Re: what do DIDs identify?

Hi everyone,

My simplified view is that DIDs are under the control of Agents (software
or hardware), which in turn can be attributed to, or held accountable by
Actors (Individuals, Organizations).

Things, in my view, are just a type of Agent.

If an Agent (autonomous, friendly, or otherwise) cannot be attributed or
accountable to an Actor (i.e., Principal), you have a legal, not a
technical problem on your hands.

What is missing in the entity model, is the notion of Relationship. I
believe this model can be simplified to Individuals, Organizations, and
Relationships, the details of which can be scoped out of the technical
architecture.

In the end, Agents control DIDs, for the purpose of interacting with other
Agents. Agents need to be attributable to Actors if they are to be trusted
in any manner.

Whether an Agent is autonomous, liable, or not (such as a car) is really a
question for the legal (or trust) frameworks, not necessarily addressed by
the technical architecture.

Best regards,

Tim







On Tue, 1 Jan 2019 at 20:27, Daniel Hardman <daniel.hardman@evernym.com>
wrote:

> I can agree partly. The chassis and engine of a car is not really an
> actor, and the software running a self-driving car IS. But I don't think
> that division is particularly crisp. The harder you look at it, the muddier
> it becomes. Where does software end and hardware begin, if programmable
> chips are involved? Does the software that gathers and processes signals
> from sensors deserve to be thought of as part of the actor--or only the
> part that makes decisions?
>
> But I totally diverge on your last sentence. Yes, the owners of a car are
> the ones that get sued. But that doesn't make them actors in some special
> sense different from the way software is an actor. Actors are just entities
> that make decisions. Being susceptible to lawsuit doesn't make an entity an
> actor; it gives them legal standing. Those are two quite different concepts.
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 1, 2019 at 5:59 PM Michael Herman (Parallelspace) <
> mwherman@parallelspace.net> wrote:
>
>> RE: A self-driving car is an actor; it's just one that is owned and
>> operated by another actor.
>>
>>
>>
>> This is another instance of the architectural terminology problem.  The
>> car is not an Actor.
>>
>>
>>
>> The car is a component of the Technology/Infrastructure Layer.  …that is,
>> the car is the nuts-and-bolts vehicle with its propulsion system (engines,
>> motors, fuel system etc.), suspension system (tires, maglev, etc.),
>> vision/auditory/proximity/temperature/road conditions, etc, sensors, etc,
>> etc, etc.  The car is not an Actor …at least, not technically an Actor
>> …until it hits someone, of course.
>>
>>
>>
>> The Actor in this scenario is the software agent(s) in the car as well as
>> in the vendor(s) cloud(s) that are controlling this piece of nuts-and-bolts
>> infrastructure.  IMHO ;-)
>>
>>
>>
>> When the car does hit someone, they don’t sue the car …they sure the
>> Actors …the owners of the software agent(s).
>>
>>
>>
>> Michael
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Daniel Hardman <daniel.hardman@evernym.com>
>> *Sent:* January 1, 2019 5:36 PM
>> *To:* Michael Herman (Parallelspace) <mwherman@parallelspace.net>
>> *Cc:* W3C Credentials CG (Public List) <public-credentials@w3.org>
>> *Subject:* Re: what do DIDs identify?
>>
>>
>>
>> Michael:
>>
>>
>>
>> I think what you're laying out here does describe my issue with pretty
>> good overlap. And of course you were one of the bright minds that I spent
>> time learning from in Basel...
>>
>>
>>
>> With respect to the notion that a DID is just a character string: I agree
>> with you quite strongly. However, there is an *association* between the
>> string and certain semantics, *by definition*. This association is
>> reflected in rules about how DIDs can be created. The semantic assumptions
>> are so strong sometimes that they leak into our verbiage in ways we don't
>> strictly intend. If my verbiage had such leakage, I apologize. My email was
>> about teasing out different layers of these assumptions, because I don't
>> think they're monolithic.
>>
>>
>>
>> I do disagree with one aspect of your characterization: I don't think the
>> distinction between Actor and Thing is tenable. CF the entity hierarchy in
>> Sovrin's V1 Trust Framework; it's described here:
>> https://github.com/hyperledger/indy-hipe/tree/master/text/0014-ssi-notation#entities.
