RE: Notary services requirements -- directions?

[Larry Masinter <LMM@xxxxxxx>]

> In answer to your first question, we've always understood the 
> term "Notary Service" to be a technology that Notaries could use, not a 
> technology that others can use in lieu of notarization. If that
> means the name of the  service needs to change, I'll leave that
> decision in more capable hands.

While "Notary Service" might be ambiguous, I don't think
this means we have to rename it. After all, the ways in which
one noun can modify another is ambiguous:  steak knife, steel
knife, boy-scout knife use different kinds of modification.
(From the Addams Family movie, about Girl Scout cookies:
 "Are they made from real Girl Scouts?")

In the context of LTANS, "notary service" seems to have been
intended as something much more narrow than what a Notary does.

  http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/ltans-charter.html

focuses on a fairly narrow set of workflows:

  In many scenarios, users need to be able to ensure and prove the
  existence and validity of data, especially digitally signed data, in a
  common and reproducible way over a long and possibly undetermined period
  of time.

  ... 

  Long-term non-repudiation of digitally signed data is an important
  aspect of PKI-related standards. Standard mechanisms are needed to
  handle routine events, such as expiry of signer's public key certificate
  and expiry of trusted time stamp authority certificate. 

I think we should stick to a narrow definition for notary service
requirements, and focus on those services that can reasonably be
accomplished without manual (human) intervention;the use of 'notary'
in the title is evocative (notary-like services; just like a
'stone lion' is a lion-like stone).

I see, from http://www.nationalnotary.org/enjoa/index.cfm?text=enjoaHome
and related web pages, that there is an industry focused on tools
that Notaries can use, including for support of notarization in
electronic workflows.

I suggest we do not include these in the notary service requirements.

Larry
-- 
http://larry.masinter.net