4 ms·

This is increasingly important because I've observed the "pull back" in hype has allowed a new breed of charlatans to pretend there is ever more legitimacy to t

This is increasingly important because I've observed the "pull back" in hype has allowed a new breed of charlatans to pretend there is ever more legitimacy to this whole scam. Notably, Big 4 consulting firms have been embracing various Web3 stuff obviously without understanding it, but smelling that there is money to be made. So now legitimate businesses somehow get caught up on this scam based on some business translator misunderstanding of what it is, and have to double down on pretending it's legit. The whole thing needs a big bucket of cold water thrown on it

jiggawatts 4y ago
An example of this is Azure jumping on board the Distributed Identity (DID) bandwagon. The only reason DID exists is to push crypto. Nobody wants their identity to be put on a public ledger. That's has identity theft built-in as a "feature"!
- djbusby 4y ago
  DID is for global-object-identity not identification of individual natural human persons.
  - jiggawatts 4y ago
    I feel like you're talking about something totally unrelated with the same acronym. DID is absolutely, first-and-foremost, about individual personal identity. One of the use-cases listed is that it could be used as a replacement for ID cards such as drivers licenses, passports, etc...
    - djbusby 4y ago
      I'm talking about https://www.w3.org/TR/did-core/ https://www.w3.org/TR/did-core/ "A DID refers to any subject (e.g., a person, organization, thing, data model, abstract entity, etc.) as determined by the controller of the DID." So, is for anything (where persons are in the set of anything)
      - jiggawatts 4y ago
        The first item in that list is "a person".
- lioeters 4y ago
  It's the first I've heard of it, but apparently DID (W3C Decentralized Identifiers) is an underlying standard that's separate from what Microsoft is building on top of it. > 2. Trust System. In order to be able to resolve DID documents, DIDs are typically recorded on an underlying network of some kind that represents a trust system. Microsoft currently supports two trust systems, which are: > - ION (Identity Overlay Network) ION is a Layer 2 open, permissionless network based on the purely deterministic Sidetree protocol, which requires no special tokens, trusted validators, or other consensus mechanisms; the linear progression of Bitcoin's time chain is all that's required for its operation. We have open sourced an npm package to make working with the ION network easy to integrate into your apps and services. Libraries include creating a new DID, generating keys and anchoring your DID on the Bitcoin blockchain. > - DID:Web is a permission based model that allows trust using a web domain’s existing reputation. Introduction to Microsoft Entra Verified ID - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/verifiable-credentials/decentralized-identifier-overview#why-we-need-decentralized-identity https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/ver...
  - jiggawatts 4y ago
    If you read through the DID/ION, etc... standards, you'll quickly notice the Blockchain / crypto pedigree once you start looking for the keywords. "Trustless", "decentralized", "ledger", etc... all make a regular appearance. > Introduction to Microsoft Entra Verified ID In a similar discussion I tried to politely make the point that despite over two decades of "identity" experience under my belt, I have literally no clue what any of this technical gibberish is trying to solve (other than making crypto a mainstream thing). I've read the entire Entra document. I've read most of the backing standards papers, like ION. It's wall-to-wall gibberish. I won't go through the criticism in detail, but let's just look at the the practical example shown in this section: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/verifiable-credentials/decentralized-identifier-overview#a-sample-scenario https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/ver... What. The. Eff? Why would anyone solve this problem with blockchain!? Or "distributed" anything? This is a Solved Problem with vastly simpler and more direct (not distributed) solutions. For example, similar discounts are offered to students and education staff by various shops. They simply ask students to sign up with an email that has an ".edu" or similar suffix. For this specific example, the shop could simply use any identifier that is PKI-signed by the employer! A simple 2D barcode would do, shown via a simple phone app. Literally just a public key and a barcode. No ledgers, IPFS, wallets, distributed this, trustless that. A printout on dead trees would suffice. This all feels like boiling the ocean to make a crypto pot of tea.

jiggawatts 4y ago

An example of this is Azure jumping on board the Distributed Identity (DID) bandwagon. The only reason DID exists is to push crypto. Nobody wants their identity to be put on a public ledger. That's has identity theft built-in as a "feature"!

djbusby 4y ago
DID is for global-object-identity not identification of individual natural human persons.
- jiggawatts 4y ago
  I feel like you're talking about something totally unrelated with the same acronym. DID is absolutely, first-and-foremost, about individual personal identity. One of the use-cases listed is that it could be used as a replacement for ID cards such as drivers licenses, passports, etc...
  - djbusby 4y ago
    I'm talking about https://www.w3.org/TR/did-core/ https://www.w3.org/TR/did-core/ "A DID refers to any subject (e.g., a person, organization, thing, data model, abstract entity, etc.) as determined by the controller of the DID." So, is for anything (where persons are in the set of anything)
    - jiggawatts 4y ago
      The first item in that list is "a person".
lioeters 4y ago
It's the first I've heard of it, but apparently DID (W3C Decentralized Identifiers) is an underlying standard that's separate from what Microsoft is building on top of it. > 2. Trust System. In order to be able to resolve DID documents, DIDs are typically recorded on an underlying network of some kind that represents a trust system. Microsoft currently supports two trust systems, which are: > - ION (Identity Overlay Network) ION is a Layer 2 open, permissionless network based on the purely deterministic Sidetree protocol, which requires no special tokens, trusted validators, or other consensus mechanisms; the linear progression of Bitcoin's time chain is all that's required for its operation. We have open sourced an npm package to make working with the ION network easy to integrate into your apps and services. Libraries include creating a new DID, generating keys and anchoring your DID on the Bitcoin blockchain. > - DID:Web is a permission based model that allows trust using a web domain’s existing reputation. Introduction to Microsoft Entra Verified ID - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/verifiable-credentials/decentralized-identifier-overview#why-we-need-decentralized-identity https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/ver...
- jiggawatts 4y ago
  If you read through the DID/ION, etc... standards, you'll quickly notice the Blockchain / crypto pedigree once you start looking for the keywords. "Trustless", "decentralized", "ledger", etc... all make a regular appearance. > Introduction to Microsoft Entra Verified ID In a similar discussion I tried to politely make the point that despite over two decades of "identity" experience under my belt, I have literally no clue what any of this technical gibberish is trying to solve (other than making crypto a mainstream thing). I've read the entire Entra document. I've read most of the backing standards papers, like ION. It's wall-to-wall gibberish. I won't go through the criticism in detail, but let's just look at the the practical example shown in this section: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/verifiable-credentials/decentralized-identifier-overview#a-sample-scenario https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/ver... What. The. Eff? Why would anyone solve this problem with blockchain!? Or "distributed" anything? This is a Solved Problem with vastly simpler and more direct (not distributed) solutions. For example, similar discounts are offered to students and education staff by various shops. They simply ask students to sign up with an email that has an ".edu" or similar suffix. For this specific example, the shop could simply use any identifier that is PKI-signed by the employer! A simple 2D barcode would do, shown via a simple phone app. Literally just a public key and a barcode. No ledgers, IPFS, wallets, distributed this, trustless that. A printout on dead trees would suffice. This all feels like boiling the ocean to make a crypto pot of tea.