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Merge pull request #16 from devin-fisher/patch-2
Expand the explaination of these terms
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# Parties, Roles, and Participants | ||
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The __parties__ in a protocol are the identity owners involved. In a protocol | ||
where Alice introduces Bob to Carol, the parties are Alice, Bob, and Carol. | ||
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## Parties | ||
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The __parties__ in a protocol are the identity owners involved. The set of parties of a protocol is simple expression involvement in the protocol. Parties *must* be an identifiable self-sovereign domain. Although normally, the set of parties are known at the start of a protocol, that is not a requirement. Some protocols can commence without all parties known and a party could be included later in the course of the protocol. | ||
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For many protocols, there are only two parties. And these protocols fit nicely into a pairwise relationship. But some protocol will only have one party (ex. wallet backup) and others will involve multiple parties (ex. introduction). | ||
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Normally, the parties that are involved in a protocol also participate in the interaction but this is not always the case. Consider a gossip protocol, two parties may be talking about a third party. In this case, the third party would not even know that the protocol was happening and would definitely not participate. | ||
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As an example, in an introduction protocol where Alice introduces Bob to Carol, the parties are Alice, Bob, and Carol. | ||
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## Roles | ||
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The __roles__ in a protocol are the perspectives that parties take on an | ||
interaction. In an auction protocol, there are only two roles--*auctioneer* | ||
and *bidder*--even though there may be many parties. | ||
interaction. | ||
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This perspective is manifested in three general ways: | ||
* by the expectations that a party takes on in a protocol (ex. a role may be expected to do something to start a protocol). | ||
* by the messages that a party can and does use in the course of the protocol (some messages may be reserved for a single role, while other may used by some if not all roles). | ||
* by the state and the transition rules | ||
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Like parties, roles are normally known at the start of the protocol but this is not a requirement. | ||
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As an example, in an auction protocol, there are only two roles--*auctioneer* | ||
and *bidder*--even though there may be many parties involved. | ||
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# Participants | ||
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The __participants__ in a protocol are the agents that actually move the steps of | ||
the protocol thorough the interaction. Alice, Bob, and Carol may each have a cloud | ||
the protocol through the interaction. Alice, Bob, and Carol may each have a cloud | ||
agent, a laptop, and a phone; if they engage in an introduction protocol using | ||
phones, then the agents on their phones are the participants. If the phones | ||
talk directly over bluetooth, this is particularly clear--but even if the phones | ||
talk directly over Bluetooth, this is particularly clear--but even if the phones | ||
leverage push notifications and HTTP such that cloud agents help with routing, | ||
only the phone agents are participants, because only they maintain state for | ||
the interaction underway. (The cloud agents would be __facilitators__, and | ||
the laptops would be __bystanders__). When a | ||
protocol is complete, the participant agents know about the outcome; they may | ||
need to synchronize or replicate their state before other agents of the | ||
parties are aware. | ||
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