Re: Different Verifiable Credential protocols? (was: Re: Please vote to approve/disapprove the new charter)

As a sideline watcher of the CCG, but a main user of the currently developed standards (as a large system ingegrator), I have to side with the general view that Daniel is presenting.

We (the SI’s) and our customers are usually the ones suffering from the too narrow scope of standardisation. Even today, as we consider the novel use cases of VC’s, like with contactless protocols (NFC, BT, etc), we are immediately trumped with the lack of standardisation.

While I fully understand the need to focus on web (for the faster adoption in current web infra), I do see it more harmful in terms of adoption in novel use cases where DID/VC space can really push the boundaries. For the decentralized solution space to truly get off the ground, it would need to focus on a broader scope and immediately support the next generation stack, that is still gaining its roots. Our customers (banks, retailers, etc.) are already looking for the next wave of digital opportunities. If VC’s don’t support them (non-HTTP) from standards perspective well enough, they will create whatever they can muster themselves. And we all know where that leads...
My 2 cents

-Antti

Antti Kettunen, Senior Blockchain Consultant

TietoEVRY, Blockchain Center of Excellence
email antti.j.kettunen@tieto.com, mobile +358(0) 44 3778436
Keilalahdentie 2, FI-02150 Espoo, Finland
________________________________
From: Daniel Hardman <daniel.hardman@evernym.com>
Sent: Friday, April 10, 2020 8:33:42 PM
To: Orie Steele <orie@transmute.industries>
Cc: Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>; W3C Credentials CG (Public List) <public-credentials@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Different Verifiable Credential protocols? (was: Re: Please vote to approve/disapprove the new charter)

@Orie:

I am not "attacking HTTP and Web Technologies" or "objecting to HTTP and Web Technologies," nor am I "frustrated that a large number of W3C members love working on web technologies." Web technologies are great. I'm using them right now as I process my email and browse away. (BTW, would you feel welcomed by such language, if you felt it described your behavior unfairly?)

In some cases I am "objecting to the standardization of Web and HTTP APIs for the VC Data Model." My objection is to the assumption that we should have one solution for HTTP, and a different and later solution for everything else. My argument has been that bifurcating the problems this way does not deliver solutions faster to enterprises, but it does marginalize the developing world and enthrone strongly connected enterprise servers in a power position (how many private individuals are going to run a web server to host the standard verifier API we're working on?).

It sounds like you want the group to dismiss my concern and buy into your preferred assumption, and that you feel the need to "be blunt" that my concern isn't resonating: "different communities have different priorities... This is the W3C." That is the opposite answer to my question from the one you and Manu implied when you said the scope was super inclusive. And this is the very question I raised about the charter. If my concern doesn't resonate, that's totally fine -- just tell me I'm worried about something that's out of scope, and I'll go quiet. But don't simultaneously claim the group wants to think about everything, and then take me to task for insisting that we think broader than HTTP. It feels unreasonable to try to have it both ways.

@Nikos

I agree that Indy is ZKP-centric, but please notice that I didn't bring up Indy or the poison pill of ZKPs, anywhere in the thread. Bringing such things into the discussion is a way to create a straw-man version of what I'm saying, and then get everyone to dismiss it by association.

I also didn't bring up Aries in general, but rather 2 specific RFCs. Those RFCs are not Indy-dependent, and they say so. They describe a workflow that works over HTTP as well as bluetooth, email, and sneakernet. And they describe credential usage patterns that apply to any VC type at all. If you've studied them and had a frustrating experience, I apologize. That would be a fair reason not to like them, but not a fair reason to ignore them if Orie's broader scope is really the intent of the group.

On Fri, Apr 10, 2020 at 10:47 AM Orie Steele <orie@transmute.industries> wrote:
Daniel,

I suspect that you may be frustrated that a large number of W3C members love working on web technologies, different communities have different priorities... This is the W3C.

At this point I need to be blunt... constantly objecting to the standardization of Web and HTTP APIs for the VC Data Model and DID harms the adoption of DIDs and VCs by Enterprises and Governments, paying customers of many of the members of the W3C...

We need HTTP and Web support for DIDs and VCs in order to ensure they are usable, today... we might also need gRPC, ZKPs, or JOSE... but we for sure need HTTP and Web. In terms of priorities, I believe HTTP and Web technologies are more important for the group to establish consensus and interoperability around first, because they already have significant investment from our (the communities) customers...

We are in a post cloud era... companies have just finished investing millions of dollars in centralized IAM, VPC, migration from on-prem to cloud, integration of on prem and cloud... Microsoft, Google, Apple... all have cloud storage services, cloud based identity systems... public http APIs.... they are represented in the W3C, some of us are trying to support them, their browsers, and the millions of people who use their browsers.

There is a difference between believing in gRPC and ProtoBuff's superiority and objecting to work items that use HTTP and the Web as a starting point..... and it's very frustrating for those of us who want to work together on HTTP and web technologies under the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

DIDComm is being standardized at the DIF, I think that's probably a major reason why it's not actively discussed here... feel free to propose it as a W3C CCG work item, or https://github.com/hyperledger/aries-rfcs/tree/master/features/0036-issue-credential  or  https://github.com/hyperledger/aries-rfcs/tree/master/features/0037-present-proof ... they appear to be dependent on DIDComm, but I'm sure there is a way to create a work item for VC Data Model over DIDComm in W3C and leave DIDComm in DIF.... assuming the IPR policy for aries-rfcs is compatible with such an approach.

"Let's quit claiming that the asymmetric security model of standard HTTPS deployments is consistent with the decentralized ethos of DID-based security.. "

This is completely false and harmful to the DID and VC ecosystem.

https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/ssl-certificate-self

"For apps with controlled distribution this warning can be avoided by creating your own authority certificate and adding it to your users’ browsers."

