Permission, on a slip
How TinyCloud decides who can use your data, in six small steps. No jargon needed, just a permission slip.
You're in control
In TinyCloud, your information is yours. Your notes, photos and files sit in your own TinyCloud, and you're the one in control of them.
Anyone who wants to use them has to ask you first: an app, a friend or an AI agent. Then you decide. If you say yes, you give them permission for exactly what they asked, and nothing else.
- An appMay I save your notes?
- A friendMay I see your photos?
- An AI agentMay I read your calendar?
Three ideas: who, whether, what
Computers ask three different questions before they let someone in. They're easy to mix up, so here they are side by side.
Who are you?
1 Authentication
Knowing who someone is. Like showing your ID card.
Are you allowed?
2 Authorization
Knowing that someone is allowed. Like checking that someone is over a certain age before they come in.
What does this let you do?
3 Capability
A permission slip. Like the hall pass a teacher gives you to leave class: it says who it is for and what it lets them do.
TinyCloud works with capabilities. The permission travels on the slip, and the slip names the person it's for. Someone else holding a copy can't use it, just as a friend can't borrow your hall pass: whoever checks it can see it isn't theirs.
A delegation is that permission slip
The permission you give someone is called a delegation. You're delegating permission for them to do something, and they act on your behalf.
Every delegation reads like a slip, with the same few lines on it:
- From. Who gave the permission. You sign it, so anyone can check it really came from you.
- To. Who may use it. An email address, a phone number or a wallet address is enough; they don't need to have used TinyCloud before.
- May. What they may do. A slip grants only what it names: permission to view your photos doesn't let anyone change them.
- What. Which of your things it covers, and nothing outside that.
- Until. When it stops working.
- Pass on. Whether they may share this permission with someone else, such as their own agent.
Passing it on
If the slip you give someone says they may pass it on, they can make a new slip for someone else, such as their own AI agent. They can only give permission they have: the same or less, never more.
Try it. Alex has your slip. What should her slip for her agent say?
- To
- Alex
- May
- View Add
- Pass on
- Yes
- To
- Alex's agent
- May
- View
- Pass on
- No
This works. Alex is giving permission she has.
Why you get a short code
A permission slip carries a lot: who signed it, what it allows, and the proof that it's real. Written out in full, it runs to thousands of characters, which is too long to paste into a message or an email.
So TinyCloud keeps the slip and gives you a short code that points to it. That code is what you give to your agent. The code doesn't change the slip: it allows exactly what the slip allows, for the person the slip names.
- To
- Alex
- May
- View
Your agent asks, your node says yes
Alex gives the code to her agent. The agent goes to your TinyCloud node, the computer that holds your data, and asks: “Can I see these photos? Here's the permission.” The node checks the slip, and if it all adds up, it says yes.
- Who is asking?Alex's agent proves who it is.
- Is the slip real?Signed by you, then passed on by Alex.
- Does it cover this?View holiday photos: yes.
- Is it still valid?Yes, until 30 November.
You didn't have to be there. You said yes once, when you gave the slip, and the slip did the rest. If you change your mind, you can revoke it from the Delegations page in your TinyCloud account.
In short
- 1You decide who can use your data.
- 2Who you are, whether you may, and what a slip lets you do.
- 3The permission you give is a delegation.
- 4It can be passed on, but never grow.
- 5A short code points to the slip.
- 6Your node checks the slip and says yes.