Abstract

The objective of this paper is to develop a more detailed, high level specification of the Trustworthy Governable Platform (TGP) introduced in the companion paper [1] in this workshop. The purpose of the TGP is to support structured communications services and, to discuss this process, we will re-ex- amine some of the basic concepts of communications service architecture, which have been rather submerged and seemingly overtaken by the Internet. The argu- ment we are making here is that the communications paradigm contains some fundamental architectural principles which must be re-established if we are to restore accountability and governability while maintaining the sorts of connec- tivity and flexibilities we have come to expect in our information platforms. In particular, we must recognise the tele-communications network distinction be- tween data associated with signalling, versus data associated with traffic. This represents a horizontal architectural demarcation between structure and infra- structure; between a user domain and a service provider domain. In the data pro- cessing and distribution paradigm (DPD), this demarcation is absent and, instead, the split is endo-exo in nature: defining an inside, in which rationality and coher- ence are asserted, and an outside of threats and opportunities; infrastructure, here, is simply plumbing. If communications service functionality is constructed within the DPD conceptual framing, that is to say, implemented as inputs and outputs to a database, information sharing and governance, in multi-organisa- tional settings, becomes deeply problematic. The work of this chapter builds on the concepts of epistemic registers and socio-technical systems architecture [2] and the historical perspective of the submergence of the telecommunications and publishing sectors into DPD oriented approach of the Internet and global net- works in [3] The first implementations of the TGP are under construction as this paper is being written so the specification is expected to evolve. The development is open source, and the evolving specification will remain publicly accessible.

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