Re: [PROPOSED WORK ITEM] Cryptographic Event Log

On Sun, Jul 13, 2025 at 7:59 PM Brian Richter <brian@aviary.tech> wrote:
> Something that is clear from the spec but not specifically called out in this thread. This cryptographic event log uses data integrity proofs and there is no other available standard that meets that criteria other than what we’ve defined in did:webvh. If there is I would be interested in seeing it!

Perhaps elaborating on why we're doing this call for adoption now might help:

In the latest DID Methods WG charter, Markus noted that we should
refer to the CEL spec as a potential input document to the WG for the
"fully decentralized method". I didn't feel comfortable doing that
since the CEL spec wasn't an official CCG work item yet (it's sitting
in a corporate Github repo currently). Markus suggested we make it a
CCG work item by volunteering to co-own it (thank you, Markus!) and
then I raised this proposal.

What we're trying to do here is propose a base technology as input to
the DID Methods WG that could meet the "fully decentralized" class of
DID Method, be acceptable to the people that don't like
did:web/did:webvh because it's "not decentralized enough", and be
acceptable to the anti-blockchain W3C members.

As I mentioned in the previous post, it might be that what we have
with did:webvh is enough, but we won't know until we're deep into the
WG and we don't want to find out that did:webvh is "not decentralized
enough" for some WG members and we had no alternative we explicitly
mentioned in the charter that also meets the "not a blockchain"
requirement from some W3C Members. The CEL spec is a way of hedging
our bets on the "fully decentralized, not based on DNS, based on Web
technologies, and not a blockchain" requirements that the collective
whole seems to be projecting onto the DID Methods WG.

-- manu

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

Received on Monday, 14 July 2025 02:02:53 UTC