Toying around with (embedded) WebAccessControl

So TimBL has provided a nice write-up on a Web of Data version of a simple authorization scheme and protocol called WebAccessControl (WAC). It includes a draft of a vocabulary and a protocol (see also open issues with it). I thought it might be nice to have a visual representation of the schema and hence fired up my OmniGraffle app, yielding:

There are already some first implementations for WAC (for example Joe Presbrey’s Apache mod). Actually, I was pondering first to implement WAC in PHP, but then Melvin Carvalho pointed out that this is in the pipe for foaf.me anyway (I might contribute to that, let’s see 😉

Finally I ended up toying around with WAC in RDFa. The result is WACup, an experimental embedded-WAC explorer/viewer for RDFa-marked-up WAC policies:

Now, how about taking this idea further? Say, you have generated a WAC file in RDF/XML and want to inject that into the DOM? You could dynamically decorate certain resources and people (using an advanced version of WACup) would have an idea what they are allowed to do with it.

Comments? Ideas? Feature requests? I’d love to hear your opinion on this topic!

UPDATE: If you want to learn how this fits into the big picture regarding a write-enabled Web of Data, have a look at http://esw.w3.org/topic/WriteWebOfData …