Governments - Create Your Job. Order Us Unique Digital Signatures!

This calendar week at Decentral Vancouver we had an interesting give-and-take alongside Gene Vayngrib, Greg Meredith in addition to Katryna Dow (the total video of the hangout tin hold upward viewed here). We talked most the concept of decentralized identities - how people tin construct upward online identities in addition to trust to hold upward able to acquit online transactions alongside unknown parties alongside minimized adventure of scams. This after turned into a give-and-take of sybil attacks and how governments mightiness genuinely hold upward useful for something. So, lets start from the beginning...

Online identities - the electrical flow model

At the moment, online identities tin hold upward viewed equally a collection of pseudonyms - it's rather difficult to tell if say, ThePiachu on Twitter is the same soul equally ThePiachu on Reddit, etc. Similarly, it's difficult to tell who this soul is inward existent life. If nosotros piece of work OAuth and say, sign into multiple websites alongside Facebook / Google Plus / whatever, at to the lowest degree nosotros tin know that i entity is behind all of the accounts.

Now, why is whatever of this important? Well, a lot of online interactions depend on user's reputation. Everyone wants to know that the soul they are talking to is the same soul they talked to final fourth dimension on a dissimilar website, etc. Moreover, this persistent reputation tin hold upward useful to create upward one's heed how probable a soul is to scam you. Building upward years of online presence takes a lot of effort, so the soul would exclusively essay to scam in addition to lose the reputation if they could earn to a greater extent than than it would terms to construct upward unopen to other pseudonym. In contrast, an hr one-time work organisation human relationship alongside no history is inexpensive to strength out to scam, defame or troll someone online.

Decentralized identities

One could push clitoris decentralized identities equally a decentralized extension of the OAuth model. With projects similar BitID or Meeco, nosotros would hold upward inward command of our sign-in identities, only similar nosotros command our Bitcoin addresses. We tin create an identity on our computer, piece of work it to sign into unopen to websites alongside our Bitcoin address in addition to therefore start edifice our reputation, similar to the electrical flow model. The exclusively work is, such identities would hold upward vulnerable to theft. For example, if I transcend the address of 1PiachuEVn6sh52Ez7o6Fymvw54qvQ4RBm in addition to someone gets my individual key, I tin no longer evidence that I am the master copy possessor of this address, nor that I authorize a novel address to hold upward my identity from instantly on.

Moreover, at that topographic point are unopen to of import piece of work cases that this model doesn't solve. If anyone tin create whatever number of identities, yous cannot piece of work those identities to create democratic voting, piece of work them to distribute universal basic income to each soul inward a fair manner, etc. For this, nosotros demand to resort to what a lot of crypto-anarchists abhor - the government.

Governments in addition to unique identities

Like it or not, the governments (or at to the lowest degree unopen to of them inward the western world) create a few things efficiently. One of such things, is verifying that a given soul is the soul they are claiming to be. The foremost affair whatever companionship does when they demand to verify your identity is to inquire for your government ID. While they aren't 100% fraud-proof, it's pretty reasonable to assume a authorities tin ensure:

• that each person has a unique number assigned to them
• the number is non shared betwixt multiple people
• no soul has to a greater extent than than i such number
• if the number e'er gets stolen, it volition hold upward tracked
• whether the soul is yet hold upward or has already died is tracked alongside reasonable accuracy

Now, if nosotros took these capabilities in addition to stick them on unopen to hardware device country similar this one:

We tin solve a lot of problems quite efficiently.

Digital ID - KYC for the digital age

How a Digital ID mightiness look:

1. A authorities identifies a soul in addition to issues them an ID alongside a chip
1. The ID holds a individual key, performs signature on asking in addition to dispenses Earth key equally needed
2. The ID is non wirelessly accessible (to avoid problems similar this)
3. They volition likely demand to consequence them the hardware interface to piece of work this ID online - likely unopen to USB dongle
2. The authorities keeps a tape of the ID in addition to the condition of the soul (alive, deceased) in addition to the ID itself (active, stolen, replaced)
3. The authorities opens upward a world API for anyone to asking exclusively the most basic data:
1. "Is ID X stolen?" - yes/no
2. "Does ID X belong to anyone?" - yes/no
3. "Is ID X valid?" - yes/no
4. "List invalidated ID numbers from final year"
4. The API responds inward a cryptographically verifiable way
1. The answer is signed past times the government's individual key - no other political party tin forge the signature
2. The answer includes the asking inward question, validating that the research was made (so the requesting political party tin evidence they did their due diligence)
3. The responses are aggregated into unopen to factom-like database on the blockchain, pregnant that all requests are auditable
5. If a soul e'er loses their ID, the authorities volition supersede the ID alongside a novel ID in addition to tape that the person's ID was changed in addition to to what ("ID #245 got replaced past times ID #9472")

Now, what proficient does this do? Quite a lot actually.

First of all, KYC becomes fully digital. No to a greater extent than ID scanning, photograph taking, etc. H5N1 service similar Kraken tin only inquire - "Please input your ID number here, in addition to delight verify your identity past times digitally signing this verification text...". The service apace learns that the soul owns that item ID (through challenge-response), in addition to tin get got that ID to the authorities in addition to ask: "A soul alongside this ID requests KYC. Is this soul inward your database? Is the ID valid? Everything OK?". After a prompt positive response, the service is certain they get got fulfilled their KYC requirements. If a authorities e'er asks - "who is this person?", the service tin plough over them their ID in addition to the authorities volition already know who they are looking for.

Secondly, identity theft is diminished. In club for someone to bag your identity, they would demand to get got access to your ID card. If your ID bill of fare gets stolen, yous written report it to the authorities in addition to they will:

• give yous a novel ID bill of fare alongside a novel keypair
• invalidate the one-time one
• keep a tape of the alter for everyone to poll

This agency that whatever digital service tin periodically acquire the listing of invalidated IDs in addition to cross-check it against their ain database. If they match, the work organisation human relationship tin hold upward frozen, or updated (in instance the ID gets replaced).

Thirdly, whatever service that relies on globally unique real-world identities (such equally democratic voting) tin utilize this organisation to solve the work of sybil attacks. Similarly, if yous desire to construct communities of existent people, non only online aliases (say, LinkedIn), this also addresses your needs.

Lastly, this also solves the work of scams. If yous are unsure who yous are dealing with, acquire their world key, verify their identity through challenge-response, in addition to if worse comes to worse, yous tin pinpoint to the police push clitoris who was it that did yous wrong.

Conclusions

While a lot of people mightiness oppose the governments interfering also much alongside the Internet through the actions of NSA in addition to the like, at that topographic point are yet proficient for unopen to things. If leveraged correctly, the governments tin aid solve i of the hard problems inward cryptocurrency - unique user verification. If implemented correctly, this tin brand the burden of next KYC requirements terms adjacent to nothing.