[Handle-info] indirect handles actually implemented?

[Eric Auer <eric.auer@mpi.nl>]

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Hello Handle System fans,

I am told that the Handle System supports a
thing called "indirect handles", as seen in:

www.cnri.reston.va.us/home/cstr/handle-overview.html
(The Handle System A Technical Overview, June 1995)

This feature seems to redirect one or all values
of a handle (one or all indexes) to a handle
stored on another server, by specifying only
the "IP or domain name" of that server but not
another handle...? See sections 3.3, 4.3, 5.3,
6.1 and 6.2 of the document.

If this feature is actually implemented, I assume
it would be implemented in a different way compared
to what is described in the 1995 overview doc?



For now, I did some experiments with putting a
hdl:... value into URL records of handles. This
also creates an indirection, but for example the
hdl.handle.net web proxy does not follow that,
it just returns the hdl:... URL/URI. If you have
a browser with Handle System plugin (tested and
works w/ MSIE) then it should still be possible
to follow the recursion without having to install
special client or server side software. Of course
the described "URL field indirection" only works
for the URL field, not for other data stored on
a handle server for a given handle. That is okay
for now, but redirecting an entire handle can be
interesting / useful, too. If it is possible.



Background scenario is that somebody wants to
give responsibility for a few handles to another
domain, but wants to keep all other handles. It
would be possible to give write rights for those
handles via the built-in auth/auth system with
public keys via the Handle System, but I think
it would be better if the person who wants to
give away responsibility for a few handles does
not have to allow write access from external IP.

At least for me, it is even the normal case that
our own handle server has no write access and
only provides data lookup services for a database
generated by separate tools, which use handle.jar.

Eric

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