9 ms·

Why Decentralized Identity Matters

105 points by taylorwc 11y ago

jdshutt 11y ago
Salesforce actually does use a multi-organization identity model for SalesforceIQ (formerly RelateIQ). http://www.fastcompany.com/3051088/elasticity/relateiq-salesforces-390-million-siri-for-business-grows-up http://www.fastcompany.com/3051088/elasticity/relateiq-sales...
rabbyte 11y ago
I think BlockchainID is a step in the right direction but is it even alive still? The only specification I know of is a draft that's now 9 months old and leaves the question of security up to users having a strong password. Beyond that I thought it was just proof of concepts. As someone building an identity system on Ethereum, I'd like to remain interoperable, but I don't know where I would find info unless I dig through blog posts.
- exo762 11y ago
  Project is alive. Latest update on blog [0] is only a week old. AFAIR they have moved from Namecoin to Bitcoin blockchain some time ago. [0] http://blog.onename.com/ http://blog.onename.com/
- muneeb 11y ago
  Very much alive :-) Checkout: https://github.com/blockstack https://github.com/blockstack for implementation of different software components and protocol documentation!
  - rabbyte 11y ago
    Thanks. I did not notice the repo with the wiki, tho I'm still not sure if this constitutes a spec or a user manual.
ludbb 11y ago
So, the linked BlockchainID, publicly stores all secrets in an encrypted format. Why would that be good, and even necessary for a decentralized identity? It is trying to solve key storage and public identity at the same time. How could it possibly be a good idea to store secrets publicly?
rubidium 11y ago
Most companies will, understandably, shy away from letting you take your Salesforce info with you. Closed systems are beneficial to employers. Telling companies to throw away some of their competitive advantages (e.g. distribution lists, best customers, etc...) in the name of open-source, decentralized identity is, I believe, an impossible sell.
- nickbauman 11y ago
  Agree. But what if the concept is too important to be allowed to be owned by a company? What if TCP/IP were AOL/IP? Would we even be here now? I doubt it.
  - jsprogrammer 11y ago
    See PUP [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_Universal_Packet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_Universal_Packet
- thwarted 11y ago
  While this is specifically referring to statistics in the OP: This new setup makes it possible to take something with me. Github doesn’t exploit this yet (as far as I know), but for instance, it could allow me to keep some statistics, such as how many commits did I make to code of an organization. Or in the case of Salesforce, how much did I generate in leads or revenues. it doesn't mention taking distribution lists or best customers, although nothing is really stopping you from taking those things even without distributed identity. However, distributed identity is more valuable from the standpoint of authenticating someone. It is still up to the company/organization to manage the authorization aspects of their resources, binding specific capabilities and authorizations to their employees/users authentications.
- Animats 11y ago
  "Most companies will, understandably, shy away from letting you take your Salesforce info with you. Closed systems are beneficial to employers." This is an old issue in sales. When a sales rep leaves, do they take their customers with them? It varies with the industry, and it's something that top sales people negotiate when they take a job. Since they will be bringing in customers, they insist on taking them when they leave.
andmarios 11y ago
Such a system exists for years and is called OpenID. You can use your own openid provider, or choose from an established provider —which is precisely what you do every time you login to a site with google or github for example. Alas it doesn't use bitcoin...
- nickbauman 11y ago
  OpenID has some fundamental problems that Mozilla tried to address somewhat with its Persona API, and was marginally successful until they decided to stop working on it, sadly. The fact that it doesn't use Bitcoin has almost nothing to do with OpenIDs flaws, though.
  - artlogic 11y ago
    I've heard vague mentions of OpenIDs fundamental problems, but is there a breakdown somewhere? I've had a hard time finding a detailed technical description of why OpenID failed. I do understand that it confused the hell out of users that they had to login in with a URL, but that seems like branding and education more than a technical flaw.
    - Navarr 11y ago
      I have always thought that OpenID would be wildly more successful if: 1. User puts in their email address 2. Website does a lookup on DNS for the email to find an OpenID endpoint (via SRV or TXT or whatever else) 3. If OpenID connector is found, user gets redirected to authenticate 4. If not, generic create account method.
      - artlogic 11y ago
        Exactly - that's why I say that the "enter a URL" issue seems like a minor update, not a glaring technical issue.
