Speaker 1: Okay, let's kick things off. That daily frustration, right, juggling
Speaker 1: all those online accounts, remembering passwords. It's a real digital headache.
Speaker 1: We all kind of deal with it.
Speaker 2: Really is. But you know, imagine if that friction just
Speaker 2: disappeared exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and well that's what we're digging into today, this
Speaker 1: whole journey of digital identity, how it started, where it's going.
Speaker 2: We're aiming this squarely at you, someone keen to understand
Speaker 2: this well, pretty crucial part of online life, but maybe
Speaker 2: without getting totally bogged down in technical jargon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we want to make it accessible. Our main guide
Speaker 1: here is the book Learning Digital Identity. Really comprehensive stuff
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 2: It covers a lot of ground.
Speaker 1: So our mission, if you like, is to pull out
Speaker 1: the key ideas. What is digital identity really, why is
Speaker 1: it so important? And crucially, where's it headed.
Speaker 2: We're looking for those aha moments, the concepts that give
Speaker 2: you a practical handle on it all.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the book starts by outlining three main eras, right,
Speaker 1: how identity has evolved.
Speaker 2: The first one they mentioned is the centralized era.
Speaker 1: Ah, the early days, think, you know, individual websites, each
Speaker 1: with its own username and password.
Speaker 2: System very simple, but also completely separate, siloed basically totally.
Speaker 1: Then came the next phase.
Speaker 2: The federated era, and there was this big hope back then.
Speaker 2: I think it was around two thousand and three at a.
Speaker 1: Conference Digital Identity World, that's the one.
Speaker 2: Someone there basically said the goal was finally solving username
Speaker 2: password hell oh, I.
Speaker 1: Bet they got a cheer. Yeah, the dream of fewer passwords.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. The big idea was shifting towards what they call
Speaker 2: user centric systems.
Speaker 1: User centric so focus more on us, the users, rather
Speaker 1: than just the companies.
Speaker 2: Decisely, the thinking was, let's build systems that actually serve
Speaker 2: your interests. This led to using trusted third parties, identity
Speaker 2: providers or IDPs.
Speaker 1: Like using your Google or Facebook account to log into
Speaker 1: some other website exactly.
Speaker 2: That. That's federation in action, a single sign on hopefully
Speaker 2: making things easier.
Speaker 1: Definitely an improvement on having dozens of separate logins.
Speaker 2: It was a big conceptual shift, and around that time
Speaker 2: you had people like Kim Cameron developing his Seven Laws
Speaker 2: of Identity.
Speaker 1: Ah. Yes, the book mentions those laws as being really influential,
Speaker 1: still relevant today, it seems very much. So.
Speaker 2: They provided a kind of framework principles for building identity
Speaker 2: systems that put the individual first, you know, user control, consent.
Speaker 1: Foundational stuff, right, which I guess leads us to the
Speaker 1: third era, the latest evolution, decentralized digital identity. Right. This
Speaker 1: is presented as the sort of next frontier in giving
Speaker 1: people more control exactly.
Speaker 2: Decentralization takes a step further aiming to reduce reliance on
Speaker 2: those central authorities, even the federated ones. Will unpack that
Speaker 2: more later.
Speaker 1: Okay, sounds good, but before we get into the how
Speaker 1: of all this, let's nail down the why. Why is
Speaker 1: digital identity such a big deal?
Speaker 2: Well, the book puts it very directly. It says digital
Speaker 2: identity is at the heart of every online service.
Speaker 1: And interaction, at the heart of everything, and.
Speaker 2: Why that position makes it one of the most important
Speaker 2: technologies you can work on. Just think about it. Everything
Speaker 2: you do online, sending an email, banking, social media, it
Speaker 2: all relies on some form of digital identity working correctly.
Speaker 1: It's almost invisible infrastructure, isn't it. Yeah, because it underpins
Speaker 1: well everything.
Speaker 2: It really is the bedrock understanding. It helps you navigate
Speaker 2: the whole digital world more effectively.
Speaker 1: So this brings up a really fundamental question. The book
Speaker 1: tackles what actually is identity because like we immediately think
Speaker 1: of logins or maybe passports, birth certificates.
Speaker 2: Right, the credentials. But the book pushes back on that
Speaker 2: a bit. It quotes descartes, you know, I think, therefore
Speaker 2: I am, and points out he didn't say I have
Speaker 2: a birth certificate therefore I am.
Speaker 1: Ah. Good point. So identity is more than just the
Speaker 1: paperwork or the password, much more.
Speaker 2: It's also about relationships, your own internal sense of self.
Speaker 2: There's this dual nature how others see and define you
Speaker 2: and how you understand yourself.
Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense, internal and external aspects.
Speaker 2: To make it less abstract, the book uses some everyday examples,
Speaker 2: like a movie ticket.
Speaker 1: A movie ticket, how's that identity?
Speaker 2: Well, it identifies you as someone who has the right
Speaker 2: to be in that specific seat for that specific showing.
Speaker 2: It grants you access in that context.
Speaker 1: Ah. Okay. It's a temporary identifier for a specific purpose.
Speaker 1: Got it?
