit access based upon passively accepting the proffered pass code rather than more actively asking "who are you?", "does this document exist?" and "are you permissioned?"

With attestation, the database for permssioning would include independent identity objects, document objects and permissioning objects. These objects in combination would determine what subset of the universe of entities should have access to a document. This means that a document creator need only tell the vault manager who has access to that particular document. The individuals so duely permissioneed will then be able to work on the document without having to remember a pssword. Independence of the objects allows the document manager to dynamically change the subset of permissioned users.

Without attestation, each document would need a password that would then have to be handed out to all potential users. This password is then subject to improper use. Also, the permissioned subset can then not easily be changed, as this entails creating a new document with a new password and transmitting this new password to the new group of users.