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Mozilla and Google Objections Overruled on “Decentralized Identifiers” by W3C

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Re: Mozilla and Google Objections Overruled on “Decentralized Identifiers” by W3C

#151

Post by dhzhzjsbevs »

capableweb wrote: post #81
jiggawatts wrote: post #21

Something that should be a bit of a warning flag is that I have two decades of identity-related experience but I still have no idea what DID even is . For reference, I've worked with three vendors' implementations of LDAP, several versions of SAML, OAuth, JWT, Okta, Azure Active Directory, etc, etc... I've even deployed Smart Card authentication in the field several times. I literally have no idea, not a clue what DI…

> Something that should be a bit of a warning flag is that I have two decades of identity-related experience but I still have no idea what DID even is. I'm not sure this is the "flex" you wanted it to be. A cursory look at the specification gave me a pretty good idea what DID are supposed to be, and for (and I would only say I know enough identity-related stuff in order to implement things in my own services, but not…

Reading that DNS spec and all I have to say is that I fucking hope I retire before I have to learn this bullshit.

Re: Mozilla and Google Objections Overruled on “Decentralized Identifiers” by W3C

#152

Post by dhzhzjsbevs »

csmpltn wrote: post #123
smarx007 wrote: post #103

As a user, I am very happy that W3C has overruled the objections. As a developer, it may a bit of a PITA, albeit a necessary one. For Google, it makes sense for them to request at least some "standard" methods. If the number of DID methods is sufficiently large, Google won't be able to use their network effect to dominate any of them. Surprise, that's the aim of the spec. For Mozilla, it makes sense to support a smal…

> "As a user, I am very happy that W3C has overruled the objections. As a developer, it may a bit of a PITA, albeit a necessary one." It's not immediately clear what DIDs are, what problems they're solving (and what value they're providing to the ecosystem), why they're better than other options in the same space, and how they'll function and scale years into the future. That's a legitimate cause for skepticism. That…

Is that what that rambling was about after the two statements from Google/Moz?

I thought it was just someone crying about how the big browsers just didnt understand their brilliance.

Overruling them just makes you look stupid. They won't implement it. W3C pulls this bullshit all the time.

Fighting for relevance.

Re: Mozilla and Google Objections Overruled on “Decentralized Identifiers” by W3C

#153

Post by EGreg »

manigandham wrote: post #101
EGreg wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why sigh? Why are Bitcoin maxis and HN Web 2.0 people so intent on keeping everyone from advancing to the next phases of the Web? Do you like centralized VC-funded “cloud”-hosted startups incubated in Silicon Valley that get gobbled up by big tech or dumped on the public? You like the extreme power inequality between those who run these systems and the public? You think the best our systems can do is extract rents at…

> "Do you really think this won’t have any real applications?" So where are they? The consensus is denying it on principle but rather wondering what it's actually useful for. It's strange to see all the claims of opportunities and problems to solve, yet nothing seems to be produced.

Many of them are here, fully documented and explained to laypeople, with links to GitHub, feel free to take the open source software and use them: https://intercoin.org/applications

Is that not good enough for now? What more would you like?

Re: Mozilla and Google Objections Overruled on “Decentralized Identifiers” by W3C

#154

Post by EGreg »

mtsr wrote: post #72
EGreg wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why sigh? Why are Bitcoin maxis and HN Web 2.0 people so intent on keeping everyone from advancing to the next phases of the Web? Do you like centralized VC-funded “cloud”-hosted startups incubated in Silicon Valley that get gobbled up by big tech or dumped on the public? You like the extreme power inequality between those who run these systems and the public? You think the best our systems can do is extract rents at…

It might have something to do with all the cryptobro’s pushing get-rich-quick-schemes. Crypto-enthusiasts ignore how regulations existed for good reasons before regulatory capture made a mess of things. Not everyone likes the idea of an anarchocapitalist future. And I’m not even talking about the outright scamming and the fact that most crypto’s primary use case is criminal. Or the environmental issues of spending en…

So Web2 has gotten such a bad name due to centralized bullshit that entire democracies are up in arms. And the Zucks of the world just say “Calm down. Breathe. We hear you” and proceed to continue to do the very thing people have been mad about (Libra? Beacon?)

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

Zuck correctly described the situation early on: “I don’t know. They ‘trust me’. Dumb f#%ks”. And it’s still true today and you want to bury any alternative to that system.

