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

On 5 April 2017 at 13:56, Lemieux, Victoria <v.lemieux@ubc.ca> wrote:

> Hello All, I attended the ISO meetings today, and the group passed a
> series of resolutions that provide the scope of the work that they will
> begin.  As soon as the draft resolution is posted to the TC 307 site, I’ll
> circulate it to you. At this point the focus is on getting started on
> terminology, as well as on a series of study groups that will focus on
> reference architectures, taxonomies and ontologies; security and privacy;
> identity; governance, use cases; and smart contracts, among other things.
> The goal of these study groups will be to determine what work the committee
> should undertake in each of these areas.
>
> Nick Lee will lead the study group on Identity.
>
> So, in other words, it’s very early days yet, and it will likely be
> several months before there is greater clarity on exactly what the
> committee will work on as formal work packages.
>
> I hope that this information provides some clarity on what has been
> happening within the ISO.
>

That's great news.

Could I ask you to pass on the work authored by Tim Berners-Lee and others
on Web Identity (WebID)

https://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/webid/spec/identity/

If part of your identity strategy includes http URIs (and it should!).
While not yet formally a W3C REC, it is imho the outstanding work in this
space.  It is also widely deployed with over a billion profiles across
numerous sites.  It is also extensible to work with other types of
identifier that are not http, like email, phone, public key etc.


>
> Best wishes,
> Victoria
>
> On Apr 4, 2017, at 5:18 PM, Adrian Hope-Bailie <adrian@hopebailie.com>
> wrote:
>
> Hi Greg,
>
> I have read as much as I could find publicly on the ISO work in this space
> but I am still unclear on what the deliverables of such a group would be.
>
> What is the group aiming to standardize and why?
>
> Adrian
>
> On 3 April 2017 at 19:35, Greg Adamson <greg.adamson.engineer@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Adrian,
>>
>> On ISO, I will let you know once the TC307 meeting finishes in Sydney in
>> a couple of days. I take your point that ISO moves slowly. But I think it
>> is important to see they come up with the best possible result (which may
>> be or include endorsement of what others have done). One problem in the ISO
>> process at the moment is that the self-selected global group group of
>> participating national standards organisations doesn't include India or any
>> African country. I am working to rectify that if possible.
>>
>> Regards, Greg
>> Dr Greg Adamson
>> Principal, Digital Risk Innovation
>> Chair, IEEE Design for Ethics Ad Hoc
>> +61 423 783 527 <+61%20423%20783%20527>
>>
>> On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 4:29 AM, 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/2017
>>>>> Mar/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.
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> 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.
>>>
>>> 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)
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> 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/
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
>