Speaker 2: Or an invoice? It identifies a payment request, who it's from,
Speaker 2: what it's for. It's identity working within a business, transaction
Speaker 2: or relationship.
Speaker 1: So identity isn't just about identifying a person. It can
Speaker 1: be about roles, permissions, even things within the system exactly.
Speaker 2: And look at a car's identity record, the vin the title.
Speaker 2: It's a whole system designed to manage the identity of
Speaker 2: that car for specific purposes like taxing it, regulating it,
Speaker 2: knowing who owns it.
Speaker 1: It's an identity system for the.
Speaker 2: Car, precisely, which leads to a really crucial distinction. The
Speaker 2: book emphasizes we often throw around the word identity when
Speaker 2: we actually mean something like an account or an identity
Speaker 2: record or just an identifier.
Speaker 1: Okay, wait, break that down. What's the core difference.
Speaker 2: Well, your Amazon account isn't your identity. Your identity who
Speaker 2: you are is way more complex, more nuanced than what
Speaker 2: fits in a database record or even a bunch of them.
Speaker 1: Right, it's just one facet one representation online exactly.
Speaker 2: So while we have these identity systems and records and accounts,
Speaker 2: there isn't really such a thing as an identity in
Speaker 2: that singular, concrete way. It's more of an abstract concept,
Speaker 2: constantly evolving.
Speaker 1: That's a really important point. These online profiles are just snapshots,
Speaker 1: limited views.
Speaker 2: Well put, okay, so now maybe let's get into the
Speaker 2: basic mechanics, how these systems actually you know, function.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the nuts and bolts lay it out for us.
Speaker 2: Okay. So at a high level, when you try to
Speaker 2: access something online, two key components are often involved in
Speaker 2: checking who you are, that's authentication and deciding what you
Speaker 2: can do authorization. They're called the PEP and the.
Speaker 1: PDP PPM, PDP policy enforcement point and policy decision points.
Speaker 2: You got it. Pp is like the bouncer at the door.
Speaker 2: It intercepts your request right then it checks with the PDP,
Speaker 2: which is like the manager in the back office who
Speaker 2: has the rules. The PDP decides if you get.
Speaker 1: In, So PDP enforces. PDP decides simple enough, and the.
Speaker 2: PDP makes that decision based on policies and information stored
Speaker 2: in what's called an account store. This store connects your
Speaker 2: identify er, say your username, with various bits of information
Speaker 2: about you. These are often called attributes or claims, statements
Speaker 2: about you, like.
Speaker 1: Your name, your email, maybe your role in an organization exactly.
Speaker 2: And based on those claims and the rules, the PDP
Speaker 2: determines your entitlements, what resources you can access, and your
Speaker 2: permissions what specific actions you can take.
Speaker 1: Entitlements and permissions got it. Can you give us a
Speaker 1: really simple real world analogy.
Speaker 2: Sure. Think about buying, say a lottery ticket where you
Speaker 2: have to be over eighteen. You're the subject wanted to
Speaker 2: perform an action by the ticket.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: The shop assistant is the PEP. They enforce the rule.
Speaker 2: They ask for your that's your credential.
Speaker 1: Right, my driver's license maybe?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that license contends acclaim your date of birth.
Speaker 2: The assistant checks the ID, authenticates it, and then based
Speaker 2: on the law and store policy that's the PDP's role,
Speaker 2: they authorize or deny the sale.
Speaker 1: Ah, Okay, that clicks ID is the credential assistant is
Speaker 1: the PEP. The age law is the PDP's policy. The
Speaker 1: info on the ID or the attributes.
Speaker 2: You've got it. Simple example. But the basic principles apply online.
Speaker 1: Now. Something that drives everyone crazy online is how things
Speaker 1: don't talk to each other. Interoperability or the lack of it.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's a huge pain point. I mean, in the
Speaker 2: physical world, we mostly interact seamlessly. Right, you don't worry
Speaker 2: if your cash works in this shop versus that shop. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it works, But online it's so fragmented. Okay. Email is
Speaker 2: mostly interoperable because of shared standards like SMTP.
Speaker 1: Thank goodness for that, right.
Speaker 2: But think about messaging apps WhatsApp, Signal, I Message, Telegram.
Speaker 2: You need all of them because they don't talk to
Speaker 2: each other.
Speaker 1: Oh, tell me about it, different contact lists, different identities.
Speaker 2: Everywhere exactly, and that burden on you, the user, managing
Speaker 2: all these separate silos really highlights why we need a
Speaker 2: better approach, which brings us to this idea of an
Speaker 2: identity meta.
Speaker 1: System metasystem y sounds big. What's the core idea there?
Speaker 2: Think of it as a sort of foundational layer, a
Speaker 2: system on top of which other different identity systems can
Speaker 2: be built and interact. The main goals are well, user choice,
Speaker 2: better privacy across the board, and pushing towards decentralization. It's
Speaker 2: about creating a flexible base layer that gives individuals.
Speaker 1: More control, well, a universal adapter almost helping different identity
Speaker 1: systems communicate, but in a way that respects privacy and
Speaker 1: user control.
Speaker 2: That's a pretty good way to think about it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and those seven Laws of Identity from Kim Cameron we mentioned,
Speaker 2: they're basically the design principles for this kind of meta.
