Re: When Technical Standards Meet Geopolitical Reality

Oh and I will also add another reason that I am optimistic.

Advanced, privacy-preserving cryptography is coming soon to a device near
you.

This body of knowledge is not going away. More than that in fact, it is
actively and intensively being turned into practical, usable and useful
open source tools by communities of practice.

These tools are composable and open up new possibility spaces for imagining
and configuring digital interactions.

I find my hope in that.

Thanks,
Will

P.S Cryptography is also a beautiful expression of human knowledge of
mathematics as applied to a specific domain - secure, private communications

On Thu, Jul 17, 2025 at 5:20 PM Will Abramson <will@legreq.com> wrote:

> I will share what I posted on LinkedIn in response to Christopher's blog.
> Apologies in advance for not directly engaging with the conversation in
> this thread, but I believe it is a relevant and I hope optimistic spin of
> the discussion.
>
> I agree with much of what Christopher says in this post.
>
> Whilst at the same time acknowledging the energy at the GDC conference.
> There were some wonderful sessions and many, many fascinating thought
> provoking corridor conversations.
>
> As <https://www.linkedin.com/in/beat-jans/>Beat Jans
> <https://www.linkedin.com/in/ACoAAE29sSIBjrqd8O4scFdWQt4ZC9gSndgGIYk> of
> the Swiss Federal Council said in his excellent closing statement
> (paraphrasing):
>
> > Let's collaborate to bring systems and protocols into reality that
> respect democratic values. That are participatory. That are empowering.
> That are worthy of our trust. Let's not forget about the people, the
> humans, whom these protocols and systems should serve.
>
> This thing we are doing has momentum. It is required. But it is up to us
> to chart a course against these headwinds of authoritarianism towards more
> kind, caring futures. Futures we would be proud to call home, proud to show
> our children.
>
> We have to believe these futures are possible. Then take steps, even small
> ones, to bring these futures close to reality.
>
> [image: closing-statement.jpg]
>
> Thanks,
> Appreciating all the voices in this important conversation,
> Will
>
> On Thu, Jul 17, 2025 at 3:44 PM Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Jul 17, 2025 at 5:41 AM Daniel Hardman <daniel.hardman@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > I respond that, although the primary objective of a tech standard is
>> unlikely to be human rights, socially consequential tech comes with an
>> ethical responsibility to first (try to) do no harm and then (try to) make
>> things better. Obviously we can have different opinions about what "harm"
>> and "better" mean, but I think we mostly agree that ethical considerations
>> are not out of scope.)
>>
>> Yes, I do agree that most of the people that are involved in this work
>> agree with your statement above.
>>
>> > > So maybe the questions to ask ourselves, in relation to any new
>> standard, are:
>> >
>> > * To what extent does this standard force implementers to make positive
>> progress or remove an old and obnoxious compromise on human rights or
>> dignity?
>> > * To what extent does this standard add new forced or optional
>> compromises on human rights or dignity?
>>
>> Yes, I agree that those are good questions to ask of any work we do.
>> Where's the bar, though? Is it good enough that it removes one thing
>> while adding another? How many of these things need to be
>> removed/added... and to what degree, for us to deem the work worth
>> doing? I expect the answer is an "it depends", and the only way of
>> going about it is to have a discussion on each work item.
>>
>> > Sometimes they got less than they demanded (new compromises), but the
>> net effect trended in the right direction. Compromises in many dimensions
>> (conciseness of the legal code, ease of implementation, political
>> outcomes...) might have increased, but compromises in the human rights
>> dimension decreased. Real progress occurred.
>>
>> Yes, thank you for making my point far more eloquently than I did.
>> It's not that we've wanted to make some of the compromises we have,
>> but that was the reality of the situation when we did -- the choice in
>> front of us (at the time) was compromise or watch them kill the work.
>>
>> For example, the Controlled Identifiers specification is a distasteful
>> specification. I say this as the lead editor of that specification...
>> but there was a small group of people that were adamant that the
>> specification exist, that controlled identifiers that were built on
>> HTTPS should exist, and that if that didn't happen, a fork or more
>> centralized mechanisms would be put forward as alternatives. So, a
>> compromise was made and both sides of the debate got some of what they
>> wanted. The pro-centralization folks got to keep building their
>> centralized systems, and the pro-decentralization people got some
>> decentralized stuff that wasn't standardized yet... standardized...
>> and by doing that, they were able to push some of that decentralized
>> stuff into real production systems.
>>
>> There are over 1.8 million digital driver's licenses in production in
>> the state of California now that are Verifiable Credentials and that
>> use Decentralized Identifiers. There are many more Verifiable
>> Credentials issued in the retail sector that use Decentralized
>> Identifiers as well. Both of those industries needed the assurance
>> that there was a global standard to do so and we wouldn't have gotten
>> there if we did make some compromises along the way. So, while we
>> compromised and put forth the Controlled Identifiers specification...
>> they ended up adopting the Decentralized Identifiers specification.
>> While California DMV has adopted did:web, and while that's not as
>> decentralized as we'd like them to go, we haven't yet put something
>> better in front of them that achieves their goals. I would expect
>> they'd jump to did:webvh *if* there was a standard there... but that
>> is work that we still need to complete. I'd expect them to go even
>> farther, but again, we don't have a more decentralized DID Method for
>> them to adopt yet.
>>
>> Similarly, I can almost guarantee that the retail sector would adopt a
>> more decentralized DID Method... again, IF we can provide a global
>> standard to them for that purpose. Their industry is massively
>> decentralized and they get the benefit of both DIDs and VCs over the
>> alternatives out there.
>>
>> So, we need to build toward that future... the work we've done over
>> the past decade or more is out there in production in significant ways
>> and we have achieved a good chunk of the initial vision and mission.
>> That said, there is more work to do -- decentralization (and human
>> rights) isn't a destination -- it's a constant struggle. There will be
>> setbacks along the way, but that is inevitable. There will always be
>> people building centralized systems, or systems that are not as
>> respectful to human rights as we'd want -- our mission is to provide
>> better options and put better systems out there.
>>
>> -- manu
>>
>> --
>> Manu Sporny - https://www.linkedin.com/in/manusporny/
>> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
>> https://www.digitalbazaar.com/
>>
>>