November 2024
DIF Website | DIF Mailing Lists | Meeting Recording Archive
Table of contents
- Decentralized Identity Foundation News; 2. Working Group Reminders; 3. Open Groups; 4. Announcements at DIF; 5. Community Events; 6. DIF Member Spotlights; 7. Get involved! Join DIF
🚀 Decentralized Identity Foundation News
DIDComm: Formal Verification and Strengthened Security
DIDComm is a cornerstone protocol in Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI), enabling private, authenticated messaging between entities using Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs). In a breakthrough study, researchers have completed the first formal security analysis of DIDComm, marking a crucial milestone in verifying the protocol's security promises. The paper, "What Did Come Out of It? Analysis and Improvements of DIDComm Messaging", by Christian Badertscher, Fabio Banfi, and Jesús Díaz Vico not only validates DIDComm's core security model but also introduced significant improvements:
- Formal proof of DIDComm's anonymity and authenticity goals
- A new encryption algorithm that doubles performance while maintaining security
- Enhanced privacy protections that minimize information leakage
The findings position DIDComm as a rigorously verified protocol ready for widespread adoption in secure identity frameworks and data spaces. Dr. Carsten Stöcker, CEO of Spherity GmbH, highlights DIDComm's role in facilitating secure peer-to-peer communication, highlighting relevance to business-to-business (B2B) and machine-to-machine (M2M) communications.
DIF at IIW 39: Leading Privacy, Interoperability, and Practical Solutions in Decentralized Identity
At Internet Identity Workshop (IIW) 39, DIF leadership and members joined with global identity experts to address some of today’s most pressing digital identity challenges. Sessions led by the DIF community underscored its commitment to building secure identity systems that foster privacy, trust, and digital interactions. Here are key takeaways and themes from the event:
Verifiable AI: Proof of Approved AI Agent, Proof of Personhood, Content Credentials… and much more
The complex interdependencies of AI and digital identity were a hot topic at IIW, with DIF's leaders and members leading the discussions. Ankur Banerjee of cheqd lead a comprehensive discussion in the session Verifiable AI, focusing on ways to enable AI transparency and accountability in training data, models, and delegation chains.
This conversation continued across many sessions, covering Personhood Credentials issuance, schemas, risk frameworks, and legal implications in sessions featuring Otto Mora, Andor Kesselman, Steve McCown, and Linda Jeng.
DIF's Kim Duffy covered DIF's extensive work on Personhood Credentials (PHCs), including DIF's co-authorship of the Personhood Credentials paper with OpenAI, Microsoft, Harvard Society of Fellows, and more; PHC schema design, use cases, and risk frameworks; and upcoming Applied Crypto work item incorporating zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) for PHCs.
Come Build Your Identity Project With DIF Labs
Andor Kesselman, Ankur Banerjee, and Kim Duffy gave an update on the DIF Labs initiative, a program designed to accelerate practical implementation of decentralized identity technologies. This initiative addresses a crucial gap in the ecosystem between standards organizations and traditional incubators.
DIF Labs will provide a "safe space" for builders to collaborate on real-world projects, offering protection access to industry experts, and project evangelism support. Unlike traditional incubators or standards bodies, DIF Labs focuses on rapid development of practical solutions without taking equity or getting bogged down in lengthy standardization processes.
Golda Velez discussed her Linked Claims project, which will be part of DIF Lab's first cohort. Stay tuned to learn more about this and DIF Labs.
Privacy-First Identity Design
Privacy was a central theme across sessions, with DIF leaders and members emphasizing the need for identity systems that put user control and transparency first. Steve McCown joined Denise Farnsworth in leading the session “Verifiable ID with the State of Utah - Why are we different?’ to discuss Utah’s leadership in creating digital identity for residents that respects privacy from the ground up.
New DIF Associate Member Ken Griggs led a session on Anonymity vs Privacy, leading a nuanced discussion with technical and societal impacts.
DIDComm v2 Update
Sam Curren of Indicio presented the latest on DIDComm v2, a protocol for secure, transport-agnostic, peer-to-peer communication. DIDComm v2’s design enables flexible, private credential exchange across platforms. His presentation showed how DIDComm v2 not only strengthens interoperability but also lays a foundation for scalable, secure identity interactions. Sam highlighted DIDComm’s recent formal verification and security improvements. Stay tuned to learn about DIF’s upcoming DIDComm Interop-athon.
Credential Schemas for Interoperability
Otto Mora and Kim Duffy led discussions on DIF's credential schemas, including the Basic Person Schema. Credential schemas play a critical role in ensuring interoperability across finance, telecom, healthcare, and other sectors by creating a consistent structure for credentials.
Decentralized Identity in the Music Industry
Cole Davis from Switchchord shared insights into how decentralized identity is transforming the music industry by facilitating secure, direct engagement between artists and fans. This approach enables artists to retain control over their content, sidestepping intermediaries and providing a more transparent, direct relationship with their audience. The session demonstrated the broad potential for decentralized identity to bring fairness and trust to new areas.
