Identity protocol v1

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Revision as of 04:33, 28 June 2013 by Jgarzik (talk | contribs) (split and simplify)
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Design goals

Decentralized identity.

  • Has some creation cost
  • Sacrifice may be digitally proven, bootstrapping root of trust from blockchain data
  • Start as anonymous; opt out of anonymity by attaching identifying key-value pairs (real.name = "John Smith").


Creating sacrifice transactions

Similar to Announce/Commit Sacrifices

  1. MPK = master public key
  2. TM = current block height
  3. create transaction T2.
    1. must include OP_RETURN <digest of MPK> output
    2. nlocktime = TM + 144 blocks
    3. no more than 1000 bytes in size
  4. create transaction T1
    1. must include >= 0.01 BTC fee
    2. must include OP_RETURN txid(T2) output
    3. no more than 1000 bytes in size
  5. broadcast T1, T2 until confirmed

Creating a SIN

A SIN is the unique record identifier by which this identity will be known.

  1. Prefix = 0x18
  2. SIN_Version = 0x01
  3. MD = ripemd160(MPK)
  4. SIN = base58_encode_check( Prefix + SIN_Version + MD )

Validating the root identity information

  1. B1 = block w/ T1, B2 = block w/ T2
  2. Verify B2 height - 144 >= B1 height. Fail and waste sacrifice if not.

Thus a minimal root record is MPK and is provably

  • linked to the sacrifices
  • MPK starts a new chain of digital signature trust, for further record updates

After that, additional key-value pairs may be associated with the root record via updates verified by PPK, stored in an alt-blockchain or DHT somewhere. That is outside the scope of this minimal document.