(file created 2013-03-13, last updated 2013-03-13)

Type name:
text

Subtype name:
provenance-notation

Required parameters:
charset — the value of charset MUST always be UTF-8.

Optional parameters:
None

Encoding considerations: 8bit
The syntax of PROV-N is expressed over code points in Unicode [UNICODE]. The encoding is 
always UTF-8 [UTF-8].
Unicode code points may also be expressed using an \uXXXX (U+0 to U+FFFF) or \UXXXXXXXX 
syntax (for U+10000 onwards) where X is a hexadecimal digit [0-9A-F]

Security considerations:
PROV-N is a general-purpose language for describing the provenance of things; applications 
may evaluate given data to infer more descriptions or to dereference URIs, invoking the 
security considerations of the scheme for that URI. Note in particular, the privacy issues 
in [RFC3023] section 10 for HTTP URIs. Data obtained from an inaccurate or malicious data 
source may lead to inaccurate or misleading conclusions, as well as the dereferencing of 
unintended URIs. Care must be taken to align the trust in consulted resources with the 
sensitivity of the intended use of the data.

PROV-N is used to express the provenance of arbitrary application data; security 
considerations will vary by domain of use. Security tools and protocols applicable to text 
(e.g. PGP encryption, MD5 sum validation, password-protected compression) may also be used 
on PROV-N documents. Security/privacy protocols must be imposed which reflect the 
sensitivity of the embedded information.

PROV-N can express data which is presented to the user, for example, by means of label 
attributes. Application rendering strings retrieved from untrusted PROV-N documents must 
ensure that malignant strings may not be used to mislead the reader. The security 
considerations in the media type registration for XML ([RFC3023] section 10) provide 
additional guidance around the expression of arbitrary data and markup.

PROV-N is a language for describing the provenance of things, and therefore a PROV-N 
document is metadata for other resources. Untrusted PROV-N documents may mislead its 
consumers by indicating that a third-party resource has a reputable lineage, when it has 
not. Provenance of PROV-N document should be sought.

PROV-N uses qualified names mappable to IRIs as term identifiers. Applications interpreting 
data expressed in PROV-N should address the security issues of Internationalized Resource 
Identifiers (IRIs) [RFC3987] Section 8, as well as Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): 
Generic Syntax [RFC3986] Section 7.

Multiple IRIs may have the same appearance. Characters in different scripts may look 
similar (a Cyrillic "о" may appear similar to a Latin "o"). A character followed by 
combining characters may have the same visual representation as another character (LATIN 
SMALL LETTER E followed by COMBINING ACUTE ACCENT has the same visual representation as 
LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE). Any person or application that is writing or interpreting 
data in PROV-N must take care to use the IRI that matches the intended semantics, and avoid 
IRIs that make look similar. Further information about matching of similar characters can 
be found in Unicode Security Considerations [UNISEC] and Internationalized Resource 
Identifiers (IRIs) [RFC3987] Section 8.

PROV-N offers an extensibility mechanism, which in turn may introduce additional security 
considerations. For example, predicates in extensibility expressions use qualified names, 
mappable to IRIs, and appropriate security considerations for IRIs apply too.

Interoperability considerations:
There are no known interoperability issues.

Published specification:
PROV-N: The Provenance Notation, Moreau, Missier, (eds), Cheney, Soiland-Reyes 
http://www.w3.org/TR/prov-n/, 2012.

Applications which use this media type:
It may be used by any application for publishing provenance information. This format is 
designed to be a human-readable form of provenance.

Additional information:

Magic number(s):
PROV-N documents may have the strings 'document' near the beginning of the document.

File extension(s):
".provn"

Base URI:
There are no constructs in the PROV-N Syntax to change the Base IRI.

Macintosh file type code(s):
"TEXT"

Person & email address to contact for further information:
Ivan Herman, ivan&w3.org

Intended usage:
COMMON

Restrictions on usage:
None

Author/Change controller:
The PROV-N specification is the product of the World Wide Web Consortium's Provenance 
Working Group. The W3C has change control over this specification.