Speaker 1: System, emphasizing things like user consent, sharing minimal.
Speaker 2: Data exactly, minimal disclosure, justifiable parties only sharing data when
Speaker 2: there's a legitimate need.
Speaker 1: It sounds fantastic, the solution all our problems. So why
Speaker 1: don't we have one? Why hasn't this universal meta system
Speaker 1: just emerged?
Speaker 2: Well, the book suggests it's tough because existing systems were
Speaker 2: built for very specific needs, often administrative ones by the
Speaker 2: companies running them.
Speaker 1: Right, they weren't designed with this universal interoperability in mind
Speaker 1: from the start.
Speaker 2: Exactly. They have their own structures, their own goals. It's
Speaker 2: hard to just morph them into this overarching meta system.
Speaker 2: But the concept of a meta system is still really valuable.
Speaker 2: It gives us a target, helps us see the limits
Speaker 2: of siloed approaches.
Speaker 1: Okay, now let's pivot to something huge, privacy. How does
Speaker 1: all this identity stuff connect with privacy concerns?
Speaker 2: Oh, they're deeply connected. The book really hammers home the
Speaker 2: importance of minimal disclosure and justifiable parties.
Speaker 1: Minimal disclosures share only what's absolutely necessary.
Speaker 2: Right, and justifiable parties only share it with those who
Speaker 2: have a real reason to know it. The core idea
Speaker 2: is stopping the unnecessary spread of your personal information.
Speaker 1: Sounds like basic common sense, but online it feels like
Speaker 1: the opposite often happens. Data gets sprayed everywhere it does.
Speaker 2: The book use is a simple example. Planning a party
Speaker 2: for Bob, you need to know if he's old enough
Speaker 2: to drink. Minimal disclosure is asking his age, not his
Speaker 2: exact date of birth. Okay, Justifiable parties means asking Bob
Speaker 2: or maybe someone who legitimately knows, not shouting the question
Speaker 2: across the room. These same principles should apply online.
Speaker 1: Systems should be built to ask for the minimum and
Speaker 1: only share with those who need it.
Speaker 2: Ideally, yes, and the type of identifier matters too. Public
Speaker 2: identifiers like say your phone number or maybe even your
Speaker 2: social Security number in some context, can link your activities
Speaker 2: across different places. That's a bigger privacy risk, ah.
Speaker 1: Because if lots of services have my phone number, they
Speaker 1: can potentially piece together a bigger picture of me exactly.
Speaker 2: Pure identifiers, which are often used in more decentralized systems,
Speaker 2: are designed to avoid that kind of broad correlation. Interesting
Speaker 2: and think about every time a website asks for your
Speaker 2: profile info, your address, your payment details, You're transferring attributes
Speaker 2: pieces of your identity data.
Speaker 1: Yeah, filling out the same forms over.
Speaker 2: And over, and the inconsistency in how sites handle that
Speaker 2: data is a massive source of frustration and potential risk.
Speaker 2: Federated systems like logging in with Google offer convenience but
Speaker 2: still mean that provider sees where you're logging in, right.
Speaker 1: Google knows I just signed into that other service.
Speaker 2: Whereas self Sovereign Identity or SSI, which we'll get to properly,
Speaker 2: aims for more direct peer to peer relationships. You control
Speaker 2: the data much more directly without needing that intermediary.
Speaker 1: SSI again feels like a really central concept for this
Speaker 1: decentralized future.
Speaker 2: It absolutely is. It's about shifting that power dynamic. But
Speaker 2: and this is crucial, there's often this trade off about
Speaker 2: convenience versus privacy.
Speaker 1: The easier it is often the more data we give up.
Speaker 2: Often, yeah, many services are designed for maximum convenience, which
Speaker 2: can mean collecting more data than strictly needed. And let's
Speaker 2: be honest, As the book points out, there are strong
Speaker 2: financial incentives driving that data collection.
Speaker 1: Surveillance is profitable, right, better service is the promise, but
Speaker 1: monetization is often the real engine.
Speaker 2: Sadly, yes, okay, quick detour. The book also talks about
Speaker 2: the life cycle of a digital relationship.
Speaker 1: A relationship life cycle, even for just buying something online.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, the stages are discovery finding the thing or person, Creation,
Speaker 2: initiating the interaction like placing an order, propagation the info
Speaker 2: moving through systems you actually using the service or product,
Speaker 2: and termination, ending the immediate interaction.
Speaker 1: Huh. Discovery, creation, propagation, use, termination.
Speaker 2: Even a super brief interaction like a one time purchase
Speaker 2: technically goes through these phases. Understanding this helps design systems
Speaker 2: that handle the whole flow smoothly.
Speaker 1: That's actually a neat way to frame it. Even quick
Speaker 1: online stuff has.
Speaker 2: Structure, it does, and thinking about that life cycle helps
Speaker 2: build systems that serve everyone in no matter how long
Speaker 2: the relationship lasts.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's tackle some slightly more abstract ideas. The book
Speaker 1: brings up trust, confidence, and coherence. How do they fit
Speaker 1: In trust?
