Goals and Requirements for DID Method Standardization?

Hey folks,

The joint work on DID Method Standardization has begun. We had our
first meeting[1][2] two weeks ago, with the next meeting to be held
the week after this one. In the coming months, we will be gathering
goals and requirements for DID Method standardization to determine
which DID Methods we should try to standardize. We'll be looking to
the broader decentralized identity communities to suggest what our
selection requirements should be for the standardization work.

I'm going to try to provide a few examples (we'll probably do a ranked
choice poll to rate the importance of each goal/requirement). Please
add your own to this thread so we can include them in the community
poll (which we'll probably run early Q1 2025).

Requirements for DID Method Standardization:

* At least one ephemeral DID Method should be identified for
standardization. These are useful for short-lived, secure
communication. Examples include did:key and did:jwk.

* At least one web-based DID Method should be identified for
standardization. These are useful for issuers of verifiable
credentials and other forms of attestations who know how to manage web
domains but are not willing to depend on blockchains or DHTs for their
root of trust (i.e., governments). Examples include did:web and
did:tdw.

* At least one "fully decentralized" DID Method should be identified
for standardization. These are useful because they achieve what the
other two classes of DID Method above don't achieve -- the vision for
why we created DIDs in the first place. Examples include did:dht.

* "Global government-approved crypto" is important to ensure
governments can adopt the DID Method. Examples include ECDSA.

* "Privacy-preserving crypto" is important, even if not government
approved, to ensure the privacy of individuals. Examples include BBS.

* A digitally signed cryptographic log of changes to the DID Document
is a useful feature to standardize on its own (so that multiple DID
Methods could utilize the feature).

* A multi-factor binding to DNS is an important feature to standardize
on its own (so that domain owners can provide an extra level of
security on their DID Documents).

* A specification with multiple implementers is always preferable to
inventing something new unless the community is behind the concept
that the "something new" is necessary.

I know I'm missing many more requirement ideas, so what are they? What
do you feel we should include as requirements as we go through the
selection process for which DID Methods (and their features) should be
standardized?

-- manu

[1] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-credentials/2024Nov/0026.html
[2] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-credentials/2024Nov/0035.html

-- 
Manu Sporny - https://www.linkedin.com/in/manusporny/
Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
https://www.digitalbazaar.com/

Received on Monday, 25 November 2024 15:35:24 UTC