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Re: Is there any directory server in public use?

Tankman 六四 wrote:
> Hi everyone
> 
> Can you give an example of directory server used by governments or
> certain authorities as to the source of truth? E.g. whether or not the
> person named so exists, or whether or not the land registered at
> certain street address belong to a Mr Smith?
> 
> I'm asking for this because I'm researching how the source of truth is
> made publically available in a public database with a set of open
> query method (like openldap filter) before the invention of
> blockchain. I personally also want to see such effort being made by
> willing authorities.

There were a lot of publicly accessible LDAP directories in the 1990s but
I get the impression they've all been shut down as people started becoming
aware of the ease with which personal info is abused, and all of the privacy
risks that entailed.

Within large organizations, I seldom see LDAP being used as the source
of truth. Not because it's unsuitable, but mainly because HR systems that
are used for onboarding tend to only talk to SQL servers. Companies that
provide personal information in LDAP generally export it from their authoritative
SQL servers into LDAP.

Naturally I think organizations and HR systems that operate that way
are braindead, but they seem to be the majority. This appears to be a
combination of colleges only teaching SQL (if they teach anything about
databases at all) and again, HR-oriented software only interacting with SQL
(if they interact with external systems at all). Would be happy to see
otherwise.

-- 
  -- Howard Chu
  CTO, Symas Corp.           http://www.symas.com
  Director, Highland Sun     http://highlandsun.com/hyc/
  Chief Architect, OpenLDAP  http://www.openldap.org/project/