[discussion] Decentralized ID

giannidalerta

With the deluge of information we all are consuming everyday about the crypto world and its projects there are always some little nuggets that tend to bore into your mind. While listening to a let's talk Bitcoin show, the episode was a recording of a VC speaker talking about the future and what he/his company saw as some amazing opportunities. When asked about decentralized systems he mentioned that the most important app/system/idea that was yet to create was a:

Decentralized ID

The biggest problem we have is that there are central entities holding our identities and through convenience many of us login with those primary credentials everywhere. We can log into many sites using our Google, Facebook or Twitter accounts. All based on the OpenID standard.

OpenID is already decentralized as stated on their site:

OpenID is a decentralized standard, meaning it is not controlled by any one website or service provider. You control how much personal information you choose to share with websites that accept OpenIDs, and multiple OpenIDs can be used for different websites or purposes. If your email (Google, Yahoo, AOL), photo stream (Flickr) or blog (Blogger, WordPress, LiveJournal) serves as your primary online presence, OpenID allows you to use that portable identity across the web.

But, we must still rely on a centralized system to hold the key! With all we know , having our credentials held by any one of the companies mentioned, or even the a well intentioned systems such lavabit, they could fall susceptible to surveillance (friend or foe, does not matter).

One implementation being developed is Keyhotee.

Keyhotee is a platform for taking back control of your digital life by combining your identity, your communications, and your finances into a single secure program.

I believe that Keyhotee is trying to be the email client before the email address has been created. The holy grail is to make it so easy that the mainstream market does not need to think and they can just DO. I believe that the innovation will come from those who can think outside of the email inbox. We need an ID system that can be used to apply for a drivers license, to a corporate access door. We need the OpenID system without the Primary online presence. We need an agnostic primary online presence that does not belong to a particular crypto blockchain.

I'd like a discussion going about creating the leanest base layer App/API/system to empower future Ethereum app makers to have a truly decentralized ID system.

kushti

Have you taken a look to the Namecoin's NameId system? https://nameid.org/

StephanTual

You can certainly find inspiration in the work done at http://www.urbit.org/

giannidalerta

@ursium Urbit is mind blowing! the future is going to be crazy! this is a bit over my head... but in my reading list. I am reading some fiction, your recommendation of Daemon, need to get my head in the clouds for bit...

FreddyFender

@ursium I remember hearing about Urbit in the fall and spent yesterday drilling down to the fun stuff. Looks like a companion to Ethereum with many features we don't need to rebuild into the protocol or DApps layer of eth blockchain. Had a scary perl regex flashback.... brrr! I think I'll continue to use http://www.urbit.org/

Lean

@giannidalerta we will need to start thinking about "universal citizens" instead of "country/region citizen" to have a Decentralized ID System implanted effectively... also, I think the Internet of Things will play a crucial role to apply this Decentralized ID System everywhere (Identity + Access)