>> The key insight is that what distinguishes People and Organizations from
>> Things is not whether they are capable of action (including independent
>> action, even)--but whether they are the sort of thing that can be held
>> legally responsible for its actions.
>>
>>
>>
>> A self-driving car is an actor; it's just one that is owned and operated
>> by another actor. You could imagine an AI released into the wild with no
>> controller (e.g., I instruct an AI to rotate its keys so I can never wrest
>> control back); it would still be a thing, but it would also be an actor.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 1, 2019 at 5:25 PM Michael Herman (Parallelspace) <
>> mwherman@parallelspace.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>    1. RE: Such an identifier could be called an "uncontrolled DID", for
>>    example. And DIDs that make the strong assumption about control could be
>>    called "DIDs" for short, or "controlled DIDs" when clarity is needed. Or we
>>    could pick other adjective pairs.
>>
>>
>>
>> This statement implies that a DID is a “something” …that is, a ID is
>> something that is controlled/uncontrolled …it’s not  …it’s just a
>> character-string identifier.  I think the referenced statement is trying to
>> project high-level behaviour onto what is essentially a character-string
>> behaviour.  It’s similar to the remarks I heard over and over again in
>> Basel: e.g. “A DID can have a publicKey”.  It simply can’t …it’s only a
>> character string.  Ditto for any higher-level adjectives/behaviours.
>>
>>
>>
>> Scan
>> https://hyperonomy.com/2018/12/21/decentralized-identifiers-dids-architecture-reference-model-arm/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>    1. RE: Or we could say that "DID" should only be used for the form of
>>    identifier that has strong control semantics, and that whatever the other
>>    thing is, it shouldn't be a "DID".
>>
>>
>>
>> See above.  A DID is only a character-string identifier.
>>
>>
>>
>> @Daniel: The root problem is an architectural terminology problem:
>> People insist on projecting all of the different layers of architectural
>> functionality onto this poor character string. …it’s not fair :-)
>>
>>
>>
>> Scan
>> https://hyperonomy.com/2018/12/21/decentralized-identifiers-dids-architecture-reference-model-arm/
>>
>>
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Michael Herman (Toronto/Calgary/Seattle)
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Daniel Hardman <daniel.hardman@evernym.com>
>> *Sent:* January 1, 2019 4:39 PM
>> *To:* W3C Credentials CG (Public List) <public-credentials@w3.org>
>> *Subject:* what do DIDs identify?
>>
>>
>>
>> At the recent Hyperledger Global Forum in Switzerland, I had some
>> discussions about the semantics of DIDs, and I feel like I observed a deep
>> divide in community understanding about their intent. This causes periodic
>> surprises and frustrations, including some that came up on the recent
>> thread with subject "Ideas about DID explanation."
>>
>>
>>
>> I'm going to try to contrast two divergent mental models. In reality they
>> may not be so far apart. But I think until we see their divergence clearly,
>> we may continue to experience mental friction when we least expect it.
>>
>>
>>
>> *1. DIDs are inherently about SSI*
>>
>> An inconsistently articulated but very strong assumption in this
>> worldview is that a DID is an identifier *controlled for the purpose of
>> interaction*. People, organizations, and IoT things can be behind the
>> identifier because they are the sorts of entities for which interaction is
>> imaginable-- but notice the "IoT" qualifier on "things": inert things
>> cannot be DID referents. This worldview is nicely articulated by various
>> statements in the the DID Primer and the DID Spec, such as this one: "The
>> purpose of the DID document is to describe the public keys, authentication
>> protocols, and service endpoints necessary to bootstrap
>> cryptographically-verifiable interactions with the identified entity."
>>
>>
>>
>> *2. DIDs are inherently about decentralization, and SSI is just one use
>> case*
>>
>> Proponents of this worldview might point to the name ("DID" =
>> "Decentralized Identifier", not "SSI Identfier" or "Controlled Identifier")
>> and say, "Of course we need decentralization for SSI. But we need it for
>> other reasons, too. We should be using DIDs for lots of other stuff."
>>
>>
>>
