Re: Trust in Issuers (was: Materials from 2019-04-11 combined DID Spec and DID Resolution Spec meeting)

Carlos,

The problem is not that issuers must be trusted (they must). The problem
with the business model is that it is predatory. It allows the worst abuses
of surveillance capitalism to continue, under the guise of self-sovereign
identity.
As I see it, once a credential has been issued it is not the issuer's
business how I use that credential. Let's say I have been issued a
credential asserting my national citizenship (such as a passport), then use
my credential to prove my address so that I can join a local gardening
club. Is it the passport issuer's business that I like gardening? Let's say
my bank issues me a credential asserting my account information, then I
use that credential to set up automatic donations to my church. Is it the
bank's business which church I attend?
A credential revocation scheme that requires the issuer be contacted in
order to verify the current revocation status of the credential allows the
issuer to track every use of that credential.
Revocation schemes such as Sovrin's do not require the issuer to be
contacted to check the revocation status of the credential. They also do
not require public revocation lists. They allow for proofs on
non-revocation that reveal nothing other than whether a credential has been
revoked.

On Sun, May 5, 2019 at 8:35 PM Carlos Bruguera <carlos@selfkey.org> wrote:

> Why is it a problem that credential issuers establish business models such
> as the one described? In what manner does it threat self sovereign
> identity? In the end, trusting the issuers is *always* required as far as
> I know, and DIDs still allow for other types of credentials not requiring
> to rely on these issures... Perhaps I don't fully understand the example.
> In what manner do revocation schemes (such as Sovrin's) disallow such use
> cases? Also, shouldn't the credential issuers always be able to set
> arbitrarily long (or perhaps even null) expiration times?
>
> Regards,
> Carlos
>
> On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 4:43 PM Daniel Hardman <daniel.hardman@evernym.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Agreed.
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 1:58 AM David Chadwick <D.W.Chadwick@kent.ac.uk>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> But this does not stop others from using the back door! The back door
>>> should be bricked up.
>>>
>>> On 16/04/2019 18:52, Daniel Hardman wrote:
>>> > Right. This is why Sovrin went down the road of testing revocation with
>>> > a cryptographic accumulator instead of a conversation back to the
>>> issuer.
>>> >
>>> > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:49 AM David Chadwick <
>>> D.W.Chadwick@kent.ac.uk
>>> > <mailto:D.W.Chadwick@kent.ac.uk>> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >     The current FIM
>>> >     model places the IdP at the centre of the ecosystem, which is
>>> ideal for
>>> >     Google tracking users and capturing data. VCs do not do this.
>>> >
>>> >     However, the current VC data model gives Google a back door for
>>> this as
>>> >     follows:
>>> >
>>>
>>