Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Using blockchain for identity management is mostly ridiculous

blog.xot.nl

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 49 posts

Re: Using blockchain for identity management is mostly ridiculous

#11

Post by KirinDave »

Buttes wrote: post #9

>what would happen to all credentials once issued to some blockchain, if that blockchain ceases to operate? The raw blockchain data is of course still available and maintains its blockchain structure. Yet the integrity-preserving features of the blockchain disappear as soon as it is no longer actively used. I'm not sure this is true. Info about the blockchain wouldn't evaporate instantly, it'd be easy to get the legi…

No. It'd require only slightly more work than the cost of generating a block at that time, to generate a new plausible block altered arbitrarily.

The power of the "head" of the blockchain is the human consensus around it. It is otherwise unprivileged.

Re: Using blockchain for identity management is mostly ridiculous

#12

Post by KirinDave »

Kinnard wrote: post #3
TylerE wrote: post #2

Using blockchain for $x is (mostly) ridiculous

Today. But tomorrow? And who will be well-positioned then?

... Why? Why would a bad choice of algorithms and specious "security" guarantees be a better choice tomorrow?

Re: Using blockchain for identity management is mostly ridiculous

#13

Post by [deleted] »

Buttes wrote: post #9

>what would happen to all credentials once issued to some blockchain, if that blockchain ceases to operate? The raw blockchain data is of course still available and maintains its blockchain structure. Yet the integrity-preserving features of the blockchain disappear as soon as it is no longer actively used. I'm not sure this is true. Info about the blockchain wouldn't evaporate instantly, it'd be easy to get the legi…

[deleted]

Re: Using blockchain for identity management is mostly ridiculous

#14

Post by DennisP »

KirinDave wrote: post #11
Buttes wrote: post #9

>what would happen to all credentials once issued to some blockchain, if that blockchain ceases to operate? The raw blockchain data is of course still available and maintains its blockchain structure. Yet the integrity-preserving features of the blockchain disappear as soon as it is no longer actively used. I'm not sure this is true. Info about the blockchain wouldn't evaporate instantly, it'd be easy to get the legi…

No. It'd require only slightly more work than the cost of generating a block at that time, to generate a new plausible block altered arbitrarily. The power of the "head" of the blockchain is the human consensus around it. It is otherwise unprivileged.

As with any transaction on a proof of work chain, the more work there is layered on top of the item in question, the more confidence you can have. Even if you don't know that someone's presenting you with a truncated chain, you can still see that their credential is at the end of it, and know that they could have cheaply faked it.

Proof of stake would require more human consensus but proof of work is measurably expensive to produce.

Re: Using blockchain for identity management is mostly ridiculous

#15

Post by imustbeevil »

tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #10

Using it today for identity management is ridiculous. It's a brand new technology and will take time to fully develop.

Using brand new kind of liberally here.

The idea of a blockchain is more than 20 years old, with the first popular implementation, Bitcoin, being 9 years old.

That's the same year the iPhone 3G came out. So if you want to argue "brand new" that's where you've got to start.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_3G

Re: Using blockchain for identity management is mostly ridiculous

#16

Post by DennisP »

thinkloop wrote: post #6

I don't understand what the "privacy nightmare" is that the author describes: > The credential itself is signed by the issuer, which makes it authentic and binds it its owner. In itself this does not appear to create a big privacy problem, compared to standard PKI certificates. However, one of the keynotes suggested that also uses, i.e. verifications, of credentials could be logged on the blockchain. That information…

> verifications, of credentials could be logged on the blockchain

And how would that work anyway? He just finished saying that everything on the chain is public. You don't have to issue a transaction to read it, you can just read the public information off your local node.

Re: Using blockchain for identity management is mostly ridiculous

#17

Post by KirinDave »

DennisP wrote: post #14
KirinDave wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It'd require only slightly more work than the cost of generating a block at that time, to generate a new plausible block altered arbitrarily. The power of the "head" of the blockchain is the human consensus around it. It is otherwise unprivileged.

As with any transaction on a proof of work chain, the more work there is layered on top of the item in question, the more confidence you can have. Even if you don't know that someone's presenting you with a truncated chain, you can still see that their credential is at the end of it, and know that they could have cheaply faked it. Proof of stake would require more human consensus but proof of work is measurably expen…

> As with any transaction on a proof of work chain,

Only active proof of work chains. Discontinued chains have no active, competitive consensus and may be arbitrarily rewritten by attackers since there is no competition at any historical point in the chain for a quick mining operation and there is no consensus about the head of the chain.

If there are additional credentials and signatures embedded in the chain (there need not be) then THESE are the trust tokens that have value after the chain is discontinued.

Blockchains only offer one thing: human consensus when humans are not necessarily inclined to reach it. That is what a PoW or PoS blockchain algorithm for cryptocurrency is trying to guarantee.

Re: Using blockchain for identity management is mostly ridiculous

#18

Post by noddy1 »

Im a "blockchain-for-x" skeptic, but I disagree with this article.

A timestamped, immutable blockchain would be useful for reviewing credentials from 3rd world countries where qualifications/experience/government certification are all able to be bought. It wouldn't solve fraud, but it would make it a lot harder to suddenly decide to fake a whole lot of credentials, and would make it more obvious that a particular organization is corrupt and therefore would incentivize not being corrupt.

The central question for whether blockchains are indicated for a particular use case continues to be "does this require immutability, regulation resistance, or cooperation across various regimes that don't trust each other".

An example of useful blockchain identity would be in refugee verification/processing: - people in 3rd world countries scan a fingerprint and hash an encrypted version on the blockchain when young - annually update information about themselves onto the blockchain including info about families - 10 years down the line they have an excellent record of who they are, who their family is, what their situation is, and they become far more credible when it comes to identity verification that relying on documentation from a long-toppled government

Post reply on HN