>> What other stuff? Well, the use cases I heard in Switzerland are pretty
>> similar to the ones I would give for uuids: "I want a DID for every
>> asteroid NASA discovers" or "I want a DID for {Mount Everest | each species
>> that biologists add to the Linnaean taxonomy | each database record | flows
>> in my ERP system | etc}". What makes these different from the classic DID
>> use cases is that the identified item is not *imagined to interact in
>> the ways that we expect as we usually describe DID Docs.* You don't set
>> up a cryptographically secure channel over which you interact with an
>> asteroid.
>>
>>
>>
>> In conversations where this alternate viewpoint surfaces, I commonly hear
>> two reactions:
>>
>>
>>
>> Reaction A: That's not a DID use case. Use UUIDs.
>>
>> Reaction B: That's a perfect DID use case. An asteroid can have an agent
>> to facilitate digital interactions, can't it? And won't you need to talk to
>> it (e.g., to ask its current position or to request permission to land)?
>>
>>
>>
>> I believe neither of these reactions stands up under careful analysis,
>> and that's why I think the topic I'm raising here is worthy of such a long
>> email.
>>
>>
>>
>> Here's what I think Reaction A misses: Although UUIDs are createable by
>> anyone without central coordination, they are not *resolvable*. One of
>> the wonderful properties of DIDs is that they have a defined resolution
>> mechanism that is more decentralized than DNS, *without* requiring
>> invisible and untrackable contextual assumptions. UUIDs lack this; you have
>> to know to go look them up in a particular database. When people say they
>> want a DID for asteroids, they don't just want UUID uniqueness and lack of
>> centralized registration; they *also* want DID's resolution properties. But
>> what they want to resolve isn't information about *control*, it's
>> information about the inert object in question -- when it was first
>> discovered, where someone can find out more, how it can be looked up on
>> wikipedia, or dozens of other properties. (Aside: some may want another DID
>> property as well, which is cryptographically enforced global uniqueness.
>> UUIDs lack this property for sure. Some DID methods may lack it as well,
>> which has been a subject of frustration on earlier threads in this group....)
>>
>>
>>
>> This brings us to Reaction B. Proponents of this reaction would say, "You
>> should just talk to the agent for the asteroid. No new mental model
>> needed." But let me ask you how you think China would like it if Tibet or
>> India registered an agent for Mount Everest. And what gives NASA or the
>> European Space Agency the right to register (control) a DID for an asteroid
>> that an astronomer in South Africa first observed? In other words, I think
>> Reaction B's fatal flaw is that it thinks *control* is an appropriate
>> mental model for all objects. It's not. Nobody *controls* a new species
>> of mushroom that gets discovered. And nobody interacts with its agent,
>> either. The common characteristic of asteroids, Mount Everest, biological
>> species in a taxonomy, and other objects of this type is that they are *shared
>> concepts controlled by nobody*. There must be one identifier for them,
>> known to all--and *that identifier should have no controller*. Modeling
>> them with a controller is fundamentally incorrect.
>>
>>
>>
>> This makes me wonder if we need to be able to talk about an identifier
>> that has the decentralized and resolvable properties of DIDs, and the
>> pluggable methods--but that doesn't make the strong assumption that behind
>> every DID is a control- and interaction-oriented DID Doc. Instead, it might
>> make a lighter assumption that the DID Doc lets you discover how to learn
>> more about an inert object.
>>
>>
>>
>> Such an identifier could be called an "uncontrolled DID", for example.
>> And DIDs that make the strong assumption about control could be called
>> "DIDs" for short, or "controlled DIDs" when clarity is needed. Or we could
>> pick other adjective pairs.
>>
>>
>>
>> Or we could say that "DID" should only be used for the form of identifier
>> that has strong control semantics, and that whatever the other thing is, it
>> shouldn't be a "DID". But if we do this, we need to somehow leverage all
>> the work we've done on DID methods and specs and documentation and
>> implementation, without reinventing the wheel.
>>
>>
>>
>> How would you resolve this dissonance?
>>
>>

-- 
Find me at: http://about.me/tim.bouma