Re: Blockchain Standardization (was Re: PR for playground)

We're using WebFinger to dereference an email address into a URI for either
a DID or an UMA Authorization Server. Either one could be self-sovereign.

Not sure it's a good solution, but it's all we've got.

Adrian

On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 9:34 PM Mountie Lee <mountie@paygate.net> wrote:

> I think we need to collect existing references
> - Web Payments Payment Method Identifiers (
> https://www.w3.org/TR/payment-method-id/ )
> - Email Identifiers ( https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5322#section-3.4.1 )
> - Docker Image Identifiers [registry_hostname[:port]/][user_name/](
> repository_name[:version_tag] | image_id )
>
> and have to set some policies to get consensus (followings are my
> suggestion)
> - decouple the id from domain or specific protocol (like HTTP)
> - human readable and writable
> - no central repository
>
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 8:18 AM, Adrian Hope-Bailie <adrian@hopebailie.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2 April 2017 at 12:24, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2 April 2017 at 20:29, Adrian Hope-Bailie <adrian@hopebailie.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> On 2 April 2017 at 04:19, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2 April 2017 at 04:19, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com> wrote:
>
> bcc: Credentials CG
> cc: Blockchain CG
>
> Migrating this thread to the Blockchain CG mailing list as it's become
> more blockchain-y, than web payments-y or verifiable claim-y.
>
> For those that didn't see the start of this thread, it is here:
>
> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-credentials/2017Mar/0023.html
>
> On 03/31/2017 11:25 PM, Adrian Hope-Bailie wrote:
>
> I am interested to hear from those of you involved what the goals of
> these [Blockchain Standardization] initiatives are?
>
>
> I think the goals are different between the standards bodies, and
> personally, I find it very difficult to track everything going on at the
> moment as things are still very dynamic.
>
>
> So it's not just me!
>
>
>
> What are you trying to standardize?
>
>
> I've heard at least these answers to that question:
>
> * governance for each blockchain
> * decentralized identifiers
>
>
> I think we have to standardize decentralized identifiers, as everything
> else is built on that.
>
> +1
>
> I feel like a lot of the technical standardization work is riding the
> blockchain hype. It's big "S" standardization just for the sake of
> standards bodies not wanting to miss the boat.
>
> Somebody please tell me what an ISO technical committee is going to
> standardize wrt DLT and Blockchain. The ISO process is way too slow to be
> effective in such a fast developing area.
>
> IMO technical standardization it will be ineffective until it has a
> focused use case (like DIDs). Part of the reason Interledger has been
> successful is that it's not trying to standardize something broad like DLT
> it's focused on value transfer.
>
>
>
> We've been stuck on this topic for 10 years as everyone has their pet
> favorite identity system.
>
> What is needed is a system that will interoperate, and we should
> aggressively throw out identity systems on the criteria that cant be shown
> to interoperate (which is most of them!) or have significant traction.
>
> The main problem I see is that people are fascinated by overloading
> identifiers to do two (or three) different things.  This is wrong.
> Identifiers should be opaque.  The reason being that different people will
> overload in different ways, and that leads to failure to interoperate, and
> balkanization.
>
>
> Actually I think the problem is interoperability in the various protocols
> used to resolve and discover addresses and services from an identifier/name.
>
> And crucially, the need for identifiers to be useful and accessible to
> humans.
>
>
> Typically a human will never see their URI.  Inquisitive developer types
> might dive into that, but not regular users.
>
> Tied to those URIs will be human readable labels, such as firstame
> lastname (e.g. facebook) or email address (eg google), but neither of these
> will be your unique URI, they will be artifacts of UI.  There is a trap
> that is easy to fall into, which is to conflate the operation of the UI (ie
> what a user types in), with the universal identifier used to create a
> social graph.  This is a key limitation of web 2.0 systems such as OpenID.
>
>
> When I want to register on a new system it asks me to type in my
> identifier.
> I don't want to type in a URI.
>
> That is the usability problem that must be solved.
>
> If my identifier is mailto:adrian@hopebailie.com or tel:+12345678 then
> what do I type into the box labelled identifier?
>
> If the only use for the identifier was as a universal identifier for a
> social graph then everyone would use http URIs and the problem would be
> solved.
>
>
>
> Each type of URI will have ability to lookup more information about a
> user.  In HTTP this is well standardized with linked data.  Other systems
> will need to popularize lookup systems, and grow a network effect around
> that.  This is normally a lengthy process (years or decades).  HTTP URIs on
> the other hand have the advantage of a large network, and well defined
> lookup systems that are the most widely deployed on the planet.  So having
> a good strategy for this kind of identifier will be critical.  That's not
> to say that HTTP URIs are the only game in town, other types will gain
> traction over time and they should all be able to play nicely together so
> longs as specifications allow that to happen.
>
> I think for newer protocols it would be an advantage to standardize ways
> to map them to HTTP URIs too.  This is sometimes done with the "well-known"
> pattern.  One type I've been interested lately in, is ipfs which seem to
> have a nice eco system for working with hashed content.
>
> Perhaps it's going to be possible to align ipfs and did identifiers for
> the domain (decentralized) independent paradigm.  IPFS want to also
> implement Linked Data so that could help interop.
>
>
>
>
>
