>A good self‐sovereign identity system will allow individuals to directly influence how companies, governments, and others correlate our interactions across different services and locations by default. It won’t fix all identity problems nor preclude alternative identity approaches, but it will put the individual in control of most uses of identity and give organizations a simpler, easier, more ethical way to use identity to improve how they provide services and products. When successful, it will not only enable individuals to exercise greater control over how companies and governments keep track of us, it will also illuminate those situations where self‐sovereign identity is restricted, facilitating a conversation about when and where such limits are appropriate. [Joe Andrieu -A Technology‐Free Definition of Self‐Sovereign Identity](https://github.com/jandrieu/rebooting-the-web-of-trust-fall2016/blob/master/topics-and-advance-readings/a-technology-free-definition-of-self-sovereign-identity.pdf)
That's a big question, and what follows are just some notes, until I work out a more thoughtful answer.
The essence of Decentralized-ID is in creating open standards for a privacy preserving internet-wide identity layer — not owned by any one particular organization, but interoperable between all.
It's impossible to have a conversation about decentralized-id without discussing blockchain and self sovereign identity:
* Self Sovereign Identity principles (with some help from the GDPR) have helped to shape the narrative around putting the identity owner in control over their personal information.
* Blockchain fueled longstanding efforts to create a privacy preserving internet-wide identity protocol, and inspired development of decentralized networks for online identification.
* [Christopher Allen](http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/)[[**info**](https://christophera.info/)] details the overarching history of internet idenitity standards and outlines [10 Principles of Self Sovereign Identity](https://github.com/WebOfTrustInfo/self-sovereign-identity/blob/master/self-sovereign-identity-principles.md) in his seminal work [The Path to Self-Soverereign Identity](http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2016/04/the-path-to-self-soverereign-identity.html)[[**ϟ**](https://www.coindesk.com/path-self-sovereign-identity/amp/)]
*<ahref="https://github.com/jandrieu/rebooting-the-web-of-trust-fall2016/raw/master/topics-and-advance-readings/a-technology-free-definition-of-self-sovereign-identity.pdf"><u>A Technlogy-Free Definition of Self-Sovereign Identity</u></a> is a continuation of the discussion started by Allen, offering 3 "Core Characteristics of Sovereign Identity".
* [SSI: A Roadmap for Adoption](https://github.com/WebOfTrustInfo/rebooting-the-web-of-trust-spring2018/blob/master/final-documents/a-roadmap-for-ssi.md)
* **[/awesome-decentralized-id/self-sovereign-identity](https://github.com/infominer33/awesome-decentralized-id/tree/master/self-sovereign-identity)** SSI documentation is still under development. This directory is to organize existing thought on SSI in one place for ease of study, and the development of new documentation.
* [Matching Identity Management Solutions to Self Sovereign Identity Solutions](https://www.slideshare.net/TommyKoens/matching-identity-management-solutions-to-selfsovereign-identity-principles)
<blockquoteclass="twitter-tweet"data-lang="en"><plang="en"dir="ltr">0/ “Self-Sovereign Identity: A Progress Report”…</p>— Christopher Allen (@ChristopherA) <ahref="https://twitter.com/ChristopherA/status/989120215702261761?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 25, 2018</a></blockquote>
>The [World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)](https://www.w3.org/Consortium/) is an international community where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards. Led by Web inventor and Director Tim Berners-Lee and CEO Jeffrey Jaffe, W3C's mission is to lead the Web to its full potential.
*<ahref="https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-vc-wg/"target="_blank">Verifiable Claims WG - Mailing List</a> (and archives)
*<ahref="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-credentials/"target="_blank">Public mailing list for the Credentials Community Group</a> (and archives) - Anyone may read or write to this list.
