Re: Oracles as Issuers

Please help me draft a PR to the appropriate place [did-core?
did-use-cases? secure-data-store?] that describes the API for issuing a
verifiable credential such that:

The Issuer:
- *MAY* or *SHOULD* emit a VC via a standard API (e.g. a secure data store)
- the API protocol *MUST* support connection to both Holders or Verifiers
[DIDcomm and/or HTTPS, etc...]
- the API *MUST* be a policy enforcement point (PEP). (the issuer can run
their own PDP, if they choose)
- the authority respected by the PEP *MUST* be either the Issuer or the
Data Subject
- the authority is a policy decision point (PDP) operated on behalf of
*either* the Issuer or the Data Subject
- a requesting party *MUST* present their request to the PDP (not the PEP)
- that supports both self-authorized and subject-authorized requests *MUST*
offer separate APIs to reflect the separate PDPs.
- *SHOULD* notify the data subject when they receive or process an access
request via the self-authorized API

The main goal here is to encourage Issuers to behave as oracles and remove
the adoption barrier of having to have a Holder when all the data subject
needs is an authorization server because they don't care if the Issuer
knows about the Verifier.

Another goal is to simplify revocation in cases where the data subject
doesn't care if the Issuer knows about the Verifier.

Yet another goal is to protect the privacy of data subjects who would
prefer to process Verifier (as requesting party) access requests (scope,
purpose, credential) at a policy decision point (PDP) separate from the
Issuer (as PEP). The Verifier would then be given a capability to be
presented to the Issuer PEP.

We recognize that the requesting party (Verifier) has legitimate privacy
concerns of their own and may prefer to present their credentials to the
Issuer rather than the Holder. In these cases, the Issuer MAY offer a PDP
of their own and the data subject SHOULD be notified of the scope, purpose,
and identity of the requesting party (Verifier) as allowed by the policies
of the PDP.

- Adrian



On Wed, Aug 12, 2020 at 12:16 PM Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, 12 Aug 2020 at 00:35, Adrian Gropper <agropper@healthurl.com>
> wrote:
>
>> During today's CCG call we discussed ways that an institution would make
>> public assertions about their practices. The assertions could be:
>> - policies, commitments, or audits that are associated with the
>> institution in general, or
>> - certifications, badges, or licenses associated with specific
>> individuals.
>>
>> Either way, the assertions are typically public such as state medical
>> licenses, federal DEA numbers, voter rolls, real estate, food and liquor
>> licenses, law enforcement, license plates, D&B reports, court filings, sex
>> offenders, white and yellow pages, etc. Access to these assertions was
>> seldom limited before networking because there was sufficient friction to
>> keep all but the most dedicated data brokers at bay. The friction also
>> drove a business model around sale of this public information.
>>
>> These public assertions are now the feedstock for thousands of data
>> brokers operating as a broad surveillance mechanism, privatized, and
>> without much transparency or regulation.
>>
>> I call these public assertion issuers oracles because it matches how the
>> term is used in smart contracts.
>>
>> An oracle's public assertions can be open, behind a paywall, or
>> restricted access. In the case of pay or access restrictions, the reason
>> typically has nothing to do with the consent of the data subject. The
>> restriction is based on the credentials of the requesting party such as law
>> enforcement access to auto registry information or a no-fly list. Data
>> brokers consume assertions from other oracles and act as oracles
>> themselves, typically without the consent of the data subject.
>>
>> Because consent does not figure into the practices of most oracles, be
>> they public or private, the only reason to introduce a holder and their
>> wallet is to avoid loss of privacy through traffic analysis. That's an
>> important feature but there are many situations where the data subject
>> really has no worries about the oracle knowing who the verifiers are.
>> Oracles can, by policy, choose to erase access logs after 24 hours. The
>> assertions are often subject to revocation and having the verifier contact
>> the oracle directly is more efficient than dead-drops.
>>
>> In most any case, the data subject can always choose to make a copy of
>> the assertion by the oracle in the form of a verifiable credential.
>>
>> My point is that oracles could be using VCs regardless of what assertions
>> they're making or whether the VC is going to a holder or a verifier. The
>> only difference is whether the request is made by the data subject
>> themselves (to go to their wallet) or by a verifier directly. Payment and
>> revocation would need to be considered, of course. Some oracles would need
>> to process requests as discussed in
>> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-credentials/2020May/0049.html
>> using protocols like GNAP
>> https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-richer-transactional-authz-09.
>>
>> Oracles as Issuers has protocol implications for both access control and
>> transport. How should we continue this discussion?
>>
>
> Very much agree that verifiable claims can be used as oracles
>
> That's how you tie together block chain crypto and the web, in order to
> make things scale to millions of participants
>
>>
>>
>> - Adrian
>>
>