Speaker 2: The book calls it the bedrock not just of relationships,
Speaker 2: but maybe even society itself. It defines it as basically
Speaker 2: being willing to rely on someone or something knowing there's
Speaker 2: some vulnerability involved.
Speaker 1: So trusting means accepting a bit of risk, believing the
Speaker 1: other party will act as expected.
Speaker 2: Exactly and the credit card system is a fantastic example.
Speaker 2: When you use your card, you might only interact with
Speaker 2: the shop assistant briefly, but that interaction works because of
Speaker 2: a whole web of pre existing trust relationships. You trust
Speaker 2: your bank, The bank trusts Visa or MasterCard, they trust
Speaker 2: the merchants bank, and so on. There are rules, technology processes,
Speaker 2: all designed to build confidence.
Speaker 1: It's an entire ecosystem built on layers of trust and
Speaker 1: agreed upon rules.
Speaker 2: Precisely now, coherence is about a group having a shared
Speaker 2: understanding being able to work together effectively. Trust and confidence
Speaker 2: are what make that coherence possible.
Speaker 1: Okay, and identity systems help create this coherence.
Speaker 2: They do, but in different ways. The book mentions four
Speaker 2: ways societies build coherence tribes, institutions, markets, and networks. Many
Speaker 2: current identity systems are based on institutions. Think your work
Speaker 2: log in controlled by your employer, or your social media
Speaker 2: account controlled by the platform.
Speaker 1: The institution sets the rules, yeah, manages the identity. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Decentralized networked identity systems, though, aim to create coherence through
Speaker 2: shared protocols agreed upon technical rules that let independent parties
Speaker 2: interact reliably without needing a central institution. Dictating everything.
Speaker 1: So institutional systems rely on authority. Networked systems rely on
Speaker 1: the shared tech rules.
Speaker 2: That's good summary, and ultimately the value of any digital
Speaker 2: relationship hinges on establishing enough trust and confidence for it
Speaker 2: to work.
Speaker 1: We talked about venience versus privacy. What about the trade
Speaker 1: off between privacy and authenticity? Knowing someone is who they
Speaker 1: say they are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's another critical balancing act. Sometimes proving authenticity with
Speaker 2: a high degree of certainty might mean revealing more information
Speaker 2: which could impact privacy, like.
Speaker 1: Needing a government ID check versus just proving your over
Speaker 1: eighteen Exactly.
Speaker 2: The book circles back to justifiable parties. Should this specific
Speaker 2: entity really need this level of proof, this much information
Speaker 2: for this interaction? Is the higher certainty worth the privacy cost.
Speaker 1: It's finding that sweet spot, knowing enough for the interaction,
Speaker 1: but not necessarily everything right.
Speaker 2: Too often, system's default to wanting maximum authentication, creating these permanent,
Speaker 2: strongly identified links when maybe a more temporary, pseudonymous or
Speaker 2: even anonymous interaction would have been.
Speaker 1: Fine, Which is where things like privacy by design come in,
Speaker 1: building it in from the start exactly.
Speaker 2: Privacy by design privacy as the default setting thinking about
Speaker 2: these trade offs during design. Not tacking privacy on as
Speaker 2: an afterthought makes sense, and transparency is key to being
Speaker 2: really clear and honest with users. What data are we collecting,
Speaker 2: Why do we need it? Who sees it?
Speaker 1: That builds trust, honesty and specificity, And things like GDPR
Speaker 1: are pushing in this direction right User control, minimal data.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, GDPR is a major force globally reinforcing these principles
Speaker 2: of user control, minimal disclosure, and justifiable parties.
Speaker 1: Okay, this leads us neatly into the rise of what
Speaker 1: Shoshana Zubov called surveillance capitalism. In the Web two point.
Speaker 2: Zero era, Zubov asks that big question, can the digital
Speaker 2: future be our home? The book argues that many current
Speaker 2: systems are fundamentally administrative.
Speaker 1: Meaning they serve the company's goals first and.
Speaker 2: Foremost, pretty much, they're designed to manage us, the users,
Speaker 2: often treating us as data sources for their business models
Speaker 2: rather than primarily serving our needs for connection or expression.
Speaker 2: There is an inherent power imbalance.
Speaker 1: We become the product essentially our attention.
Speaker 2: Our that's the critique. Yes, yeah, but the potential of
Speaker 2: a more decentralized internet Web three, as some call It
Speaker 2: offers a different vision, a chance for more authentic digital
Speaker 2: lives that aren't constantly under surveillance, and.
Speaker 1: The solution ties back to those core principles.
Speaker 2: Yes, user consent, minimal disclosure, justifiable parties, directed identity principles
Speaker 2: from the laws of identity. Applying these in a decentralized
Speaker 2: architecture could help fix many of the privacy problems of
Speaker 2: Web two point zero.
Speaker 1: So decentralization isn't just a technical shift, it's potentially a
Speaker 1: shift towards more autonomy and privacy.
Speaker 2: That's the promise, definitely. Okay, shall we switch gears a
Speaker 2: bit and talk about the underlying tech.
Speaker 1: Cryptography, Yeah, let's get into the magic behind the curtain.
Speaker 1: Public key cryptography is.
