RT @hdevalence: under-remarked in this Apple announcement is the fact that for the first time in a decade or more, there is now an aspect i…
Replying to @kanzure and @peterktodd
I’d avoid Google groups. Tried converting a listserv list and was an awful experience.
Replying to @kanzure and @peterktodd
It was a while ago. They did import the files but admin was atrocious.
Replying to @LeoWandersleb, @JWWeatherman_ and @theonevortex
Don’t conflated Microsoft DID method (or any corporate DID method) as being a great example of the DID. The problem that NOSTR has is that you have a permanent identifier using a single set of non-rotatable keys that are correlatable and more risky. The overall DID architecture…
Replying to @LeoWandersleb, @JWWeatherman_ and @theonevortex
Here is a gentle introduction to DIDs: https://github.com/WebOfTrustInfo/rwot12-cologne/blob/main/advance-readings/did-primer.md
Replying to @LeoWandersleb, @JWWeatherman_ and @theonevortex
Rotatable identifiers are important for several reasons:
- Security: Rotatable identifiers involve changing cryptographic keys associated with an identifier at regular intervals. This enhances security because if a key is compromised, the attacker’s access is limited to a…
Replying to @kanzure
I like solar punk.
Replying to @Bquittem
Even if you are not an engineer, you should do at least the first the first 8 chapters of the self-paced “Learning Bitcoin from the Command Line”. It will help you more intimately understand the key functionality of bitcoin-core transactions: https://github.com/BlockchainCommons/Learning-Bitcoin-from-the-Command-Line
We need an international right of Freedom to Transact. Without it, the other rights in the UN Declaration of Human Rights #UDHR such as Freedom of Movement, Residence, Property, Nationality, Thought, Religion, Opinion, Expression, Peaceful Association, and Information… https://twitter.com/thibm_/status/1721421265016164666
Freedom of Movement and Residence are less meaningful if one cannot engage in transactions to secure housing or travel. The right to property is tied to the ability to buy and sell it. #OpenBorders 3/5
The UDHR’s freedoms are foundational, yet without a Freedom to Transact, they risk becoming hollow. Economic exchange underpins the exercise of these rights. #EconomicRights 2/5
An International Right of Freedom to Transact would ensure that individuals can fully exercise their rights without undue restrictions on their economic agency. Adding it would cement economic agency as a pillar of #HumanDignity. as crucial as freedom of thought or religion. 5/5
Constitutional liberties like Freedom of Expression and Peaceful Association presuppose the ability to transact for venues, services, and materials to actualize these rights. #FreedomOfExpression 4/5
@FPalmiotto I’d be interested in your thoughts on using Agency Law rather than Property Law as a basis for protecting human rights. https://www.blockchaincommons.com/articles/Principal-Authority/
Replying to @J9Roem
I like this technique of using GitHub releases to share the metadata and notes about an important post or newsletter — I’ll have to puzzle out how to integrate into my workflow.
