WebSVN – oidinfo_new_design – /trunk/introduction.raw.htm

<div id="global_content">
<div id="introduction">
<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><span class="page_title"><a name="oid"></a>Introduction to OIDs</span></td>
</tr>
<tr><td>
<p>
The Object Identifier (OID) concept and implementation dates back to
the mid-1980s, based on collaboration with the International Federation
for Information Processing (IFIP) over the previous several years.
</p>
<p>
OIDs provide a persistent identification of objects based on a hierarchical
structure of Registration Authorities (RA), where each parent has an
object identifier and allocates object identifiers to child nodes. It
provides a universal and flexible identification scheme for persistent
objects. It has been supported and recommended by ITU-T, ISO and IEC,
and has been used in many ITU-T (and ITU-R) Recommendations, and ISO
and IEC International Standards, since the middle 1980s, as part of
the ASN.1 (Abstract Syntax Notation One).
</p>
<p>
Almost any organization, Recommendation, or Standard can obtain (if
it not already has) an OID node. OIDs are fundamental for all security
work in ITU, ISO and IETF, and are widely used in many standards.
</p>
</td></tr>
<tr><td>
<p>
<img src="images/fl.png" style="width: 10px; height: 8px;"
width="41" border="0" height="8"> <a href="faq.htm#16"><span style="font-size:11px;">
What
do we call a registration tree (or object identifier tree)?
</span></a>
</p>
<p>
<img src="images/fl.png" style="width: 10px; height: 8px;"
width="41" border="0" height="8"> <a href="faq.htm#18"><span style="font-size:11px;">
How
is the entire registration tree managed?
</span></a>
</p>
<p>
<img src="images/fl.png" style="width: 10px; height: 8px;" width="41" border="0" height="8"> <a href="#" onclick="showdiv('Q3');"><span style="font-size:11px;">
Where
can I learn more about OIDs and registration?
</span></a>
</p>
</td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<span class="section_title"><a name="long-arc"></a>Internationalization and the long arc concept</span>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tbody>
<tr><td>
<p>
In the early years of 2000, the Object Identifier tree was renamed as
the International Object Identifier tree, and the names of arcs were
extended to allow what were called "Unicode labels" - names in any language,
using the <a href="http://www.unicode.org">Unicode</a> character set
- and were made available for computer communication alongside the original
numbers.
</p>
<p>
At the same time, the concept of "long arcs" from the root of the International
OID tree to a node at level 2 or below was introduced. Long arcs do
not have numerical values, but provide an unambiguous reference to the
node from the root using a Unicode label.
</p>
<p>
Use of a path specified purely in terms of the set of Unicode labels
on the (normal or long) arcs from the root to a node is called an International
Object Identifier for that node.
</p>
<p>
In order to support names of arcs in multiple languages, an arc can
have multiple Unicode labels, giving rise to a need to transform a path
using Unicode labels into a canonical form of purely numerical labels
to identify the node. This is handled by the OID Resolution System (described
below).
</p>
</td></tr>
<tr><td>
<img src="images/fl.png" style="width: 10px; height: 8px;" width="41" border="0" height="8"> 
<a href="faq.htm#iri"><span style="font-size:11px;">
What
is an OID-IRI (Internationalized Resource Identifier)?
</span></a>
</td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<br><table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><span class="section_title"><a name="use"></a>Use of OIDs</span></td>
</tr>
<tr><td>
<p>
It is hard to summarize the uses. This OID repository gives an impression
of the wide-spread use.
</p>
<p>Known areas of use include:</p>
<ul>
<li>
Extensive use in security in IETF, Rec. ITU-T X.500, ISO/IEC, RSA
and NIST encryption algorithms, etc.;
</li>
<li> extensive use in e-health standards;</li>
<li>
extensive use for network management (Management Information Bases,
MIBS);
</li>
<li>use related to RFID tags;</li>
<li>emerging use for the Common Alerting Protocol for disaster notification:</li>
<li>use forcybersecurity alerts. </li>
</ul>
</td></tr>
<tr><td>
<p>