Speaker 2: Central, right, absolutely fundamental, the whole idea of having a
Speaker 2: private key you keep secret and a public key you
Speaker 2: can share. This allows for things like digital signatures. You
Speaker 2: can sign something with your private key and anyone with
Speaker 2: your public key can verify that you find it and
Speaker 2: that it hasn't been tampered with. It establishes trust without
Speaker 2: needing a middleman, like.
Speaker 1: A super secure, unforgeable digital seal.
Speaker 2: Pretty much now, it can be a bit slow for
Speaker 2: encrypting large amounts of data, so often you use it
Speaker 2: in a hybrid way. Use public key crypto to securely
Speaker 2: exchange a secret, one time key okay, and then use
Speaker 2: that faster secret key symmetric encryption to encrypt the actual
Speaker 2: message or data.
Speaker 1: Ah. Best of both worlds. Strong security for the key
Speaker 1: exchange speed for the bulk data.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Now, building on public keys, we have digital certificates.
Speaker 1: These are the things that make the padlock appear in
Speaker 1: my browser often.
Speaker 2: Yes, A certificate basically bundles your identity information like a
Speaker 2: website's domain name, together with its public key. And crucially,
Speaker 2: this bundle is digitally signed by a trusted third party,
Speaker 2: a certificate authority or CAA, so the.
Speaker 1: CAA is vouching saying yes, we checked this public key
Speaker 1: really belongs to this entity.
Speaker 2: That's the idea. It builds a chain of trust, but
Speaker 2: it's not fool proof. Certificates can be compromised, so they
Speaker 2: need to be revoked.
Speaker 1: How do you check for that?
Speaker 2: There are mechanisms like Certificate Revocation Lists CRLs and the
Speaker 2: Online Certificate Status Protocol OCSP. Browsers are supposed to check these,
Speaker 2: but support can be patchy.
Speaker 1: So that padlock isn't always a one hundred percent guarantee
Speaker 1: that everything's perfectly secure right now.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately. Now it's a good indicator, but revocation checking is complex.
Speaker 2: Now shifting to something really cool, zero knowledge proofs zkps.
Speaker 1: Zero knowledge proving something without revealing the information itself sounds
Speaker 1: like actual magic.
Speaker 2: It kind of feels like it. The core idea is
Speaker 2: exactly that prove you know a secret or that a
Speaker 2: state can is true without revealing the secret or the
Speaker 2: underlying data.
Speaker 1: How on earth does that work?
Speaker 2: The classic analogy is Ali Baba's cave. Alice wants to
Speaker 2: prove to Victor she knows the magic words to open
Speaker 2: a cave door, but doesn't want to tell him the words.
Speaker 2: She can go into the cave via one path, use
Speaker 2: the words to open in the inner door, and come
Speaker 2: out the other path. If she can do this repeatedly,
Speaker 2: no matter which path Victor asks her to emerge from,
Speaker 2: she proves she knows the secret, but Victor never learns
Speaker 2: the words himself.
Speaker 1: WHOA Okay? That helps visualize it, and this works mathematically?
Speaker 2: It does using clever cryptographic techniques. There are even non
Speaker 2: interactive versions called snarks that are very efficient.
Speaker 1: The implications for privacy seem huge, like proving you're over
Speaker 1: eighteen without showing your birthday exactly.
Speaker 2: That kind of thing, huge potential for privacy, preserving, verification,
Speaker 2: minimal disclosure in action amazing.
Speaker 1: Okay, and the last big crypto piece mentioned is blockchain right.
Speaker 2: Blockchains are essentially decentralized shared databases or ledgers. Cryptography is
Speaker 2: used heavily to make sure the data is temper proof
Speaker 2: and everyone agrees on the history of transactions.
Speaker 1: Like Bitcoin's ledger. Right distributed so no single person controls
Speaker 1: it exactly.
Speaker 2: Bitcoin was the first big use case. Blockchains help solve
Speaker 2: problems in distributed systems, like how to reach consensus without
Speaker 2: a central authority, the Byzantine General's problem, and how to
Speaker 2: prevent people from creating fake identities to gain undue influence civil.
Speaker 1: Attacks, so distributed trust basically.
Speaker 2: That's the core insight. Now, blockchains aren't a silver bullet
Speaker 2: for everything, and storing large amounts of personal data directly
Speaker 2: on them is usually a bad idea for privacy reasons, right,
Speaker 2: but they can be very useful, as say, anchoring layers
Speaker 2: or registries for identity information, things like decentralized identifiers DIDs,
Speaker 2: can use blockchains like Bitcoin or Ethereum as a secure foundation.
Speaker 2: Protocols like side tree build on this idea.
Speaker 1: Okay, so crypto provides the secure foundation. Now how do
Speaker 1: we actually find and name things online? Directories?
Speaker 2: In naming, yeah, seems simple, but it's tricky. Just think
Speaker 2: about getting a unique username or domain name. A name
Speaker 2: space is just a context where a name is unique
Speaker 2: and has a specific meaning.
Speaker 1: Like user names within Twitter or file names within.
Speaker 2: A folder exactly, and name spaces can be flat or
Speaker 2: hierarchy like a file system. It's also important to distinguish
Speaker 2: naming assigning the identifier, addressing how to reach it, and
Speaker 2: discovery finding it based on characteristics.
