Internet identity: on-chain identity

Introduction

Human identity is a basic human right and must be owned and controlled by the human. By default, human identity on the internet must be provided as a public good service. Today, centralized trusted third parties(intermediaries) own the identity layer of the internet.

How is the Blockchain technology paradigm fixing the identity layer of the internet?

Human identity on the Internet

“The Internet was built without an identity layer.” —Kim Cameron, Microsoft Chief Identity Architect, The Laws of Identity, May 2005

Today, identity services on the Internet are provided via private companies(intermediaries). Centralized trusted third parties companies own the human identity, they control the human digital presence based on their interests. The computer programs that provide identity services are deployed and executed on private infrastructure.
We end up with such an identity on the internet because of the web nature of building computer programs. In this first identity paradigm on the internet, we have two main models which are “Siloed identity” and “Federated Identity(Third-Party IDP)”. The article Blockchain digital identity system has more details about them.

Blockchain technology proposes a new identity paradigm on the internet. Identity services will be provided via on-chain protocols as a public good. As a human, with just a mobile phone and an internet connection without any permission of any entity(permissionless and open), you get access to identity services(neutrality) that are not controlled by any centralized trusted third parties. It is the on-chain identity paradigm that shares the same principles of on-chain finance(DeFi), on-chain value, and on-chain governance. On-chain identity protocols are deployed and executed on a decentralized public good infrastructure.
On-chain identity will be the native identity layer/stack of the internet. The on-chain identity protocols stack is based on Blockchain, smart contracts, and Zero-knowledge proofs(ZKPs).

On-chain identity stack

The on-chain identity paradigm consisted of two main components:

• On-chain identity protocols
• A universal wallets

An on-chain protocol can serve different identity services, such as identification, authentication, authorization, naming services, profiling, reputation, and attestation. In the on-chain paradigm, humans own and control their identity via on-chain protocols that are deployed on the Blockchain. We can distinguish two main on-chain identity protocol types:

• Protocols that manage, control, and govern human digital presence(identification, authentification, authorization, account recovery).
• Protocols that provide identity services around the human digital presence, such as reputation, attestation, naming service, profiling, etc.

A wallet is a client software that lets humans interact with on-chain protocols, which we will use in our daily activities. It is like using browsers and mobile phones nowadays.

Blockchain

Blockchain is a shared, distributed ledger on the internet that processes, records, and accounts the state of transactions and operations between humans in a P2P manner without intermediaries. The ledger is maintained by a decentralized public good infrastructure which consists of a network and a governance protocol (set of rules).

Blockchain is a decentralized public good infrastructure that provides a new paradigm for developing computer programs on the internet and in consequence, provides a new set of principles to build services on the internet.

Trust assumptions on the Internet

The blockchain paradigm is disrupting how we build, deploy, and run computer programs on the internet. It provides new digital primitives for building services on the internet via a trust minimization(trust is ensured via economic and cryptographic security) approach instead of providing trust via centralized third parties.

Services on the Internet will be built via on-chain protocols. As a human, an on-chain protocol will process my request for a service independent of any factors such as religion, nationality, etc. Any requests for some service will be processed in the same manner as defined(censorship resistance) for any human. Mainly, an on-chain protocol is built via smart contracts and ZK programs.

Tokenized/On-chain world

Zero-knowledge proofs(ZKPs)

The identity services on the Internet will be provided via on-chain protocols which are built via smart contracts and ZK programs. ZKP has a crucial role in the on-chain identity paradigm(privacy, client-side proof) because it ensures trust minimization at scale and low cost.

ZKPs technology allows two parties that don’t trust each other to exchange any general computational statements via cryptography in a trust-minimized manner(fewer trust assumptions) without a trusted third party. In general, we’re familiar with securely exchanging data via encryption, such as by using the RSA algorithm. With ZKP, we securely exchange computation via a proof system, such as by using the Groth16 protocol.

We exchange computational statements between computer programs using a cryptographic proof system by encoding them via a ZK circuit(constrain what you want to verify via a ZK circuit). Then, the prover party proves the correctness of a computational statement result by generating a cryptographic proof. The verifier party verifies the computational statement's validity via the proof.

ZK is part of the programmable cryptography movement(Zero-knowledge proof(ZKP), Multi-Party Computation(MPC), Fully homomorphic encryption(FHE), and Trusted execution environment(TEE)).

The current version of the internet is based on (web/web services/web documents) as first-class citizens to build and run computer programs. Nowadays, we have two other entities (blockchain/smart contract/transaction) and (proof system/ZK circuits/cryptographic proof) to build and run computer programs on the internet, which led to a new paradigm for building digital services referred to as tokenization.

ZK will be a main component in the universal wallet architecture. An important part of the wallet logic will be maintained via ZK programs (ZK circuits and Merkle trees). At Microchain Labs, we’re using ZKP to disrupt wallet design space. We program computational statements using a ZK circuit between an embedded wallet and the smart contract account. Then, we use proofs to communicate computational statement validity between them. We have introduced the ZK session key and limited scope account concepts.

Conclusion

There are two main paradigms of identity on the internet based on trust assumptions. Identity services can be provided via centralized trusted third-party applications or trust-minimized on-chain protocols.

The on-chain identity paradigm is the new identity layer of the Internet (the same approach as the new value or finance layer on the Internet). It consists of two main components: on-chain identity protocols and universal wallets.

Zero-knowledge proofs(ZKPs) have a main role in the on-chain identity paradigm on the internet where we can program any computational statement in a trust-minimized manner between the on-chain protocol and the universal wallet at scale and low cost.

With the on-chain identity paradigm, identity services are provided via on-chain protocols. Humans own their identities and control their digital presence via a public good approach.