Given at the Future of the Web Workshop held by W3C and Australian National University in Melbourne, Australia on 20180507

1. Dr. David Hyland-Wood
david.wood@consensys.net
@prototypo
7 May 2018
Privacy in the smart city

3. © 2018 Tim Whyatt

4. Why is this a problem?
4

6. © 2004 Temple University Press

8. Anatomy of a Verifiable Credential
Verifiable Credential
Issuer Signature
ClaimsClaimsClaims
Credential Identifier
Credential MetadataCredential MetadataCredential Metadata
8

9. W3C Verifiable Credentials
9
The mission of the W3C Verifiable Claims Working Group:
Express credentials on the Web in a way that is
cryptographically secure, privacy respecting, and
automatically verifiable.

10. Verifiable Credentials Ecosystem
10
Issuer
(Website)
Government, Employer,
etc.
Verifier
(Website)
Company, Bank, etc.
Holder
(Digital Wallet /
Personal Data Store)
Citizen, Employee, etc.
Issue
Credentials
Present
Profiles

12. Verifiable Credentials Status
12
WG Launch
(May 2017)
FPWD, WDs
(Aug 2017-today)
Implementations
(Nov 2017-today)
Complete Test
Suite
(Jul 2018)
CR
(Oct 2018)
PR
(Jan 2019)
Roadmap
Spec/Issue Regular Contributors: 15
Weekly WG Participants: 12-18 / 50
Known Corporate Implementation Commitments: 10

13. Questions about
Verifiable
Credentials?

14. Anatomy of a Verifiable Credential
14
" <IDENTIFIER>
○ license: I1234562
○ hair: BLK
○ name: ALEXANDER JOSEPH
○ address: 2570 24th STREET …
○ date of birth: 08/31/1977
○ issued by: California DMV
○ digital signature: MIIB7ZueKqp...

15. The Web’s Identifier Problem
15
To date, every identifier you use online
does not belong to you; it belongs to
someone else.
This results in problems related to cost, data
portability, data privacy, and data security.

16. Web Identifiers Today
16
Domain Name System
(Identifiers are leased to individuals)
Issuer
(Website)
Government, Employer,
etc.
Verifier
(Website)
Company, Bank, etc.
Holder
(Digital Wallet /
Personal Data Store)
Citizen, Employee, etc.
Issue
Credentials
Present
Profiles

17. What is missing?
17
Many portable identifiers for any person, organisation,
or thing that does not depend on a centralised
authority, are protected by cryptography, and enable
privacy and data portability.

18. Decentralised Identifiers
18
A new type of globally resolvable,
cryptographically-verifiable identifier, registered
directly on a distributed ledger (or Blockchain)

19. What does a DID look like?
19
did:example:123456789abcdefghijk
Schem
e
DID
Method
DID Method Specific String
did:v1:nym:DwkYwcoyUXHNkpj3whn4DgXB4fcg9gj95vKxYN2apkZD
Example:

20. DIDs Resolve to DID Documents
20
{
"@context": "https://w3id.org/veres-one/v1",
"id": "did:v1:nym:DwkYwcoyUXHNkpj3whn4DgXB4fcg9gj95vKxYN2apkZD",
"authentication": [{
"type": "Ed25519SignatureAuthentication2018",
"publicKey": [{
"id": "did:v1:test:nym:DwkYwcoyUXHNkpj3whn4DgXB4fcg9gj95vKxYN2apkZD#authn-key-1",
"type": "Ed25519VerificationKey2018",
"owner": "did:v1:nym:DwkYwcoyUXHNkpj3whn4DgXB4fcg9gj95vKxYN2apkZD",
"publicKeyBase58": "DwkYwcoyUXHNkpj3whn4DgXB4fcg9gj95vKxYN2apkZD"
}]
}],
"service": [{
"type": "ExampleMessagingService",
"serviceEndpoint": ”https://example.com/services/messages”
}],
… more DID-specific information here …
}
1. Authentication Mechanisms
3. Service Discovery
2. Public Key Material

21. Decentralized Identifiers
21
Decentralized Identifiers
(Identifiers are owned by individuals)
Blockchains / DHTs
(Decentralized Ledger)
Veres One, Sovrin, Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.
Issuer
(Website)
Government, Employer,
etc.
Verifier
(Website)
Company, Bank, etc.
Holder
(Digital Wallet /
Personal Data Store)
Citizen, Employee, etc.
Issue
Credentials
Present
Profiles

22. 22

23. Decentralized Identifiers Status
23
Technology Incubation
(May 2014 - today)
Specification and Implementations
(October 2016 - today)
W3C DID WG
(Dec 2018-2020)
Roadmap
Spec/Issue Regular Contributors: 12
Weekly Community Group Participants: 15-28 / 161
Known Corporate Implementation Commitments: 13

24. Implementers
24
Method DID prefix
Bitcoin Reference did:btcr:
ConsenSys uPort did:uport:
IPFS did:ipfs:
IPDB did:ipdb:
Sovrin did:sov:
Veres One did:v1:

25. 25

26. Questions about
Decentralized
Identifiers?

27. 27
Manu Sporny | CEO | Digital Bazaar
▪ Co-Inventor of Verifiable
Credentials & Decentralized
Identifiers
▪ Co-Inventor of JSON-LD
▪ Co-Founder of Veres One
▪ 10+ Years in Web Standards
▪ Customers in Finance, Government,
Education, and Healthcare
Email: msporny@digitalbazaar.com
Twitter: @manusporny
https://www.linkedin.com/in/manusporny/
Specialthanks
to

28. !28
Dr. David Hyland-Wood | ConsenSys (PegaSys)
▪ Co-Inventor of the first scalable
graph database
▪ Co-chair of W3C RDF 1.1
Working Group (e.g. JSON-LD
standardisation)
▪ 20+ Years in Web standards
▪ Leading blockchain standards effort at
ConsenSys (EEA, W3C, IEEE, OSI/ISO)
▪ Adjunct A/Prof, UQ
Email: david.wood@consensys.net
Twitter: @prototypo
https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-wood-495b24a/
https://hyland-wood.org