Speaker 1: So my email address is a name in a hierarchical namespace,
Speaker 1: the mail server address is part of addressing it. Sergei
Speaker 1: may inbox is discovery perfect analogy.
Speaker 2: Now for directories, you have things like ld app, often
Speaker 2: used inside companies. But for more decentralized discovery, there's web
Speaker 2: finger web Figer.
Speaker 1: What's up.
Speaker 2: It's a protocol that lets you discover information about someone
Speaker 2: using an identifier like an email address, potentially finding their
Speaker 2: website or other profiles without needing one central directory.
Speaker 1: Sort of like a decentralized lookup kind of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but both DNS for websites and web finger still
Speaker 2: rely on some hierarchy, which can be a weakness. That's
Speaker 2: where things like distributed hash tables or dhds come in.
Speaker 2: They're a way to build highly scalable, resilient, decentralized directories
Speaker 2: or look up systems, very common in peer to peer
Speaker 2: file sharing, and as we said, blockshain are also being
Speaker 2: used for discovery anchoring di IDs. The overall trend is
Speaker 2: towards more distributed, robust systems.
Speaker 1: More decentralization, less reliance on single points of failure makes sense.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we can name things, find things, how do
Speaker 2: we prove we are the entity controlling that name or
Speaker 2: identify er authentication factors?
Speaker 1: Right, the classic trio something you know, something you have,
Speaker 1: something you are.
Speaker 2: That's the core knowledge passwords, peons, possession, phone token, and
Speaker 2: inherence biometrics like fingerprints face. The book also adds location
Speaker 2: somewhere you are and time sometime you're in as other
Speaker 2: potential factors.
Speaker 1: Where cookies fit in. They're on my machine, so possession.
Speaker 2: Yeah, technically something you have your browser possesses the cookie
Speaker 2: they're used for authentication remembering you're logged in, but also
Speaker 2: heavily for tracking across websites.
Speaker 1: The tracking aspect that's the surveillance capitalism link.
Speaker 2: Again, it is convenience often comes with tracking.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Passwords, the main something you know, are famously weak, phishing,
Speaker 2: bad reuse habits, social engineering. They're a huge target.
Speaker 1: Policies try to help, like making us use complex ones, but.
Speaker 2: People find workarounds or they just become unusable. Biometrics are
Speaker 2: interesting because they're not just about knowing a secret. They
Speaker 2: can potentially identify you uniquely.
Speaker 1: Right you can't easily share your fingerprint like a password.
Speaker 1: Good for preventing duplicate accounts exactly.
Speaker 2: But they raise privacy concerns if the biometric data isn't
Speaker 2: handled very carefully, ideally stored locally on your device and
Speaker 2: under your control.
Speaker 1: Okay, So single factors are often weak. That leads to multi.
Speaker 2: Factor authentication MFA, combining two or more different types of
Speaker 2: factors like.
Speaker 1: A password no plus a code from my phone.
Speaker 2: At have exactly you see OTPs, one time passwords via SMS,
Speaker 2: authenticator apps, hardware, tokens, push notifications. All MFA methods and
Speaker 2: newer standards like FIDO aim to be even more secure,
Speaker 2: especially against phishing, using public key crypto cleverly.
Speaker 1: So the trend is definitely towards stronger multi factor methods
Speaker 1: beyond just passwords.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, passwords alone just aren't enough anymore. Okay, so we've authenticated,
Speaker 2: proven who we are. Now what are we allowed to do?
Speaker 2: Access control, authorization.
Speaker 1: The rules of the road once you're inside the system. Right.
Speaker 2: Access control determines what actions an authenticated user is permitted
Speaker 2: to perform on which resources. It's fundamentally about policy, security, rules,
Speaker 2: application needs, business logic.
Speaker 1: It's not just tech. It's about defining the rules.
Speaker 2: First, percisely, there are different models DC owner controls, access
Speaker 2: MS system wide security levels, RBAC access based.
Speaker 1: On role role based access control like admin, editor, viewer,
Speaker 1: common stuff, very common.
Speaker 2: And then there's ABAC or policy based access control PBAC
Speaker 2: attribute based. This is more flexible. It makes decisions based
Speaker 2: on attributes of the user, the resource, the environment, the action,
Speaker 2: so not.
Speaker 1: Just your role, but maybe where you're logging in from
Speaker 1: or what time.
Speaker 2: It is exactly much more granular and context aware, but
Speaker 2: potentially more complex set up.
Speaker 1: And the pp and PDP we talked about earlier come
Speaker 1: back here.
Speaker 2: Yes, the PEP intercepts the request to do something, asks
Speaker 2: the PDP if it's allowed based on the access control
Speaker 2: policy using RBACABAC, et cetera, and the PDP gives the
Speaker 2: green a red light. There are even standard languages like
Speaker 2: XACML to write these policies down.
Speaker 1: Okay, and single sign on SSO fits in here too.
Speaker 1: Logging in once.