Replying to @lorenc_dan
Part of the problem is that people misunderstand human consensus. In particular, cultural knowledge is important. For instance, in the Netherlands, a principled objection to consensus might be a once-in-a-lifetime thing, not something you do to make sure you feel listened to. …
Replying to @lorenc_dan
There are also many forms of consensus. I wrote an article on the #SpectrumOfConsent many years ago (which needs lessons from token governance update): https://www.lifewithalacrity.com/article/a-spectrum-of-consent/
This week, Blockchain Commons sponsored a round table on FROST, the next generation threshold signing system using Schnorr signatures. We’ve put together pages and videos highlighting the event. [1/12] https://developer.blockchaincommons.com/frost/meeting1/
The full video of the discussion between these FROST experts is available on YouTube. [4/12] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9MvNuyCpE4
We were thrilled to be able to bring together not just the creators of FROST but also the implementers of two major projects, ZF FROST (https://github.com/ZcashFoundation/frost) and secp-ZKP FROST (https://github.com/BlockstreamResearch/secp256k1-zkp/pull/138). [3/12]
FROST is an exciting new signature technology that has a number of great advancements, including compactness and faster verification as well as the use of signature aggregation, adapter signatures, blind signatures, and threshold signatures. [2/12] https://developer.blockchaincommons.com/frost/
Our other goal was to inform the wider public about FROST, because we want users and developers alike to see the possibilities of this tech. So, take a look at our FROST overview if you’re not familiar with it. [7/12] https://developer.blockchaincommons.com/frost/
We hoped that by bringing experts together we could help to advance the development of this important technology, and so we were thrilled by a few aha moments. [6/12]
In the round table, our expert reviewed the major projects and talked through a multitude of topics such as Distributed Key Generation, Trusted Dealers, resilience, trust, curves, trusted channels, performance, ROAST, quorums, and wild card uses of FROST. Whew! [5/12]
We hope you’ll see some of the same exciting possibilities for FROST that we do! We are looking forward in 2024 to supporting more wallet developers to bring FROST to the public.[10/12]
If you’d like to know even more about the possibilities, also take a look at the Layman’s Intro to Schnorr that I wrote a few weeks ago. This is the technology underlying FROST, and it’s pretty amazing. [9/12]. https://www.blockchaincommons.com/musings/Schnorr-Intro/
And then look at the video, quotes, summary, or transcript of the meeting, as you prefer. As with our Silicon Salons, we’ve provided a variety of mediums for this content, for a variety of readers. [8/12] https://developer.blockchaincommons.com/frost/meeting1/
And we need your support to be able to continue holding great events like this. Please become a monthly Blockchain Commons sponsor on GitHub! [12/12] https://github.com/sponsors/BlockchainCommons
We are currently planning our next FROST Round Table in early January. Let us know if you are interested in presenting. You can stay up to date with events like these by joining our Signal channel or mailing list. [11/12] https://www.blockchaincommons.com/subscribe/
Replying to @finhstamsterdam
I have been writing about similar topics, in particular, the choices made by Lentz in The Netherlands resulting in 75% of Jews dying, vs. Carmille in France. For an overview see https://github.com/WebOfTrustInfo/rwot12-cologne/blob/main/advance-readings/ssi-echoes-from-history.md
RT @rileyphughes: This is not decentralized identity, it’s blockchain-powered surveillance capitalism
Coinbase isn’t ignorant of SSI–they…
Replying to @propelforward
I’ve written that using property rights law as the basis for digital rights has fundamental flaws. IANAL but I believe there are opportunities in Agency Law about principal authority that may be better. I’d love your thoughts: https://www.blockchaincommons.com/articles/Principal-Authority/
Replying to @propelforward
Two related posts: https://www.blockchaincommons.com/musings/origins-SSI/
Replying to @propelforward
And https://www.blockchaincommons.com/articles/self-sovereign-computing/
RT @WebDevLaw: Dear UK tech journos,
Could you kindly stop creaming your pants over an American celebrity for a just a little while and rea…
Replying to @AreaLayer
You should join us for the next FROST Implementators Round Table. Last meeting results at https://developer.blockchaincommons.com/frost/meeting1/
RT @martin_casado: This definition of AI in the new FTC omnibus is horrendous. It could apply to most software.
This is why we must all…
Replying to @nvk, @ODELL and @Coinkite
Why not support the UR based animated QRs supported by over a dozen bitcoin wallets today? https://developer.blockchaincommons.com/animated-qrs/
RT @henkvancann: Great article of Christopher Allen. It breathes heart for the field! Yes, it’s incomprehensible for most people. But trust…
Replying to @henkvancann and @BlockchainComns
If you are a developer, see also https://developer.blockchaincommons.com/frost/
Replying to @henkvancann and @BlockchainComns
…and and videos from our first FROST Implementors Round Table https://developer.blockchaincommons.com/frost/meeting1/
RT @zachherbert: Coinkite’s BBQr: A Troubling Development in Bitcoin Airgapped Wallet Standards
When building one of the first airgapped h…
RT @zachherbert: https://t.co/7oDNQdJoNR
RT @WolfMcNally: @zachherbert @FOUNDATIONdvcs As the designer of UR, I’m proud that part of the mission of @BlockchainComns is to help the…
RT @csuwildcat: I like NVK, but the existing UR 2.0 de facto standard is better than BBQr and already in use by many products/companies. Re…
Replying to @KeithMukai
We focused on the architecture of Gordian (UR, etc) for a multisig future. Here is a multisig scenario that is the best we can do now, but is too hard. With emerging Gordian specs together we can do better. https://github.com/BlockchainCommons/SmartCustody/blob/master/Docs/Scenario-Multisig.md
Replying to @KeithMukai
See our overview starting at https://developer.blockchaincommons.com/seedrecovery/
RT @broadmode: The reason the #Bitcoin Era is materializing so rapidly is b/c open source software allows for a network effect experimentat…
RT @lopp: An underappreciated attribute of multi-vendor multisig is that it protects you from footguns in transaction construction.