DID Method Standardization
Markus Sabadello, Alex Tweeddale, and Kim Duffy led a session on DID Method Standardization, aimed at promoting maturity and adoption of the W3C Decentralized Identifier specification. Kim gave an update on DIF's upcoming DID Method Standardization Working Group, with joint participation from W3C, Trust Over IP Foundation, and International Association For Trusted Blockchain Applications (INATBA). Markus provided an update on DIF's DID Traits specification, which helps implementors choose DID methods according to method characteristics. Alex emphasized the importance of reducing complexity associated with selecting DID methods, and the disscusion centered around ways to balance the need for curation along with open, transparent processes.
SSI 101
IIW would not be complete without Limari Navarrete's SSI 101 session, describing the technical standards and – more importantly – foundational principles aimed at enabling human agency and privacy in our digital interactions.
🛠️ Working Group Reminders
💡Identifiers and Discovery Work Group
Identifiers and Discovery meets bi-weekly at 11am PT/ 2pmET/ 8pm CET Mondays
🪪 Claims & Credentials Working Group
The Credential Schemas work item meets bi-weekly at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 7pm CET Tuesdays
🔐 Applied Crypto WG
The DIF Crypto - BBS work item meets weekly at 11am PT/2pm ET /8pm CET Mondays
📦 Secure Data Storage
DIF/CCG Secure Data Storage WG - DWN Task Force meets bi-weekly at 9am PT/12pm ET/6pm CET Wednesdays
If you are interested in participating in any of the Working Groups highlighted above, or any of DIF's other Working Groups, please click join DIF.
📖 Open Groups at DIF
Veramo User Group
Meetings take place weekly on Thursdays, alternating between Noon EST / 18.00 CET and 09.00 EST / 15.00 CET. Click here for more details
🌏 APAC/ASEAN Discussion Group
The DIF APAC call takes place Monthly on the 4th Thursday of the month. Please see the DIF calendar for updated timing.
🌍 DIF Africa SIG
The inaugural meeting of the DIF Africa Special Interest Group (SIG) kicked off with introductions by co-chairs Gideon Lombard of DIDx and Jack Scott-King of Vera Innovations, who emphasized the SIG’s goals: to raise awareness, encourage collaboration, and promote decentralized identity solutions tailored to Africa's needs.
The DIF Africa SIG call takes place Monthly on the 3th Wednesday of the month, 1pm SAST. Please see the DIF calendar for updated timing.
🌍 DIF China SIG
The DIF China SIG group recently launched an AI+DID research group. The chair of DIF China SIG, Xie Jiagui and co-chair, Professor Senchun Chai from Beijing Institute of Technology, jointly announced the formation of the group, aimed at exploring the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Decentralized Identity to address growing challenges in digital identity and privacy.
📢 Announcements at DIF
DIF Hackathon
The DIF Hackathon is entering its final week. See our playlist for in-depth challenge descriptions, including insights into the transformative solutions our participants will deliver.
Sessions include:
- DIF Hackathon 2024 Opening Session
- Intro to Decentralized Identity
- Ethereum Foundation | PSE Hackathon Challenge
- NetSys Challenge | Seamless Traveler Experience
- Ontology's ONT Login Challenge
- TBD's Challenge: Known Customer Credentials (KCC)
- ArcBlock Framework and Tools for Building with DID/VC Pt. 1
- Building Decentralized Identifier (DID) Applications with ArcBlock Pt 2
- Building SSI Solutions: An Introduction to the Truvity SDK
- Pinata File Based Solutions
- A Deep Dive on Decentralized Identifiers
- Resolve DIDs and Verify VCs for Free with VIDOS
- Anonyome Labs Challenge: Personhood Credentials
- Crossmint’s Reusable Identity Challenge
- Components for Secure Identity and Information Verification with Extrimian
- Future of Education & Workforce Challenge Set
- Harnessing Decentralized Identity for Verifiable AI with cheqd
🗓️ ️DIF Members
Extrimian / Quark ID in the News
DIF Associate Member Extrimian and Quark ID received accolades as over 3.6M Buenos Aires citizens received secure identity documents based on decentralized ID and ZKPs.
Buenos Aires is the first city to issue decentralized IDs to its citizens!
— ZKsync (∎, ∆) (@zksync) October 22, 2024
By integrating @Quark_ID into the miBA platform, over 3.6M Buenos Aires citizens now have control over their documents via blockchain and ZK proofs, with Era serving as the settlement layer.… pic.twitter.com/QS4lhvjpE8
This effort received attention from Vitalik Buterin, resulting in this call to action.
Glad to see our South American collaborators, including @Quark_ID and @Extrimian, being recognized! Check out the open challenge they’ve presented during the @decentralizedID hackathon: https://t.co/Afa3kO3s3s https://t.co/Ub7wfliwvG
— DIF (@DecentralizedID) October 22, 2024
👉Are you a DIF member with news to share? Email us at communication@identity.foundation with details.
New Member Orientations
If you are new to DIF join us for our upcoming new member orientations. Please see our contact information below for notifications on orientations and events.
🆔 Join DIF!
If you would like to get in touch with us or become a member of the DIF community, please visit our website or follow our channels:
New Member Orientations
If you are new to DIF join us for our upcoming new member orientations. Find more information on DIF’s slack or contact us at community@identity.foundation if you need more information.