Speaker 2: For multiple apps SSO is about improving the user experience,
Speaker 2: reducing login fatigue. It often uses federation technologies Fammel, open
Speaker 2: ID connect O FOTH to securely pass authentication and sometimes
Speaker 2: authorization information between systems, but it's.
Speaker 1: Not always perfectly seamless, as the book notes with some
Speaker 1: examples no.
Speaker 2: Integrating different systems can still be tricky, but the credit
Speaker 2: card industry is a good example of a large scale,
Speaker 2: successful federated system managing access and transactions across many different
Speaker 2: players based on agreed rules.
Speaker 1: Okay, So access control is the crucial step after authentation,
Speaker 1: determining what you can actually do.
Speaker 2: Exactly, which brings us properly to decentralize identifiers DIDs. We've
Speaker 2: touched on them, but let's focus. They're key to SSI, right, the.
Speaker 1: User controlled independent identifiers.
Speaker 2: They aim to solve the problems of traditional identifiers like
Speaker 2: email addresses or user names, which are controlled by the
Speaker 2: platform that issues them. Dds are defined by a W
Speaker 2: three C spec. They have a specific format did to day,
Speaker 2: then the method name than a method specific string.
Speaker 1: Did that example dot one, two, three, four, five, and
Speaker 1: the method tells you how it works.
Speaker 2: Yes, the method defines how the DID is created, resolved, updated,
Speaker 2: et cetera. Different methods might use blockchains, DHTs, or other systems.
Speaker 2: The key point is the d ID itself isn't locked to.
Speaker 1: One platform and its main job is to you solve.
Speaker 2: To a DID document. Think of the DID document as
Speaker 2: a small structured piece of data associated with the DID.
Speaker 2: It typically contains cryptographic keys like public keys, service endpoints
Speaker 2: like where to send messages, and other metadata.
Speaker 1: So the d ID points to this document which holds
Speaker 1: the useful.
Speaker 2: Info exactly, and this layer of indirection is super useful.
Speaker 2: Say you need to change your keys because the old
Speaker 2: ones were compromised, you just update the d ID document
Speaker 2: to point to the new keys. The DD itself doesn't
Speaker 2: change ah.
Speaker 1: So downstream systems looking up your DID automatically get the
Speaker 1: new keys without you having to reregister everywhere.
Speaker 2: That's clever it is it solves the key rotation problem neatly.
Speaker 2: And there are also peer IDs designed for direct two
Speaker 2: party relationships without needing any public ledger or registry.
Speaker 1: Very private okay. Di IDs are the foundational identifiers. What
Speaker 1: gets built using them?
Speaker 2: Verifiable credentials or vcs. These are the digital equivalent of
Speaker 2: your physical credentials driver's license to plumb a membership card,
Speaker 2: but way smarter and more secure. Usually signed credentials basically yes,
Speaker 2: cryptographically signed by an issuer, held by you the holder,
Speaker 2: and presented to a verifier when needed. They provide a
Speaker 2: standard way to share trustworthy information digitally.
Speaker 1: Cortable, tamper proof, proof of something.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and they fit perfectly with that identity metasystem idea
Speaker 2: user control, privacy, flexibility, decentralization. They operate in a trust
Speaker 2: triangle issue a welder dot the verifier, and they often
Speaker 2: rely on verifiable data registries VDRs, which might be blockchains
Speaker 2: or other systems to look up things like the issuer's
Speaker 2: public key to verify their signature.
Speaker 1: Okay, and can I choose what information to share from
Speaker 1: a VC?
Speaker 2: Yes, that's key. You can present the full credential or
Speaker 2: using zero knowledge proofs, you can create a derived credential
Speaker 2: that only reveals the specific piece of information needed, like.
Speaker 1: Proving your over eighteen from your digital driver's license without
Speaker 1: revealing your name or address precisely.
Speaker 2: This is huge for privacy minimal disclosure. It also helps
Speaker 2: prevent correlation, where a verifier could link your activities by
Speaker 2: seeing the same full credential repeatedly. Using ZKPS or blinded
Speaker 2: identifiers helps break that link. Very powerful standards are emerging
Speaker 2: for this, yeah, things like open ID for verifiable Credentials,
Speaker 2: open up forty C and self issued open ID providers.
Speaker 2: Siops are working on standardizing how vcs are requested and
Speaker 2: presented in a user controlled way.
Speaker 1: Okay, so deepds provide the identifier, vcs provide the verifiable data.
Speaker 2: This all leads back to self Software Identity SSI. The
Speaker 2: big picture vision the idea.
Speaker 1: That I am in control of my own digital identity.
Speaker 2: Exactly, establishing your own authority over your digital self rather
Speaker 2: than relying solely on administrative systems controlled by others. The
Speaker 2: goal is a digital world that respects human dignity and autonomy,
Speaker 2: and the tools to make this practical are often called
Speaker 2: smart agents.
Speaker 1: My personal digital wallet or identity.
Speaker 2: Hub kind of Yeah, software acting on your behalf. Your
Speaker 2: agent would securely store your DIDs and vcs, manage secure
Speaker 2: communications using protocols like didcom messaging, handle consent, maybe even payments,
Speaker 2: all under your control.
Speaker 1: So my agent talks to other agents or services following
Speaker 1: my rules.
