Items

The item concept is a very common. It is a random data, stored in the Attesta cloud. Most evident samples are: communication block (tagged as comm), send between parties, or keys registry (see [registration]).

Structure

Receiving items are packed in the Item object with following properties:

id is a unique identity for any Item in the attesta could. It never changes.
readonly true means that it can not be changed and only unlined (see below) removed, what means for other sharing parties it will not be changed.
created_at creation timestamp. As JSON has no timestamp data type, it is presented in Typed JSON format.
updated_at last update timestamp.
expires_at expiration timestamp. After expiration time the object is not valid and should be removed by all clients from all storages. Note, that if expiration is not set, the system defaults it to 5000 years from creation. The advanced investigation of the future shows that such a limitation will allow attesta to function at least during 10k years, after what our distant descendants will surely upgrade this code.
tag item tag means its purpose. comm for example means that this is communications between parties. Tags are used to get only subset of objects stored in the cloud. See tags section below.
serial constantly growing serial number that grows across all Items. If the Item will be updated, its serial will become larger (to some random increment). As it always grow and is always different, it simplifies getting new and updated items by specifying last known serial.
data the data itself. It is almost always the standard attesta protected block, signed and encrypted, and absolutely unavailable to the server stuff. As JSON has no type for binary data, it is also encoded as Typed JSON.

Note, that we normally use BOSS format to transfer the data where all these types are supprted natively and effectively. Also, there is another type conventions for XML format.

JSON encoded

{
  "id": 79,
  "readonly": false,
  "created_at": {
    "__t": "time",
    "__d": 1480377870
  },
  "updated_at": {
    "__t": "time",
    "__d": 1480377870
  },
  "expires_at": {
    "__t": "time",
    "__d": 95617584000
  },
  "tag": null,
  "serial": 90,
  "data": {
    "__t": "b64",
    "__d": "ZHVtbXkgcmVxdWVzdCBjb25uZWN0aW9uIGRhdGEgb2YgaW1wcm9wZXIgc3Ry\ndWN0dXJl"
  }
}

XML encoded

<item>
  <id type="integer">101</id>
  <readonly type="boolean">false</readonly>
  <created-at type="dateTime">2016-11-29T01:14:15Z</created-at>
  <updated-at type="dateTime">2016-11-29T01:14:15Z</updated-at>
  <expires-at type="dateTime">5000-01-01T00:00:00Z</expires-at>
  <tag>comm</tag>
  <serial type="integer">114</serial>
  <data type="b64">
ZHVtbXkgcmVxdWVzdCBjb25uZWN0aW9uIGRhdGEgb2YgaW1wcm9wZXIgc3Ry
dWN0dXJl
</data>
</item>

BOSS encoded

The binary, most commonly used representation. It is not humand-readable, so there is no example here, but bit- and cost-effective. See BOSS for more.

tag	purpose
comm	communication block of any type: message, contact request (aka HELLO block), group message, and lile
registry	special record. Only one object of this type exist for each party. It holds encrypted keyring of a party and allow password based login for it

Getting items

items_load(after_serial: 0, tags: ['comm'])
    -> { items: [{ item, ... }], has_more: <boolean> }

This function get a portion of new and updated items with specified tags. The application should pump updates calling this method until there is no more queued items.

after_serial: only items with serial bigger than this will be included.
tags: array of at least one tag string.
has_more: true means that there are more items to pump out. Adjust after_serial and call it again.

Returns the array of items as described above. The number of returned items varies and depends on the item size and server load.

Setting items

There is a way to store and retreive data from attesta clould much like the usual cloud, but with very primitive set of functions, because unlike usual cloud storages Attesta can not access the stored data, therefore it can not organize and analyze it, search it and all other nice modern functions. This is the price of your privacy.

This API is to be descibed.

Sending and receiving

Items could be sent and received using connectors. This way all communications work in Attesta.

Online documentation