Re: Question: WebAuthn announcement -- relation to DIDs?

On 2018-04-13 9:21 AM, Adam Powers wrote:
> My understanding* is that pairwise DIDs is a feature of Sovrin, but 
> potentially not a feature of other systems. If it does turn out that 
> "all DIDs are pairwise" is a valid assumption, the "origin issue" may 
> be a non-issue.
> 
> * - I'm new to DID and looking for education. This is largely me 
> repeating from what I've heard about people that are more educated 
> about DID.

IMO your first understanding is right that other DID Methods than 
Sovrin's can be set up differently, and so I don't think "all DIDs are 
pairwise" is a valid assumption. I get this from the active spec 
section on DID Documents, section 4 of:

https://w3c-ccg.github.io/did-spec/

There Section 4.6 describes "service endpoints" as only one possible 
function of the DID Document, which can exist on its own to specify 
the existence of an entity -- thing, person, company -- without tying 
it to a specific service.

Steven Rowat


> 
> 
> 
> On April 13, 2018 at 9:13:21 AM, Stephen Curran 
> (swcurran@cloudcompass.ca <mailto:swcurran@cloudcompass.ca>) wrote:
> 
>> This is really encouraging to see, and from what I can tell would be 
>> huge if/when WebAuthn and DIDs can be combined.
>>
>> I'm confused on the origin issue as you frame it. I believe that 
>> most DID implementations plan to use pairwise DIDs between an entity 
>> (person, organization, etc.) and a service.  So a user logging in 
>> would have a DID per service, and would not (as you show in your 
>> slides) be selecting which existing DID to use, but would use the 
>> one specifically created for this relationship.
>>
>> Is the origin issue different from that?  Or better, has someone 
>> with sufficient knowledge of both documented somewhere the nature of 
>> the DID-WebAuthn gap?
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 11:17 PM, Adam Powers <adam@fidoalliance.org 
>> <mailto:adam@fidoalliance.org>> wrote:
>>
>>     Great point, here are the links from my presentation (there were
>>     a couple other presentations as well):
>>     https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1LyYp_SZpqboIPfUa1lo9zKtNv9SIv-5I?usp=sharing
>>     <https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1LyYp_SZpqboIPfUa1lo9zKtNv9SIv-5I?usp=sharing>
>>
>>     I think the only real problem we encountered was that (by
>>     design) WebAuthn uses "origin" to bind authentication to a
>>     specific service. It's a solvable problem, it will just take
>>     some conversation to figure out the pros and cons of some of the
>>     solutions that were mentioned. At the very least, it's
>>     implementable / demo-able now but the same DID can't be used
>>     across multiple sites until the origin issue gets solved.
>>
>>     On April 12, 2018 at 10:19:06 AM, Andrew Hughes
>>     (andrewhughes3000@gmail.com <mailto:andrewhughes3000@gmail.com>)
>>     wrote:
>>
>>>     At the Internet Identity Workshop (IIW) last week in Mountain
>>>     View, there were some sessions discussing exactly this topic -
>>>     how should WebAuthn and Verifiable Credentials and Credentials
>>>     Community Group work together - leaders from each of the
>>>     efforts were in attendance.
>>>
>>>     andrew.
>>>
>>>     *Andrew Hughes *CISM CISSP
>>>     *In Turn Information Management Consulting*
>>>
>>>     o  +1 650.209.7542
>>>     m +1 250.888.9474
>>>     1249 Palmer Road, Victoria, BC V8P 2H8
>>>     AndrewHughes3000@gmail.com <mailto:AndrewHughes3000@gmail.com>
>>>     ca.linkedin.com/pub/andrew-hughes/a/58/682/
>>>     <http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/andrew-hughes/a/58/682/>
>>>     *Identity Management | IT Governance | Information Security *
>>>
>>>
>>>     On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 10:08 AM, Adam Powers
>>>     <adam@fidoalliance.org <mailto:adam@fidoalliance.org>> wrote:
>>>
>>>         The quickest summary: WebAuthn is a way of generating
>>>         public key pairs, storing a public key on a server and the
>>>         private key in an "authenticator", and later using that key
>>>         pair for authentication to a service.
>>>
>>>         Insofar as DID is storing a public key in a DID document,
>>>         that public key can be generated by WebAuthn and stored by
>>>         DID. The most obvious overlap between DID and WebAuthn
>>>         would be using WebAuthn as the mechanism for DIDAuth --
>>>         although there is still some work that needs to happen
>>>         there to define and align the specs. In my perspective,
>>>         they should be complimentary and not competitive.
>>>
>>>         I hope that helps.
>>>
>>>         Adam Powers,
>>>         Technical Director, FIDO Alliance
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>         On April 12, 2018 at 9:24:03 AM, Steven Rowat
>>>         (steven_rowat@sunshine.net
>>>         <mailto:steven_rowat@sunshine.net>) wrote:
>>>
>>>>         Greetings,
>>>>
>>>>         The Guardian yesterday had a story of what appears to be a
>>>>         major
>>>>         announcement about how WebAuthn will replace passwords:
>>>>
>>>>         https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/11/passwords-webauthn-new-web-standard-designed-replace-login-method
>>>>         <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/11/passwords-webauthn-new-web-standard-designed-replace-login-method>
>>>>
>>>>         This included a quote showing that this is a W3C project:
>>>>
>>>>         “WebAuthn will change the way that people access the Web,”
>>>>         said Jeff
>>>>         Jaffe, chief executive of the World Wide Web Consortium
>>>>         (W3C), the
>>>>         body that controls web standards."
>>>>
>>>>         And after looking at the recent API spec itself, I see
>>>>         that it's a
>>>>         FIDO project, and so supported by Google, Microsoft,
>>>>         Paypal, and also
>>>>         Mozilla:
>>>>
>>>>         http://www.w3.org/TR/2018/CR-webauthn-20180320/
>>>>         <http://www.w3.org/TR/2018/CR-webauthn-20180320/>
>>>>
>>>>         My Question:
>>>>
>>>>         Is there any expected or known relationship between
>>>>         WebAuthn and the
>>>>         use of DIDs? ie., Can WebAuthn be used with DIDs? Will the
>>>>         uptake of
>>>>         WebAuthn preclude or inhibit the use of DIDs?
>>>>
>>>>         ie., Are DID Docs and WebAuthn in competition, or are they
>>>>         complementary?
>>>>
>>>>         Steven
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Stephen Curran
>> Cloud Compass Computing, Inc. (C3I)
>>
>> /Cell: (250) 857-1096/
>>

Received on Friday, 13 April 2018 17:03:48 UTC