Proof of anything — T3 (The Trust Triangle)
Proving it’s you with blockchain is the innovation towards identity verification.
I believe all ‘You’ out there are perplexed looking & living the same old ways. Don’t be! the world is changing & so are the efforts to change your ecosystem, daily activities, and habits. Excited, only a few, because we are on a spree to new learnings and change. We are sapiens anyway, will crack it in a wif. Therefore, jump on ahead, let’s see what T3 is, mind it — It’s not the Terminal 3 of IGI where you go for duty-free liquor.
Jokes apart, let’s shallow dive into the world of technology.
What’s your go-to/traditional method of proving your identity? Well, I believe I prove my identity with paranoia. Think about this, aren’t we all used to proving — ‘We are who we claim to be’ by presenting or giving access to our government-issued IDs. Doesn’t paranoia hit us every time we share paper proofs of our identification, concerned about its misuse? Where is the trust here or we all are accustomed to the ‘Sab Ram-Bharose method.’ Wouldn’t it be much preferred if, we could revoke / grant permission to information as we see fit, no questions asked? So,
“I control my information.”
Well, that is possible now but through, Blockchain. Uh uh uh., I know you are all like, Argh!…again the same jargon from the tech industry but read it out, it is a 2 minute read just like your Maggi, which is never a 2-minute thing 👀
How exactly does your Identity ecosystem work?
See it this way, we have our gov, gov body, organizations, etc., like UIDAI, EPFO, your employer…, who issues you some identification factors through which we get our public identity. In this case, it makes them an Issuer. The information issued to us makes us a Holder, which we can utilize to gain access to things, locations, or for-that-matter pubs. Lastly, we’ve people, organizations, entities, etc., who want us to prove ‘we are who we claim to be’ through these identity credentials from the issuers. For instance, consider a scenario where you are applying for a job, and the employer wants to verify whether you are a graduate or not. What does this make your employer in this 3-party-ecosystem, a Verifier! Now through these three generic terms, we have understood how our identity ecosystem works but are we comfortable with the way it works is still a doubt. Our need for trust without compromising our identity but how is a question that needs an answer.
Furthermore, relate it through this Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI), Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) & Verifiable Credentials (VCs). These keywords have a massive amount of information on W3 by various industry experts like Bosch, IBM, Microsoft, RSA, blah blah blah…But to explain it in very simple words, it’s a concept/technology around digital wallet creation, identification management, personal data sharing in trustworthy, standardized, and privacy-preserving ways, building seem-less authentication & providing the capability of instantaneous verification. Add-ons are it keeps your credentials protected by giving control of its accessibility to you, allowing what credentials you want to share, with whom you want to share, and for how long do you wish them to have access to it. Granting & revoking access is in your hands and just a ‘Click away.’ I’m very serious about this, “It’s just a click away”
Is it utilized to its full potential already?
Well, boo no! There is a long way to go with a lot of policy-level changes. To bring in the real meaning to encryption and privacy there is a massive need to understand and accept it with an open mind. We, humans, are like an active volcano that emits data. Every moment, here and there, we push our information to massive databases just by ‘renting’ out identities from websites, applications, communications, etc. These databases in stands become gold mines to hackers, guess what is lost — ‘You are!’ So, go think about it, learn about it, accept what’s best for you, and build on it.
Cheers, until next time.