Re: Mozilla and Google Objections Overruled on “Decentralized Identifiers” by W3C

#155

Post by NoGravitas »

Communitivity wrote: post #115
015a wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it speaks extreme volumes that the "methods" of "did" and "com" were both proposed by no-name crypto organizations; "cosmos" seems to be proposed by one guy with a template website maybe unrelated to the relatively major Cosmos blockchain (they're fighting amongst themselves lol); "ens" was proposed by some organization with no website; "evan" was picked up by literally some guy named Evan. Its not just that…

If you have arguments against DIDs, then raise them here for rational discussion from all POVs, which is something HN is great at. '"evan" was picked up by literally some guy named Evan' is not an argument. It's also not factual. The Evan DID method spec [1] was written by Sebastian Wolfram and Philip Kaiser. It is for the Evan Network, which is a blockchain attempting to provide a usable decentralized market infrast…

> It is for the Evan Network, which is a blockchain attempting to provide a usable decentralized market infrastructure.

How's that going for them?

Re: Mozilla and Google Objections Overruled on “Decentralized Identifiers” by W3C

#156

Post by tester756 »

dane-pgp wrote: post #149
dmitriid wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> like any technology, it has applications it excels in Name five.

1. Permissionless, censorship-resistant global money transfer 2. Smart contracts 3. Append-only logs synchronised between mutually distrusting parties 4. Decentralised identities 5. Microtransactions for online games and to replace web advertising

>1. Permissionless, censorship-resistant global money transfer

>5. Microtransactions for online games and to replace web advertising

how money transfer and microtransactions are different?

Re: Mozilla and Google Objections Overruled on “Decentralized Identifiers” by W3C

#157

Post by NoGravitas »

reflexco wrote: post #143
pbarthelemy wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think reflexco meant this as a joke….

No, this is what identity politics is, reducing technical matters to which camp you're in ("your post gives me crypto vibes, scam!!"). Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe this doesn't belong on HN.

No. Broad technical camps are not identity politics, and they're a necessary simplification for making judgements about the massive amount of technical novelty being produced today. I am not going to investigate each crypto scam presented to me for all of its technical details; there are too many of them. It's enough to know it's cryptocurrency-adjacent, and therefore, probably a scam.

Re: Mozilla and Google Objections Overruled on “Decentralized Identifiers” by W3C

#158

Post by dane-pgp »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #112

From Mozilla's objection: "The lack of restrictions on the registry are allowing methods ... which are actively globally harmful to sustainability." That seems to me like Mozilla trying to push their social justice goals down into tech standards now.

That's a rather flamebaity opinion, but you have a point.

It's like Mozilla are saying "We have centrally planned the number of carbon credits that may be spent by each technology, and determined that blockchains are a forbidden technology. We will therefore undermine any efforts of other people to implement standards where using blockchains is even a possibility."

Re: Mozilla and Google Objections Overruled on “Decentralized Identifiers” by W3C

#159

Post by dboreham »

jiggawatts wrote: post #21

Something that should be a bit of a warning flag is that I have two decades of identity-related experience but I still have no idea what DID even is . For reference, I've worked with three vendors' implementations of LDAP, several versions of SAML, OAuth, JWT, Okta, Azure Active Directory, etc, etc... I've even deployed Smart Card authentication in the field several times. I literally have no idea, not a clue what DI…

I have a similar background, and I also know some of the people active in the DID community, and I spent a couple of years trying to get them to explain to me what problem it solved or show me a working application using the tech.

My take is that it is a) X.509 re-born with different encoding (JSON-LD vs BER or PEM) and b) a scheme to promote use of certain blockchains for a purpose that blockchains don't suit well.

Re: Mozilla and Google Objections Overruled on “Decentralized Identifiers” by W3C

#160

Post by NoGravitas »

dane-pgp wrote: post #149
dmitriid wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> like any technology, it has applications it excels in Name five.

1. Permissionless, censorship-resistant global money transfer 2. Smart contracts 3. Append-only logs synchronised between mutually distrusting parties 4. Decentralised identities 5. Microtransactions for online games and to replace web advertising

1. Except cryptocurrencies aren't any good for that, because the transaction costs are too high, and the value of cryptocurrencies too volatile. Cryptocurrencies are not a medium of exchange.

2. Now, what's a valid use-case for a smart contract, and please explain how it functions if there's a bug in the contract?

3. Maybe. You'll need to provide a more concrete use-case. Also, you have the outside-world problem (you know the data hasn't been altered, but you don't necessarily know where it comes from).

4. All you need for decentralized identities is a public key. (Though if you want your identity to be long-lived, you'll have to also have a system of secure key rotation, and the most straightforward system is blockchain-ish in that it involves a signed append-only log. But it doesn't need a global trustless ledger.

5. See 1, except worse, because the transaction cost dwarf the actual payment.

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