I want a short, insightful, 280-character answer to this question:
Why is identity management a hard problem in a decentralized system?
Conversation
Replying to
You've solved it? Several decentralized software teams I know of are struggling with it
1
1
Show replies
Replying to
Identity requires discovery. You have an identifier, what does it mean? Our traditional answer has been a directory. And until blockchain directories were invariably centralized.
7
Replying to
Identity problems fundamentally expand to sprawling, physical infrastructure concerns. Brick-and-mortar stores expect some ID, and changing which ID they accept is multi-decades long political process, so we're stuck with phone numbers, SSNs, and byzantine DNS system forever.
1
2
Replying to
Identity isn't native and if it is the system is already subject to regulatory capture. So you either rely on external oracles or you make node validators subject to wrench cryptography.
1
Replying to
Decentralized systems are inherently probabilistic. Identity is not.
1
9
Replying to
Because people usually think that identities owns you, while in reality you own identities. This confusion make them work on the wrong problem of building identity oracles and/or directories, instead of working from the axiom that a private key is an identity.
1
3
10
Replying to
B/c most use a wrong notion of identity! I am me not b/c of my SSN or my URI but because my family, friends, and colleagues all agree I'm me. Identity is a recursive social construct; the right dist. soln. starts from this principle instead of trying to protect some private key.
1
9
Replying to
1.It is a set problems whose incentives were alligned forcibly by central authority
2.Imposing centralized view of Identity management doesn't work on decentralization systems i.e.temporal non fungibility
3.ambiguous morality of resource/blame.allocation
2