Since…
RT @lopp: Single signature wallet == single point of failure.
Don’t put more money into single sig than you’re willing to lose!
Sorry, I do…
Replying to @NelsonMRosario
I’d like to see a law review article applying Agency Law principles to digital. https://www.blockchaincommons.com/articles/Principal-Authority/
RT @protolambda: Wasted a lot of time researching wallets, they’re all bad.
Metamask - bugs, unreliable HW support, bad UX.
Rainbow - no c…
Replying to @protolambda
We have investigated doing a truly secure wallet for the Ethereum side of the ecosystem, but have never found that the community is willing to pay for it, under any business model. The Bitcoin community cares more (though they still don’t pay enough) and gets better.
RT @Breez_Tech: Bitcoin is free and open source, and any bitcoin-related software, from the base layer to the end-user app, needs to be ope…
RT @FOUNDATIONdvcs: @Thebitcoinway_ Thank you for putting this post together!
Our team would love to see closer collaboration between Bitc…
Replying to @NelsonMRosario
I believe that important part of the solution to these problems is not falling into paradigms of property law. https://www.blockchaincommons.com/articles/self-sovereign-computing/
Replying to @NelsonMRosario
Related: https://www.blockchaincommons.com/musings/origins-SSI/
Replying to @zachherbert
For about two years (late pandemic) prices for used cars spiked, and combined with inflation were not as good a purchase is prior years. It got better last summer, but is still true for some markets like hybrids.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2022/02/13/used-cars-cost-more/6778705001/
Geert Wilders could become the next Prime Minister of the Netherlands. He’s promised to ban the Quran. This is the exact sort of regime change we need to protect against with our personal identity systems, if we listen to the lessons of history. [1/11] https://www.blockchaincommons.com/articles/echoes-history/
The main problem was over-identification. To support Netherlands citizens in the Great Depression, an identity pioneer named Jacbous Lentz created extensive civil registries, which were then taken over by the Nazis. 75% of Dutch Jews were murdered as as result. [3/11]
A different Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, addressed the problem in January 2020 when he apologized to Jewish citizens for the Netherlands’ failures in the Holocaust. It was all about identity, as I write in my article “Echoes from History”. [2/11] https://www.blockchaincommons.com/articles/echoes-history/
Thus my “Echoes from History” article is a warning. Lentz and the Dutch didn’t understand the dangers of over-identification, particularly during regime change. Carmille did. We must follow the way of Carmille as we produce the digital identity systems of the 21st century. [6/11]
Coupled with over-identification was a lack of preparation for regime change. That’s an increasing threat. Politicians such as Geert Wilders, Victor Orbán, & Donald Trump run on platforms of hate. Othering of vulnerable groups who are well-identified can lead to genocide. [5/11]
It didn’t have to be that way. In France, another identity pioneer named René Carmille had his own civil registries, but he practiced selective disclosure, purposefully keeping religious information from the Nazis. Only 23% of French Jews were killed. [4/11]
But self-sovereign identity also contains competing goals. We want to compile more data to help refugees and others without identities. That was an early use case for SSI at the United Nations. But we must be careful to enable the least amount of identification possible! [8/11]
A lot of us look toward self-sovereign identity architectures as an answer. I’ve obviously been one of its biggest proponents. [7/11] https://www.lifewithalacrity.com/article/the-path-to-self-soverereign-identity/
If you want to support our work to enable people to have self-sovereign control of their digital identity, assets, and ultimately of themselves — become a financial patron of Blockchain Commons! [11/11] https://github.com/sponsors/BlockchainCommons
But even bigger questions we must ask as major polities release their own identity systems. In particular, how can we help ensure the new eIDAS 2.0 in the EU is safe and not a huge honeypot, like what Lentz created in The Netherlands in the 30s? More on that tomorrow! [10/11]
This should be a big red flag for us in the self-sovereign identity field. We must look in the mirror and ask ourselves: are we minimizing data collection, correlation and usage? Are we keeping our users safe? https://www.blockchaincommons.com/musings/musings-data-minimization/ [9/11]
Replying to @getsqt
I agree some safeguards are in place, but I have also seen the steady erosion of them in the US over decades. We don’t have a good answer for how to prevent these modern populism & hate groups from attacking our political systems.