*<ahref="https://sea-region.github.com/w3c-dvcg/w3c-dvcg.github.io"target="_blank">/w3c-dvcg/w3c-dvcg.github.io</a> - Landing site for W3C Digital Verification Community Group. [<ahref="https://www.w3.org/community/digital-verification/">**W**</a>]
<sup><ahref="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RllH91rcFdE">The Story of Open SSI Standards - Drummond Reed/Evernym SSIMeetup.org</a>[<b><ahref="https://www.slideshare.net/SSIMeetup/self-sovereign-identity-ssi-open-standards-with-drummond-reed">ϟ</a></b>]</sup>
* [Verifiable Claims Working Group](https://www.w3.org/2017/vc/WG/) [[**D**](https://www.w3.org/2017/vc/charter.html)]
* [Verifiable Claims Data Model 1.0](https://w3c.github.io/vc-data-model/) [[**G**](https://github.com/w3c/vc-data-model)] [[**D**](https://w3c.github.io/vc-use-cases/)]
* [DID Auth and the Little I-am-Me](https://medium.com/@markus.sabadello/did-auth-and-the-little-i-am-me-ec14d757ff09)
* [Introduction to DID Auth](https://github.com/WebOfTrustInfo/rebooting-the-web-of-trust-spring2018/blob/master/final-documents/did-auth.md) [[**ϟ**](http://ssimeetup.org/introduction-did-auth-markus-sabadello-webinar-10/)]
* [Agent to Agent Communication](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PHAy8dMefZG9JNg87Zi33SfKkZvUvXvx/view): Daniel Hardman explains the goals of agent to agent communication
<sup><ahref="http://ssimeetup.org/decentralized-key-management-dkms-essential-missing-piece-ssi-puzzle-drummond-reed-webinar-8/">DKMS - An Essential Missing Piece of the SSI Puzzle. Drummond Reed. SSIMeetup.org</a></sup>
*<ahref="https://query.prod.cms.rt.microsoft.com/cms/api/am/binary/RE2DjfY"target="_blank">Microsoft- Decentralized Identity — Own and Control Your Identity.</a>
* [Blockcerts](https://www.blockcerts.org), developed by learning machine is an open standard for issuing and verifying blockchain-based official records; The project offers open-source libraries, tools, and mobile apps. MIT has [issued](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/10/19/mit-introduces-digital-diplomas) digital certificates based on this standard.
* [CXC (Carribean) Pilots E-Certificates on the Blockchain](https://www.cxc.org/cxc-pilots-e-certificates-on-the-blockchain/)
* [A Decentralized Approach to Blockcerts Credential Revocation](https://github.com/WebOfTrustInfo/rebooting-the-web-of-trust-fall2017/blob/master/final-documents/blockcerts-revocation.md)
* proposals in the Ethereum community to standardize smart contracts for certain identity-related operations such as key management, as well as signing transactions, documents, and "claims", which may be attested by third parties or self-asserted.
* [Origin partners on ERC725](https://coinjournal.net/origin-protocol-partners-on-new-erc-725-alliance-to-promote-the-adoption-of-blockchain-based-identity-standard)
* [Managing Identity with a UI—ERC-725](https://medium.com/originprotocol/managing-identity-with-a-ui-for-erc-725-5c7422b38c09)
* [ERC: Lightweight Identity #1056](https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/issues/1056) —This ERC describes a standard for creating and updating identities with a limited use of blockchain resources. An identity can have an unlimited number of delegates and attributes associated with it. Identity creation is as simple as creating a regular key pair ethereum account, which means that it's fee (no gas costs) and all ethereum accounts are valid identities. Furthermore this ERC is fully DID compliant.
* [ERC-1484: Digital Identity Aggregator #1495](https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/issues/1495) —A protocol for aggregating digital identity information that's broadly interoperable with existing, proposed, and hypothetical future digital identity standards.
