Highmrid

Highmrid is a term used in digital information management to describe a class of resource identifiers that emphasize high entropy and long-term uniqueness. It is intended to minimize collisions and support reliable versioning across distributed systems, building on the general idea of resource identifiers (MRIDs) with stronger uniqueness guarantees.

Etymology and scope: MRID sometimes stands for Media Resource Identifier or Minimal Resource Identifier, depending on the domain. Highmrid is an informal designation rather than a universal standard, appearing in documentation and software projects to indicate enhanced identifier quality and resilience.

Technical characteristics: A typical highmrid combines a namespace with a high-entropy suffix generated by cryptographic hash, a UUID, or secure randomness. The suffix is commonly encoded in base32, base58, or hexadecimal, and the overall form is designed to be stable for long-term archiving while exposed metadata remains attachable.

Applications: Highmrs are used in digital libraries, data repositories, and content-addressable storage to identify objects, support provenance tracking, and enable durable linking across platforms. They facilitate automated ingestion, deduplication, and reliable retrieval in large-scale systems.

Variants and governance: Implementations vary, with centralized registries and decentralized naming schemes both in use. Trade-offs include readability, URL-friendliness, and storage overhead. Community practice often pairs highmrids with metadata schemas and governance policies to ensure interoperability.

See also: UUID, DOI, URN, ARK.