Current solutions to prove an issuer is who they claim they are

Hi CCG Community,

I’m currently in the process of gathering information and practices regarding improving trust in Controller Documents.

I guess the main issue I’m trying to tackle is how to rule out a malicious actor actively impersonating an official issuer. Think for instance of someone who is able to set up a thorough infrastructure with DIDs or Controller Documents and whatever mechanism in place to sanction the validity of the public keys used (CEL, did:webvh, KERI, etc) but using a clone domain similar as to what would be done in a  phishing attack (ie: instead of https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/, you would have someone use https://www.dmv-california.org or similar to host any web based information and “spoof” an identity).

I’m guessing I am not the only one working on such a matter so I’d like to hear about things that I might have missed thus far. I have looked at the solutions listed above, but to me they don’t suffice to address the use case I’m exposing. And I think, generally speaking, DIDs can have a similar weakness: you probably read about that French woman who got scammed by her fake Brad Pitt boyfriend, the attacker could have presented a fake Brad Pitt DID that wouldn’t have likely triggered any alarm.

I know trust registries can be used but several issues can arise:

  *   How do you get registered (aka accepted)?
  *   As a small new actor in a field, or an individual, isn’t the process a barrier of entry?
  *   How do you trust the goodwill and intentions of who signs off an entry into the registry?
  *   Who manages the registry?
  *   And if all of that is centralized, isn’t this just a glorified CA?
  *   If it’s decentralized, what’s the incentive to run a node/governance (cryptocurrency?)?

Witnesses are also an option, but again, how do you trust the network of witnesses. Scammers could very well set up their own network of witnesses and point to each other.

Is there some work going on at this level, protecting the end human user against their own naivety?

Thanks for your input

--

Julien Fraichot
Developer – Hyland Credentials

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