      - icebraining 11y ago
        I think that's essentially Persona, except they do some extra work to avoid informing the Authentication endpoint about the sites you're logging in to.
murbard2 11y ago
Identity does not require consensus, naming does. If you want to have a decentralized DNS, a blockchain might make sense. However, a global consensus on who controls what name isn't as relevant as one would think. As more and more interactions are initiated online, the SSH model of accepting the key on the first connection becomes better suited. How do I know I am connecting to my bank's website and not some phishing website? Because it presents me with a proof that it controls the identity of the website where I initially opened my account. My point is that decentralized identity does not require a blockchain. This is the result of people thinking: "hey, what can I do with a blockchain?" rather than "How do I build a decentralized identity system". The supreme irony is that Satoshi Nakamoto is the perfect proof that a secure online identity needs not depend on a central authority, or a blockchain.
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  >Because it can present a proof it controls the identity Which proof are you referring to? As far as I know, there is no way to prove that someone else doesn't have the same number as you (they may have even pilfered the number from you without your knowledge).
  - murbard2 11y ago
    A chain of signatures starting from the key you initially accepted. There's not need to prove to anyone that someone else doesn't have the same number as you, I have no idea where this is coming from.
    - jsprogrammer 11y ago
      >There's not need to prove to anyone that someone else doesn't have the same number as you, I have no idea where this is coming from. How can you trust an identity, if anyone can claim that identity? You said that you could know that you were connecting to your bank's website because it would present you with a proof that it controls a particular identity. Now, I am assuming that you mean a proof of "exclusive control", because unless something has exclusive control over an identity, there isn't really any way to know that some other entity isn't controlling the identity (which would violate your argument's conditions). I maintain that there is no proof of exclusive control, as there is no way to know you (or someone else) has exclusive knowledge of the appropriate numbers.
dcosson 11y ago
The biggest thing I see standing in the way of this vision of the future is that it seems to actively go against IT best practices that medium/big orgs have in place. For instance, the github example in the article is cool but it seems like every company over ~100 employees switches to github enterprise or a similar self-hosted tool where every employee has an isolated account and it's only accessible on the corporate network/VPN. I've looked around out of curiosity and I haven't really found any good information about building a secure IT organization while taking advantage of modern SAAS products (e.g. github, slack, circleci, docker hub, whatever else). It's basically taken as a given that if you want to be secure you'll have a corporate network in your physical office and all your important internal tools will be on that network (or an even more tightly locked down subnet). I'd love to read any resources to the contrary.
- williamcotton 11y ago
  Medium and large organizations should just run their own services that parse the blockchain and turn the data embedded in to Bitcoin transactions in to the state of names and owners. This service would read from the public network and but could itself be only accessible on the corporate network/VPN. This applies to all sorts of Bitcoin metadata protocols beyond just Blockshain ID, such as Open Assets, Blockcast, and Open Publish. All of these systems use the public key infrastructure of native Bitcoin wallets for identification and authorization so it's in the ballpark of SSH, a proven approach in corporate settings.
  - ludbb 11y ago
    There's a big gap in parsing the bitcoin blockchain vs parsing a local database. The blockchain is a public ledger so any (encrypted or not) information you store there can be retrieved by anyone. Downloading it is very slow, and parsing it in a reliable way, i.e. using bitcoind's rpc, is even slower. So you'll want to build an index from it, which you'll happen to store in a local database. So after all that you end up with a local database and public information that anyone can access. How is that useful for this purpose?
josteink 11y ago
The problem with decentralized anything is gainging traction. To gain traction, you need to explain it to people, and not just techies. And most people (even most techies) either don't get 1. why it matters or 2. what the heck it means. It's usually also offered with a loss coherent and more confusing user-experience than the centralized options. I'd love for more decentralized systems taking hold, but I'm not optimistic enough to believe in it yet.