<img src="images/fl.png" style="width: 10px; height: 8px;"
width="41" border="0" height="8"> <a href="faq.htm#2"><span style="font-size:11px;">
Which
kind of objects can be referenced by OIDs?
</span></a>
</p>
<p>
<img src="images/fl.png" style="width: 10px; height: 8px;"
width="41" border="0" height="8"> <a href="faq.htm#10"><span style="font-size:11px;">
How
to get an OID assigned?
</span></a>
</p>
</td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><span class="section_title"><a name="ors"></a>Introduction to the ORS (OID Resolution System)</span></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tbody>
<tr><td>
<p>
Given that there are multiple ways of identifying an International
Object Identifier tree node by a set of Unicode labels defining the
path from the root to that node, there was a requirement to be able
to transform that by an efficient on-line look-up into a canonical form
consisting of the all-numeric identification of arcs of the path (canonicalization).
</p>
<p>
There was also a requirement for the management of a node to be able
to store (and applications to retrieve) information associated with
a node in a flexible way (node information retrieval). This was first
identified in terms of RFID applications (What is the content of this
jar of jam? Who is the owner of this piece of hold baggage? etc.) but
now extends more widely.
</p>
<p>
There was a requirement for both of these look-up activities to be
fully supported by authentication of the returned result with a trust
anchor.
</p>
<p>
The OID Resolution System (ORS) was developed from 2004 onwards, and
allows an application to obtain (online) application-specific information
related to any node identified by an OID.
</p>
<p>
The ORS enables any one of the OID nodes to be mapped into DNS name
zone files, and information about it can be obtained by a DNS look-up
for further application processing. The system was initially designed
to support RFID tag activity, but also has applications in many other
application areas.
</p>
</td></tr>
<tr><td>
<img src="images/fl.png" style="width: 10px; height: 8px;"
width="41" border="0" height="8"> More
information in the
<a href="http://www.itu.int/pub/T-HDB-LNG.4-2010">OID
handbook</a> (part 6)
</td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<br><table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><span class="section_title"><a name="features"></a>Features of the ORS (OID Resolution System)</span></td>
</tr>
<tr><td>
<ul>
<li>
<em>Support for the International Object Identifier tree naming scheme</em>:
Uses Unicode, so all languages can be included in the identification
of an object.<br><br></li>
<li>
<em>Relation to DNS</em>: International OIDs map to DNS names of the
form <code>zz.yy.xx.oid-res.org</code>. Look-ups are based on DNS zone-file
information, obtained via DNS port 53 (designed for the return of
application-specific information).<br><br></li>
<li>
<em>Security</em>: DNS servers supporting the mapping from the International
OID tree are required to support the DNSSEC protocol of the IETF,
and will return information authenticated using an ITU-T X.500 certificate
chain and a trust anchor.<br><br></li>
<li>
<em>Hierarchical structure</em><strong>:</strong>Any Registration Authority
that has been allocated a node in the International OID tree can make
allocations to children (entirely within its own responsibility),
and can provide (if requested) a pointer from its DNS zone files to
a server maintained by its child for its own DNS zone files. This
is entirely a matter between the parent and child, and is not constrained.<br><br></li>
<li>
<em>Absence of restrictions</em>: The International OID tree has potentially
infinitely many children from each node, and an infinite depth of
the tree. There is also no length restriction on the names used to
identify arcs (or on the characters used, within Unicode).<br><br></li>
<li>
<em>Application data</em>: The ORS can resolve an OID into its canonical
form, and can return authenticated URLs for access to any application
information recorded in the zone files for that OID.
</li>
</ul>
</td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<div class="clear"></div>
</div>

Subversion Repositories oidinfo_new_design

oidinfo_new_design/trunk/introduction.raw.htm – Rev 2