Re: Identity as relational - was: The "self-sovereign" problem (was: The SSI protocols challenge)

On 2021-03-24 1:25 am, Henry Story wrote:
> The point is not that one person ”owns” all ”their” data, but who says what, who is responsible for what they say, and who is entitled to make claims of various sorts. ...[snip...] In SSI this comes to the individual holding his credentials, which will 1) have an individual component (private/public key pair) and 2) a social component with the verifiable claim being a statement by others of some relation of value.

Thank you Henry for that first phrasing.

But I think it might be important that in "2)", you've omitted the fact that a statement BY the "individual holding his credentials" can also be a social component.

I mean: if a person produces a digital work (blog, white paper, science study, piece of music, novel), and a verifiable claim that they are the author of the work, isn't this a "social component" just as much as any "statement by others" that they are the author (or are 18 years old, or have health issue X)?


Steven Rowat






> Henry [1] Except for the section on WebIDs that instead of using the WebID diagram from https://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/webid/spec/identity/ uses a 303 redirect hack that is both less elegant and a lot less efficient. The diagram from the spec would reveal the fundamental connection between both which essentially goes back to Frege’s Sense/Reference distinction.
>> Steven Capell Mob: 0410 437854
>>> On 24 Mar 2021, at 12:55 am, sankarshan <sankarshan@dhiway.com> wrote: We use the terminology of self-sovereign identity for describing a concept of giving individuals or organizations control over their digital identity. The identity resides with the identity subject in question, who is central to its administration. Sovereignty implies that individuals are equal among peers and are not administered by a central authority. This doesn't mean that individuals can suddenly issue themselves a new passport. Instead it means that individuals have control over how their personal data is shared and used. Moreover, individuals can now choose whether they would like to reveal their personal data and also which kind of data they would like to share in the event of a transaction or interaction. Through the use of cryptographic proofs SSI enables verifiability for all involved parties.