105 points by taylorwc 11y ago

Salesforce actually does use a multi-organization identity model for SalesforceIQ (formerly RelateIQ). http://www.fastcompany.com/3051088/elasticity/relateiq-salesforces-390-million-siri-for-business-grows-up http://www.fastcompany.com/3051088/elasticity/relateiq-sales...

rabbyte 11y ago

I think BlockchainID is a step in the right direction but is it even alive still? The only specification I know of is a draft that's now 9 months old and leaves the question of security up to users having a strong password. Beyond that I thought it was just proof of concepts. As someone building an identity system on Ethereum, I'd like to remain interoperable, but I don't know where I would find info unless I dig through blog posts.

exo762 11y ago
Project is alive. Latest update on blog [0] is only a week old. AFAIR they have moved from Namecoin to Bitcoin blockchain some time ago. [0] http://blog.onename.com/ http://blog.onename.com/
muneeb 11y ago
Very much alive :-) Checkout: https://github.com/blockstack https://github.com/blockstack for implementation of different software components and protocol documentation!
- rabbyte 11y ago
  Thanks. I did not notice the repo with the wiki, tho I'm still not sure if this constitutes a spec or a user manual.

ludbb 11y ago

So, the linked BlockchainID, publicly stores all secrets in an encrypted format. Why would that be good, and even necessary for a decentralized identity? It is trying to solve key storage and public identity at the same time. How could it possibly be a good idea to store secrets publicly?

rubidium 11y ago

Most companies will, understandably, shy away from letting you take your Salesforce info with you. Closed systems are beneficial to employers. Telling companies to throw away some of their competitive advantages (e.g. distribution lists, best customers, etc...) in the name of open-source, decentralized identity is, I believe, an impossible sell.

nickbauman 11y ago
Agree. But what if the concept is too important to be allowed to be owned by a company? What if TCP/IP were AOL/IP? Would we even be here now? I doubt it.
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  See PUP [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_Universal_Packet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_Universal_Packet
thwarted 11y ago
While this is specifically referring to statistics in the OP: This new setup makes it possible to take something with me. Github doesn’t exploit this yet (as far as I know), but for instance, it could allow me to keep some statistics, such as how many commits did I make to code of an organization. Or in the case of Salesforce, how much did I generate in leads or revenues. it doesn't mention taking distribution lists or best customers, although nothing is really stopping you from taking those things even without distributed identity. However, distributed identity is more valuable from the standpoint of authenticating someone. It is still up to the company/organization to manage the authorization aspects of their resources, binding specific capabilities and authorizations to their employees/users authentications.
Animats 11y ago
"Most companies will, understandably, shy away from letting you take your Salesforce info with you. Closed systems are beneficial to employers." This is an old issue in sales. When a sales rep leaves, do they take their customers with them? It varies with the industry, and it's something that top sales people negotiate when they take a job. Since they will be bringing in customers, they insist on taking them when they leave.

andmarios 11y ago

Such a system exists for years and is called OpenID. You can use your own openid provider, or choose from an established provider —which is precisely what you do every time you login to a site with google or github for example. Alas it doesn't use bitcoin...

nickbauman 11y ago
OpenID has some fundamental problems that Mozilla tried to address somewhat with its Persona API, and was marginally successful until they decided to stop working on it, sadly. The fact that it doesn't use Bitcoin has almost nothing to do with OpenIDs flaws, though.
- artlogic 11y ago
  I've heard vague mentions of OpenIDs fundamental problems, but is there a breakdown somewhere? I've had a hard time finding a detailed technical description of why OpenID failed. I do understand that it confused the hell out of users that they had to login in with a URL, but that seems like branding and education more than a technical flaw.
  - Navarr 11y ago
    I have always thought that OpenID would be wildly more successful if: 1. User puts in their email address 2. Website does a lookup on DNS for the email to find an OpenID endpoint (via SRV or TXT or whatever else) 3. If OpenID connector is found, user gets redirected to authenticate 4. If not, generic create account method.
    - artlogic 11y ago
      Exactly - that's why I say that the "enter a URL" issue seems like a minor update, not a glaring technical issue.
    - icebraining 11y ago
      I think that's essentially Persona, except they do some extra work to avoid informing the Authentication endpoint about the sites you're logging in to.