It’s an ongoing problem. Wherever there’s information, there is the opportunity for misuse. Census info was used to intern the Japanese in WWII. President Trump threatened Dreamers with their DACA registration. [3/13]
This is the second of my “Echoes of Histories” series, which looks at the tragic misuse of identity information in WWII, which led to the murder of 75% of the Jewish population of the Netherlands and what it means today. [2/13] https://www.blockchaincommons.com/articles/echoes-history/
The EU just passed a provisional agreement for EIDAS v2, and despite seemingly good intentions, it has serious privacy problems and mandates changes that break web security. My article on “The Dangers of eIDAS” discusses some of these problems. [1/13] https://www.blockchaincommons.com/articles/eidas/
The persistence of eIDAS identifiers is just the start of the problem. Each country can decide if they will be unique to an individual. This will create a honeypot of information, just waiting to be abused. Superficial support for pseudonymity may help, but is not enough. [6/13]
eIDAS, in its recent provisional release does not provide the robust privacy protections that it claims. [5/13] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/european-digital-identity-provisional-ag/product-details/20231116CAN72103
Today, Orbán rules Hungary, and Wilders could become the Prime Minister of The Netherlands. They’ve each built their careers on attacks on vulnerable groups. We must build information systems they can’t abuse if they win. [4/13]
Those aren’t even all the problems with eIDAS. The one getting the most attention is its subversion of the certificates used to create internet security. But the identity problems are at least as bad. [10/13] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/12/eidas-20-sets-dangerous-precedent-web-security
In WWII, 75% of the Jews in the Netherlands were murdered due to huge data stores getting into the wrong hands. With politicians today running on platforms of hate, that could easily happen again. eIDAS must be reformed, so it can’t. [9/13] https://www.blockchaincommons.com/articles/eidas/
The cryptography used to protect eIDAS isn’t sufficiently future-proofed. Strong modern-day cryptography is actually forbidden. You put that together with the huge data collections and the corporate and government access, and you have a recipe for disaster. [8/13]
Government-backed wallets and corporate-backed identities will make the dangers of eIDAS even worse. Who knows who will run those governments and corporations tomorrow? Wilders or other despots could get access to those overly large stores of info. [7/13]
Becoming a financial patron of work helps ensure that the digital identities of the future are safe and human-centric, enabling people to control their own digital destiny and maintain their human dignity online. Join us! [13/13] https://github.com/sponsors/BlockchainCommons
There’s much more on eIDAS and the history of digital EU policies in my article. [12/13] https://www.blockchaincommons.com/articles/eidas/
I’ve been working on a book called #Foremembrance to remind us of these dangers. Unfortunately, I feel like eIDAS is hitting a crisis point today as that provisional agreement gets voted on. We need to amend it before it’s too late. [11/13]
A tweetstorm about the second of my “Echoes of Histories” articles, on “The Dangers of eIDAS,” is now available at: https://twitter.com/ChristopherA/status/1729917535217447096
RT @doctorow: Not all ads are created equally sleazy. The privacy harms from surveillance ads, though real, are often hard to pin down. But…
RT @NSmolenski: The @EUCouncil just formulated new regulations (eIDAS 2.0) requiring persistent digital identifiers for every person and ba…
RT @decentralgabe: Digital identity is not enough. It must be human-centric, and decentralized, to limit the risks of often well-intentione…