> The most logical thing to do is to start by saying standardization of
> identities MUST be URIs.
>
> Then look at ecosystems within each URI scheme:
>
> For example
>
> http URIs have a perfectly good spec that is widely deployed called
> WebID.  Alternatives in the http world can be proposed, but let's be ready
> to standardize what makes sense.  I would recommend labeling any identity
> system that relies on http 303 redirects as an anti pattern, as experience
> has shown they are a nightmare to deal with, and also they mix the data
> layer with the transport layer.
>
> bitcoin seems to have significant traction as a uri scheme and fits into
> the anyURI category
>
> I think enough work has been done on DID URIs to merit further
> investigation
>
> Of course mailto: and tel: URI schemes exist.
>
>
> This is a nice start but then there needs to be a standard discovery
> protocol per scheme.
>
>
> Yes.  Well, only if you're going to use that scheme.  If you use HTTP URIs
> the problem goes away.  A better question might be why you would want to
> use something else?
>
>
> Because I want something more usable (telephone number, email address,
> national id number) or I don't want to use the Web as my backing DB. I want
> to use a DLT for example.
>
>
>
>
>
> We have a standard encoding for a Universal Resource Identifier and this
> has an allowance for a scheme so that we can define a different Universal
> Resource Discovery Protocol per scheme.
>
> We have at least one already: HTTP
>
> Assuming you have this, the final piece is a standard representation of a
> resource. i.e. If you give me a URI that you say identifies a person then
> when I use the appropriate discovery protocol for that URI scheme I should
> get back a resource I know how to interpret.
>
> (We're changing topic here again)
>
>
> I dont think this is too far off topic.  The purpose of a URI is to create
> connections in a network.
>
>
> No, it is to identify resources. The purpose of a URL is perhaps closer to
> what you describe.
>
>
> The natural next step is, tying key value pairs to those URIs allow user
> facing technology to hide the complexity from the user and create web scale
> systems.  The sanest way to represent those key value pairs is the existing
> standard of Linked Data, choosing your preferred serializations (from
> experience I highly recommend turtle for advanced users).
>
>
> Actually I still think the next step is standardizing on a discovery and
> location protocol for each scheme otherwise we are stuck with HTTP only.
>
> Once we have a way to go from identifier to resource we can standardize
> the resource representation.
>
>
>
>
> Another option would be to create a proprietary representation, and try to
> popularize that through standardization.  I'd recommend against going down
> this route, as Linked Data is starting to gain decent traction.
>
>
>
>
>
> Perhaps we should start a wiki page on identity, and lay out the
> guidelines to achieve standardization.  This is the building block for
> everything we do.
>
>
> * interledger transactions
> * interledger linking
> * standardization around Bitcoin/Ethereum
> * smart contracts
> * blockchain data models
> * HTTP APIs
>
> So, there is technical standardization and political governance. Our
> organization is most interested in the technical standardization, but I
> struggle to see any initiative that has drawn more than a handful of
> blockchain organizations to the table. Interledger seems to be the most
> far along. I think we're making progress for cross-chain decentralized
> identifiers (DIDs). The Linked Data Decentralized Ledger stuff is new,
> but I'm speaking at a workshop on the topic day after tomorrow in Perth,
> Australia and will have a better idea on what the industry is thinking
> wrt. traction at that point (I don't expect much traction at present).
>
>
> As I said above I don't see "blockchain" or "DLT" standardization
> happening soon. The industry is still figuring out the details and while
> there is still a feeling that there may be undiscovered opportunities
> around the next corner the prominent players are not going to fall over
> themselves to collaborate on a standard.
>
> And, for many in the industry the belief that a DLT provides
> interoperability is still widely held.
>
> Interledger is not a blockchain standardization effort. The amazing
> developments around value recording ledgers (like Bitcoin, Ripple,
> Ethereum) have provided the diversity of use cases to inspire a standard.
>
> In reality Interledger could have been developed to just work between
> traditional private ledgers but the desire to make it interoperate with
> public DLTs has been a key influence on the work.
>
>
> So Adrian, to give you a data point... I can't see anything clearly yet,
> but I know that we're going to be seeing more and more proposals for
> standardization over the next year and we'll see how those resonate with
> the community. I'm skeptical that we can do big "S" standardization and
> should instead be seeking little "s" standardization. I think things
> like Interledger, Chainpoint, decentralized identifiers, data models,
> and HTTP APIs are all we could suggest standardization proposals for at
> this point in time... and even then, they'll be rough for another year
> or three before we start to see some momentum. Just my $0.02.
>
>
> Thanks Manu. With all this talk of standardization I worried that there
> was something I was missing. But it seems we're all in the same boat.
> Waiting to see where the tide takes this thing...
>
>
>
> Adam, are you in Perth for WWW2017? Pindar and I will be there tomorrow
> along with Tim and a few other blockchain folks. Perhaps we could sit
> down and have a chat about what we see as reasonable things to pursue in
> the next year or two?
>
> -- manu
>
> --
> Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
> blog: Rebalancing How the Web is Built
> http://manu.sporny.org/2016/rebalancing/
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Mountie Lee
>
> PayGate -- Payment & Money Remittance Service
>
> Tel : +82 2 2140 2700
> E-Mail : mountie@paygate.net
>
> --

Adrian Gropper MD

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