The "Personal Server" is a server that stores personas, and allows people to manage their persona. People can run their own, or get an account on a friend's server, or get an account on some mass installation, or whatever.
We seem to not have settled on one name for this as yet, we also talk about it as Identity Server and Persona Server.
The Personal Server allows you to keep and maintain:
info that's broadcast in FOAF terms,
passwords, authentication information, private keys (not your personal private keys, but some less secure keys that you use on the web),
personal logs (built in PersonalLogServer)
Why is this cool? If someone leaves a comment for you, or replies to something you said, on any site on the web, you get a notice.
ActivityAwareness, for those who choose to be visible, when they choose to be visible.
PersonalServer is in progress. Check out PersonalServerSource to see how it's going!
PersonalServerToDo - a to-do list for PersonalServer
When you sign in to a web site, you give it the addr of your PersonalServer, and do some sort of authentication rigamarole.
In the prototype dev versions, we probably won't have much in the way of security, much like the case with the ![[PlogDev]](/wiki/modern/img/moin-inter.png){kind=small}
PersonalLogServer right now.
A PersonalLogServer just stores logs. A PersonalServer would store settings and preferences as well. For example, all the things in a FOAF file could be stored in a PersonalServer.
For people who can store the FOAF file on their own computer, it's less of a deal. But a lot of people don't run their own computers, either because they don't know how, or because it requires attention to security. So I believe that we'll be setting up PersonalServers for our friends and family. When they go to sites that require or can use a PersonalServer, they'll be able to use them.
In the PersonalServer, you could set permissions on data. Your FOAF file might look very different, depending on if a friend of yours went to access it, or if some random stranger asked for it.
![[WWW]](/wiki/modern/img/moin-www.png){kind=small}
People working on an Interwiki Identity Standard on Consumerium. - I still think this should be pan-communications system. -- LionKimbro 2004-04-22 19:10:11
just found this: peoples DNS. haven't had time to read through it, but this is what the blog intro says:
The PeoplesDNS project is being created to allow traditional DNS style lookups in 'peoplespace' utilizing FOAF. It is a powerful way to search and lookup information on people and a powerful way for you to be integrated into products like PeopleAggregator and Tribe, Orkut etc. The pDNS system will be opensource, non-centralized and will be a series of independent servers operated by individuals and companies. PeoplesDNS.com will act as 'Node1' and distribute 'zone files' much the same way as the DNS system currently works.
-- piranha 2004-05-04 21:26:17
Simliar idea but totally centralized: http://www.typekey.com/