Re: DIDs and httpRange-14

My take, as a relative outsider, is that the URI for “Alice” and the URI for “Alice’s DID Document” are two different entities that might have the same value at a given time, and often do.

A DID URI pointing to a DID document identifies that document. While a single document can have multiple DID URI pointers to it, each of those pointers creates a unique relationship to the underlying resource that is being referenced, such that from the outside world they are all effectively different resources because they have different external identifiers.

The question then becomes what does it mean for Alice to have a DID pointing to her as an entity. Alice can have multiple DID documents, multiple DID URIS. In my view, what’s really happening is that Alice is saying “if you look here you can find something about me”. The DID isn’t really pointing to her, it’s pointing to an artifact that describes her. The context will tell Alice which DID she needs to use, and by extension which document it should point to.

— Justin

On Apr 11, 2019, at 7:39 AM, Markus Sabadello <markus@danubetech.com<mailto:markus@danubetech.com>> wrote:


But wouldn't the WebID approach mean that for example we would have to write VCs like this?

{
  "id": "http://example.edu/credentials/1872"<http://example.edu/credentials/1872>,
  "type": ["VerifiableCredential"],
  "issuer": "did:btcr:xkrn-xzcr-qqlv-j6sl#me",
  "issuanceDate": "2010-01-01T19:73:24Z",
  "credentialSubject": {
    "id": "did:sov:WRfXPg8dantKVubE3HX8pw#me",
    ....
  }
}

That's not intuitive and would break existing implementations.

I think most in the group would agree that the bare DID identifies (denotes) Alice (the DID subject).

My main question on this subject has been whether or not Alice's DID Document should have its own URI / URL that is different from Alice's URI.

Markus

On 4/11/19 11:04 AM, Kjetil Kjernsmo wrote:

On onsdag 10. april 2019 17.32.34 CEST Markus Sabadello wrote:


I wouldn't call this a high priority issue, but there have been
recurring questions on whether a DID is a URL or "only" a URI, what a
DID identifies (Alice? Or Alice's DID Document?), and what it means
exactly to resolve/dereference a DID (URL).


Nice writeup! Indeed, my vote would be to take WebID's example and use hash
URIs for Alice.

Kjetil