Q: What is the difference between telling a browser to trust a certificate, and telling a person to trust a did / did method?
A: Browsers support HTTP and Certificates, not DIDs and VCs.

If we want browsers to support DIDs and VCs, attacking HTTP and Web Technologies is the last thing we should be doing.

Please stop objecting to HTTP and Web Technologies, and work items at the W3C that attempt to prioritize support for these.

Please create work items that reflect the things you want the group to focus on, and request that people contribute to those work items.

Things that I know you care about that I would love to help contribute to that could be worked on in the W3C:

- ZKP Proof Representations that work with ledgers other than Indy.
- DIDComm over HTTP
- QRCode / Offline / Compressed VC Representations

If you have a work item which you want supported, feel free to email me or raise it on the W3C CCG call so we can discuss it.

OS





On Fri, Apr 10, 2020 at 10:42 AM Daniel Hardman <daniel.hardman@evernym.com<mailto:daniel.hardman@evernym.com>> wrote:
Manu and Orie:

The question isn't the theoretical definition or possibilities. It's the mindset of the group.

I have repeatedly tried to get the group to think beyond HTTP, and encountered friction. If the group wants to adopt the broader definition, that's fine. But let's really adopt it. Let's not say the scope is really broad, but turn around and view most of our interesting topics (EDV, CHAPI, polyfills, issuer API, verifier API) through HTTP lenses, as if it's okay to have one standard for HTTP, and then we can get around to the other transports later, or with separate standards. Let's quit proposing to describe our standards with Swagger docs. Let's quit thinking that synchronous request-response is adequate to model our interactions. Let's quit ignoring Aries RFC 0036 and 0037, which provide a format-independent, standards-compatible means to exchange credentials that is HTTP compatible but not HTTP dependent. Let's quit claiming that the asymmetric security model of standard HTTPS deployments is consistent with the decentralized ethos of DID-based security. Let's quit treating DIDComm as an irrelevancy. Etc.

On Fri, Apr 10, 2020 at 9:26 AM Orie Steele <orie@transmute.industries> wrote:
+1 If you want to see a demo of a progressive web application, which can be installed on your mobile home screen, works offline, and uses a camera to scan QR Codes, and can sign and verify see:

https://did-key.web.app/

I've been experimenting with using service workers to intercept requests for webkms, so that webkms can be run fully in browser, with software isolation for keys... it's totally hacky, but gives you an idea of just how powerful PWAs can be:

https://github.com/OR13/react-pwa

And here is a P2P implementation of the Game of Go, built with OrbitDB / IPFS / WebRTC...

https://g0.or13.io/

Using Web RTC Rendezvous servers are particularly interesting to consider wrt VCs / DIDs... because you can show up on a web page (as is the case with the go demo), announce yourself as an identifier, and then immediately switch to e2e encrypted communication between peers... I don't have a demo of that with dids, but it's on my weekend project list for a couple months...

OS







On Fri, Apr 10, 2020 at 10:06 AM Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com<mailto:msporny@digitalbazaar.com>> wrote:
On 4/10/20 10:31 AM, Daniel Hardman wrote:
> Should we understand by this that presenting credentials via QR code,
> via BlueTooth/NFC, via sneakernet, and so forth is out of scope?

I'll note that Web-browsers can get access to the camera phone and scan
QR Codes:

https://github.com/schmich/instascan

and Web Bluetooth is released in many of the latest/popular browsers:

https://caniuse.com/#feat=web-bluetooth

.... and WebNFC just went into Origin trials in Chrome:

https://developers.chrome.com/origintrials/#/view_trial/236438980436951041

There continues to be confusion around the colloquial use of the word
"Web", which among developers, is mired in the historical protocol that
spawned the Web -- HTTP. The colloquial use is often outdated and wrong.

The W3C is about the "Web Platform", which is not limited to HTTP.
Wikipedia has a decent definition here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_platform

.... but here are the other protocols that are not HTTP that are viewed
as being part of the Web platform:

* TLS
* Geolocation (and by extension, the Global Positioning System,
  protocols and data formats)
* Web Sockets (which are not HTTP!)
* Web Of Things (IoT, CoAP, etc.)
* WebRTC (and a whole bunch of IETF specs on signalling
  and media encoding/transmission protocols)
* Web Bluetooth (Bluetooth and its data formats and protocols)
* NFC (again, data formats and protocols)
* Media Capture API (audio and video formats and protocols)

The W3C is not solely about HTTP, and you learn that pretty quickly when
you go to a W3C Technical Plenary, or participate in various standards
groups at W3C. I understand that it's difficult for many to participate
in that way. Fundamentally, the Web Platform is a bridging technology,
connecting all of these disparate data formats and protocols into a
cohesive application development environment.

So communication of Verifiable Credentials over NFC, Bluetooth, WebRTC,
Web Sockets, QR Codes... IMHO, all very much in scope.

-- manu

--
Manu Sporny - https://www.linkedin.com/in/manusporny/
Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
blog: Veres One Decentralized Identifier Blockchain Launches
https://tinyurl.com/veres-one-launches



--
ORIE STEELE
Chief Technical Officer
www.transmute.industries

[https://drive.google.com/a/transmute.industries/uc?id=1hbftCJoB5KdeV_kzj4eeyS28V3zS9d9c&export=download]<https://www.transmute.industries>


--
ORIE STEELE
Chief Technical Officer
www.transmute.industries

[https://drive.google.com/a/transmute.industries/uc?id=1hbftCJoB5KdeV_kzj4eeyS28V3zS9d9c&export=download]<https://www.transmute.industries>