Subject: Blockchain?:: I am looking Forward to the End of Telepnony Identifiers

From: Nyagudi Musandu Nyagudi <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2020 12:54:34 +0000 (UTC)

There are some innovations that I would like from the Internet Engineers
1. I would like my Chats eg. Telegram,Facebook, WhatsApp etc to be identified via an Independently generated and held identifier that is not a  Phone Number which is transferable and/or held by a Company.
2. With SpaceX etc investing billions in Constellations of Satellites, shall their handsets break off from the culture of Telephony identifiers?3. Unique contract identifiers generated like Cryptocurrencies would better serve Humanity especially in regions where there is Political Repression, especially with Space Based systems that can also link via Terrestrial Wifi4. Unique communication identifiers can be inherited, that is not true for mobile phone lines, and Email addresses that are owned by Corporates

This is the list in which Cryptocurrencies was first discussed many years before they materialized.

Nyagudi

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From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2020 19:06:09 -0700

> 1. I would like my Chats eg. Telegram,Facebook, WhatsApp etc to be
>    identified via an Independently generated and held identifier that
>    is not a  Phone Number which is transferable and/or held by a
>    Company.

have you looked at keybase, which zoom is acquiring?

randy

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From: Steve Todd <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2020 17:45:33 -0600

For identifiers, you may be interested in the work being done at the W3C on
Decentralized Identifiers [1] (DIDs, an acronym that is coincidentally
humorous in relation to your question). Essentially, DIDs provide a scheme
for describing identifiers. IIRC, control over the identifier is asserted
by publishing a public key and providing a proof involving the identifier
and the private key. There are many methods described right now for
creating and managing these DIDs, with many utilizing blockchains for
publishing these DIDs, though publishing isn't a requirement for them to
work (see the peer method). I feel the system is somewhat analog to DNS.

I, myself, have had some interest in either adapting existing protocols to
use DIDs or developing new protocols to use them while also incorporating
currently emerging security work like what is going on the mls working
group. That being said, there is such incredible momentum around DNS and
certificate authorities that I wonder if a general transition to something
truly decentralized is possible. In my opinion, DNS has enabled so much but
has ultimately led us to a centralized internet. As you allude to, the
email address has become the common ID for the internet, email addresses
are tied to domains, and (most) domains are owned by corporations, and
because of that we don't own our identity on the internet. Log in with
Google/Apple/Facebook etc has only made things worse from a centralization
standpoint.

DID isn't the only attempt—there's been a number over the last couple
decades. Blockchain has enabled some new ideas—hopefully we're getting
closer to a workable solution that can become as universal as the email
address.

Steve

[1] https://www.w3.org/2019/did-wg/

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From: Vittorio Bertola <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2020 11:40:55 +0200 (CEST)

> Il 24/06/2020 01:45 Steve Todd <[email-masked]> ha scritto:
> 
> I, myself, have had some interest in either adapting existing
> protocols to use DIDs or developing new protocols to use them while 
> also incorporating currently emerging security work like what is 
> going on the mls working group. That being said, there is such 
> incredible momentum around DNS and certificate authorities that I 
> wonder if a general transition to something truly decentralized is 
> possible. In my opinion, DNS has enabled so much but has ultimately 
> led us to a centralized internet. As you allude to, the email 
> address has become the common ID for the internet, email addresses 
> are tied to domains, and (most) domains are owned by corporations,
> and because of that we don't own our identity on the internet.

In terms of identifiers (not of identities), the reason why you don't own your identifier is that you didn't bother to spend 10$ per year and buy your own domain name. The fact that most people don't do that is a problem of user education, but possibly also a sign that in the end most people don't care about not owning their identity on the Internet.

> Log in with Google/Apple/Facebook etc has only made things worse 
> from a centralization standpoint.

Sure, but what we need then is a federated version of "Log in with Google/Apple/Facebook" (hint: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-bertola-dns-openid-pidi-architecture/ (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-bertola-dns-openid-pidi-architecture/?include_text=1) ). There's no technical reason why single sign-on cannot work like email - only business reasons that led people to build walled gardens.

-- 
Vittorio Bertola | Head of Policy & Innovation, Open-Xchange
[email-masked] 
Office @ Via Treviso 12, 10144 Torino, Italy