murbard2 11y ago

Identity does not require consensus, naming does. If you want to have a decentralized DNS, a blockchain might make sense. However, a global consensus on who controls what name isn't as relevant as one would think. As more and more interactions are initiated online, the SSH model of accepting the key on the first connection becomes better suited. How do I know I am connecting to my bank's website and not some phishing website? Because it presents me with a proof that it controls the identity of the website where I initially opened my account. My point is that decentralized identity does not require a blockchain. This is the result of people thinking: "hey, what can I do with a blockchain?" rather than "How do I build a decentralized identity system". The supreme irony is that Satoshi Nakamoto is the perfect proof that a secure online identity needs not depend on a central authority, or a blockchain.

jsprogrammer 11y ago
>Because it can present a proof it controls the identity Which proof are you referring to? As far as I know, there is no way to prove that someone else doesn't have the same number as you (they may have even pilfered the number from you without your knowledge).
- murbard2 11y ago
  A chain of signatures starting from the key you initially accepted. There's not need to prove to anyone that someone else doesn't have the same number as you, I have no idea where this is coming from.
  - jsprogrammer 11y ago
    >There's not need to prove to anyone that someone else doesn't have the same number as you, I have no idea where this is coming from. How can you trust an identity, if anyone can claim that identity? You said that you could know that you were connecting to your bank's website because it would present you with a proof that it controls a particular identity. Now, I am assuming that you mean a proof of "exclusive control", because unless something has exclusive control over an identity, there isn't really any way to know that some other entity isn't controlling the identity (which would violate your argument's conditions). I maintain that there is no proof of exclusive control, as there is no way to know you (or someone else) has exclusive knowledge of the appropriate numbers.

dcosson 11y ago

The biggest thing I see standing in the way of this vision of the future is that it seems to actively go against IT best practices that medium/big orgs have in place. For instance, the github example in the article is cool but it seems like every company over ~100 employees switches to github enterprise or a similar self-hosted tool where every employee has an isolated account and it's only accessible on the corporate network/VPN. I've looked around out of curiosity and I haven't really found any good information about building a secure IT organization while taking advantage of modern SAAS products (e.g. github, slack, circleci, docker hub, whatever else). It's basically taken as a given that if you want to be secure you'll have a corporate network in your physical office and all your important internal tools will be on that network (or an even more tightly locked down subnet). I'd love to read any resources to the contrary.

williamcotton 11y ago
Medium and large organizations should just run their own services that parse the blockchain and turn the data embedded in to Bitcoin transactions in to the state of names and owners. This service would read from the public network and but could itself be only accessible on the corporate network/VPN. This applies to all sorts of Bitcoin metadata protocols beyond just Blockshain ID, such as Open Assets, Blockcast, and Open Publish. All of these systems use the public key infrastructure of native Bitcoin wallets for identification and authorization so it's in the ballpark of SSH, a proven approach in corporate settings.
- ludbb 11y ago
  There's a big gap in parsing the bitcoin blockchain vs parsing a local database. The blockchain is a public ledger so any (encrypted or not) information you store there can be retrieved by anyone. Downloading it is very slow, and parsing it in a reliable way, i.e. using bitcoind's rpc, is even slower. So you'll want to build an index from it, which you'll happen to store in a local database. So after all that you end up with a local database and public information that anyone can access. How is that useful for this purpose?

josteink 11y ago

The problem with decentralized anything is gainging traction. To gain traction, you need to explain it to people, and not just techies. And most people (even most techies) either don't get 1. why it matters or 2. what the heck it means. It's usually also offered with a loss coherent and more confusing user-experience than the centralized options. I'd love for more decentralized systems taking hold, but I'm not optimistic enough to believe in it yet.