Re: did:key questions (was: DHS SVIP Blockchain/DLT/SSI Cohort - Multi-Product Phase 1 Interop Artifacts/ Scaffolding / Information)

Hi Melvin,
You bring up good questions!

1) Should the DID Document have a "type" field

So this has been hotly debated, and so far, it's settled on "no". (Strong
pushback against adding a type field, when it's been brought up in the
issues.) So, yes, at the moment, the type is assumed by @context (and mime
type!).

2) Can a did:key DID Document be embedded in a JSON "data island" in a web
page

Sure, why not. (Although the question does arise - why use an ephemeral did
doc like did:key for those kind of use cases, why not go with a did:web or
another longer-lived method).

3) How does one link entities (like Alice) and DIDs (including a did:key
did), in the linked data sense?

So, this is an /extremely/ hot and controversial topic :) Well, partly.

3a) Q: *Should* this be done in the first place?
 A: Very carefully, and in a privacy-preserving way. But I can see some
legitimate use cases for it.

3b) Q: How do you link from a DID Document to some other public profile
endpoint (such as a WebID Profile)?
A: (Again, you should _not_ do that in a ledger-based DID Document, since
that is very much PII.) But if you need to, that's what the Service
Endpoints mechanism is for. We do not yet have a proposed Service Endpoint
for a WebID Profile link, incidentally, although I am planning to propose
one over at https://github.com/solid/identity-panel/issues/1

3c) Q: How do you link from a public machine-readable document to a DID?

A: (Assuming a legit public profile use case) Depends on what you're
linking from.
* To link a regular https URL or domain name, you can use the methods that
did:web uses - https://w3c-ccg.github.io/did-method-web/#create-register,
  which is basically the '.well-known' mechanism, or the DIDs in DNS spec
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-mayrhofer-did-dns-01 .
* To link from a Solid style WebID Profile - tbd. (again, I'm planning to
bring it up in https://github.com/solid/identity-panel/issues/1 thread).
* To link from a linked data compatible social media profile like an
ActivityPub profile used by Mastodon etc... I'm not sure. I think there's
an experimental field for that?

Hopefully this answers some of the questions.



On Fri, Jun 12, 2020 at 11:30 AM Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> On Fri, 12 Jun 2020 at 17:06, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, 12 Jun 2020 at 15:10, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On 6/12/20 8:28 AM, Dan Bolser wrote:
>>> > Just reading this:
>>> > https://w3c-ccg.github.io/did-method-key/
>>> >
>>> > Which looks nice, but I don't understand how resolution from DID to DID
>>> > doc happens.
>>> >
>>> >     The creation of a DID Document is also performed by taking the
>>> >     public key value and expanding it into DID Document
>>>
>>> Hi Dan, I'm one of the Editors for that specification. I'm going to
>>> attempt to answer your questions below:
>>>
>>> > Ah... is the DID doc just a version of the key in a different format?
>>>
>>> Yes, more or less. The DID Document is deterministically generated from
>>> the DID. The goal of did:key is to be THE simplest and easiest to
>>> implement DID Method.
>>>
>>> > e.g. no other fields except those directly derived from the key are
>>> allowed?
>>>
>>> Yes.
>>>
>>> > Sorry if that's obvious (sorry if this is a dumb question).
>>>
>>> No dumb questions... and this is a very good question and gets to the
>>> heart of what did:key is about.
>>>
>>
>> Hopefully this is neither a dumb question:
>>
>> Could a did:key Document be embedded in a regular JSON-LD document or
>> "Data Island"
>>
>> For example could I say "Alice has a did:key:multihash document"
>>
>> What would be a way to link Alice and the did:key, if there is one?
>>
>> In Turtle:
>>
>> <#Alice> *???* <did:key:multihash> .
>>
>> In JSON-LD
>>
>> {
>>   "@id": "#Alice",
>>   "*???*":  [{ "@id" : "did:key:multihash" }]
>> >
>>
>> What is the part labeled with 3 question marks?
>>
>
> Hmmm, this also made me think:
>
>
> https://w3c-ccg.github.io/did-method-key/#example-2-a-did-document-derived-from-a-did-key
>
> Perhaps the DID Document should have a type?  Something like
>
> "type": "DIDDocument"
>
> In Example 8, above.  Or is that assumed from the @context?
>
>
>>
>>>
>>> > In this sense it's essentially a 'mock' or 'placeholder' DID document?
>>>
>>> I wouldn't say it's a 'mock' or 'placeholder' DID document. It is a
>>> bonafide DID Document that can be used in production systems that don't
>>> require key rotation. For example, very useful in test environments and
>>> systems that use short lived DIDs (throw-away pairwise relationships,
>>> etc.).
>>>
>>> -- 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
>>>
>>>