Speaker 2: That's the model. Didcom enables secure private, peer to pure
Speaker 2: messaging between these agents, creating a kind of secure overlay
Speaker 2: network on top of the Internet. These agents become your
Speaker 2: operational arm in the digital.
Speaker 1: World, managing credentials, communication, data sharing. Sounds powerful. It is.
Speaker 2: Now, let's apply this to the Internet of Things IoT.
Speaker 1: Right, my smartfridge needs SSI.
Speaker 2: Well maybe the current situation is often called the compu
Speaker 2: serve of things. Everything siloed talking back to the manufacturer's cloud,
Speaker 2: no interoperability, lots of privacy question marks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my Philip's tooth PRUSHUREPP probably doesn't talk to my
Speaker 1: Samsung TV exactly.
Speaker 2: The SSIOT self sovereign Internet of Things envisions devices having
Speaker 2: their own DIDs, managing their own relationships and data using
Speaker 2: vcs and secure messaging, decentralized, interoperable.
Speaker 1: What would that enable.
Speaker 2: Things like truly secure firmware updates. The device could verify
Speaker 2: a VC from the manufacturer saying this update is legit
Speaker 2: before installing. Or multi owner scenarios. Imagine securely sharing access
Speaker 2: to a connected truck using vcs for temporary permissions, or
Speaker 2: lending a smart tool to a neighbor with time limited
Speaker 2: usage rights.
Speaker 1: Okay, that moves way beyond just centralized cloud control, much
Speaker 1: more flexible and potentially secure.
Speaker 2: That's the goal for any of this complex web of
Speaker 2: interactions to work, whether federated or decentralized. You need rules,
Speaker 2: You need governance.
Speaker 1: The operating manual for the identity.
Speaker 2: Ecosystem exactly how do you build and maintain trust? How
Speaker 2: do you ensure coherence? You need policies, standards, agreed upon
Speaker 2: architectures with the book calls an identity policy stack. Documenting
Speaker 2: why technical choices were made using ADR's architectural decision records
Speaker 2: is also important for transparency.
Speaker 1: So the tech is only part of the puzzle. The
Speaker 1: human agreements and rules are just as vital.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, different systems need different governance models. How do you
Speaker 2: govern a public VDR like the ones used for DDS?
Speaker 2: How do you ensure credential provenance? Knowing you can trust
Speaker 2: the issuer of a VC often involves verifying the issuer's
Speaker 2: DD somehow.
Speaker 1: Trust frameworks, Yes.
Speaker 2: Trust frameworks define the rules, liabilities, and agreements within a
Speaker 2: specific ecosystem, like for digital university transcripts or financial credentials.
Speaker 2: As these ecosystems grow, governance becomes paramount.
Speaker 1: It's about creating that reliable foundation for trust at scale.
Speaker 2: Precisely, and finally, the book talks about the potential generativity
Speaker 2: of this self sovereign internet.
Speaker 1: Generativity its ability to spark new innovation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, using Jonathan's it trains framework, how much leverage does
Speaker 2: it provide for building new things? How adaptable is it?
Speaker 2: How easy is it for developers to use? How accessible
Speaker 2: for users?
Speaker 1: So? How does SSI stack up?
Speaker 2: The argument is that the secure messaging layer DIDCOM and
Speaker 2: the verifiable credential exchange provide a highly generative foundation. It's leveragable, adaptable, usable, accessible, stable.
Speaker 2: It could potentially disintermediate existing platforms by giving users direct
Speaker 2: control and enabling new kinds of peer to peer interactions
Speaker 2: and services to be built easily on top.
Speaker 1: So it's not just fixing problem, it's potentially unlocking a
Speaker 1: whole new wave of innovation built on user control.
Speaker 2: That's the ultimate vision, a more generative, user centric internet.
Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, that was a lot. Let's try and wrap
Speaker 1: this up. We've covered a huge amount of ground in
Speaker 1: this deep dive.
Speaker 2: We really have from those early centralized days through federation
Speaker 2: to this emerging world of decentralized identity and SSI. The
Speaker 2: constant thread is that search for more user control, better privacy,
Speaker 2: more security.
Speaker 1: And understanding that identity is way more than just a
Speaker 1: log in. It's about relationships, attributes, control, and technologies like
Speaker 1: DIDs and vcs offer concrete tools to build this different future.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and smart agents acting on our behalf could really
Speaker 2: change how we navigate the digital world.
Speaker 1: It feels like we're on the cusp of potentially significant
Speaker 1: change in how the Internet works fundamentally.
Speaker 2: It could be. The potential is definitely there to build
Speaker 2: something more aligned with individual autonomy and dignity.
Speaker 1: So the final thought for you, our listener, is this,
Speaker 1: how might this shift towards self sovereign identity affects your
Speaker 1: online life? What does a truly user centric digital world
Speaker 1: look like to you? And maybe what role could you
Speaker 1: play in shaping it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's something worth pondering and if you want to
Speaker 2: go deeper, definitely look more into DIDs, VCS, smart Agents,
Speaker 2: dd com. The building blocks are fascinating.
Speaker 1: The journey is definitely ongoing. Thanks for exploring it with
Speaker 1: us today,