* [ERC1056 ❤ ERC780—an open identity and claims protocol for Ethereum](https://medium.com/uport/erc1056-erc780-an-open-identity-and-claims-protocol-for-ethereum-aef7207bc744)
* [ERC-1077 and ERC-1078: The magic of executable signed messages](https://ethereum-magicians.org/t/erc-1077-and-erc-1078-the-magic-of-executable-signed-messages-to-login-and-do-actions/351)
### Schema [**^**](#contents)
* [Schema](https://schema.org) — a collaborative, community activity with a mission to create, maintain, and promote schemas for structured data on the Internet. Schema.org vocabulary can be used with many different encodings, including RDFa, Microdata and JSON-LD. These vocabularies cover entities, relationships between entities and actions, and can easily be extended through a well-documented extension model. Over 10 million sites use Schema.org to markup their web pages and email messages. Many applications from Google, Microsoft, Pinterest, Yandex and others already use these vocabularies to power rich, extensible experiences."
>There seems to exist a trilemma in decentralized identity analogous to @Zooko's triangle. None of the existing solutions are at the same time: 1) privacy-preserving, 2) Sybil-resistant 3) self-sovereign -[[**T**](https://twitter.com/MaciekLaskus/status/1031859093072424960)]
* "I designed an algorithm that mapped out people [working on identity](https://twitter.com/MaciekLaskus/status/1066780557906976768) using Twitter data:" [Identity list](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hBBVA0-jqmRRZ_JFQ8HEck9tFub7crsqRzlBZWf01xg/edit?usp=sharing)
* [Proof of Thought (PoT)](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4459113.0)
>Stories about using the Internet as a tool to find out more about yourself, and as a tool to express and empower; about the dangers of Internet censorship and about the practical realities of maintaining multiple distinct digital identities.
* [@SarahJamieLewis Twitter thread on Identity](https://twitter.com/SarahJamieLewis/status/1041043532654542848)
>Any technology which relies on the existence of, or attempts to create a, global, unique identity is oppressive by design. Stop" innovating" oppressive structures.
* did:btcr: - [BTCR DID Method](https://w3c-ccg.github.io/didm-btcr/)
* The Bitcoin Reference DID method (did:btcr) supports DIDs on the public Bitcoin blockchain. The Bitcoin Reference method has minimal design goals: a DID trust anchor based on the Bitcoin blockchain, updates publicly visible and auditable via Bitcoin transactions, and optionally, additional DID Document information referenced in the transaction OP_RETURN data field. No other Personal Identifiable Information (PII) would be placed on the immutable blockchain.
* did:stack: - [Blockstack DID Method](https://github.com/blockstack/blockstack-core/blob/master/docs/blockstack-did-spec.md) [[**ϟ**](https://forum.blockstack.org/t/did-method-at-identity-foundation/4287/9)]
- Blockstack is a network for decentralized applications where users own their identities and data. Blockstack utilizes a public blockchain to implement a decentralized naming layer, which binds a user's human-readable username to their current public key and a pointer to their data storage buckets.
* did:v1: - [Veres One DID Method](https://w3c-ccg.github.io/didm-veres-one/)
* [**veres.one**](https://veres.one) — a permissionless public ledger designed specifically for the creation and management of decentralized identifiers (DIDs)
* [@ChristopherA on DID adoption](https://twitter.com/ChristopherA/status/989122017348784130)
> "22/ Over a dozen companies and organizations, using multiple blockchains (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Hyperledger, etc.), have committed to deploying DIDs, including IBM, Microsoft, Digital Bazaar, Consensys, Evernym, Learning Machine, British Columbia, and more:" —[How blockchain could solve the internet privacy problem](https://www.computerworld.com/article/3267930/blockchain/how-blockchain-could-solve-the-internet-privacy-problem.html)
* "offers a platform for self-sovereign identity, including desktop and mobile apps for end-users. It uses Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) - backed by optionally Bitcoin or Ethereum - to implement a marketplace for verifiable claims. The Spidchain applications allow individuals to create, recover, and revoke DIDs, to authenticate, to sign and verify files and claims, and more."
2018 Identity Landsacpe brought to you by: [One World Identity](https://oneworldidentity.com/) — independent advisory and digital strategy consultancy focused on trust and the data economy.
