Identity on the Blockchain
Narrative starts with the very history of mankind; there is not, there has never been anywhere, any people without narrative.
— Roland Barthes, An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative
We’re currently working on the ‘identity’ problem. It’s a big, difficult task. I think the reason for that is that identity is something we each possess and it’s hard to get everyone to agree on what that means. Moreover, if you take identity to be a construct of narrative — no one wishes to have the narrative of their life dictated to them by others, or by the constructs that seek to define identity. The problem is social as much as technical.
In his study of the narrative of our lives [1], Bruner distinguishes two modes of thought when approaching identity. Broadly speaking, these are extensions of two approaches to understanding the nature of reality. There is the objective view of reality that is concerned with rational analysis, logical proof, and empirical observation. There is a physical world in which the self exists, that can be measured, recorded, observed. In contrast, the subjective view of reality understands the world through stories. The self is a construction of narrative; events organised in time to explain the how and the why, to connect the present self to the past and the future.
I happen to have a fascination with narrative and view the world through the lens of storytelling. When we think of narrative, we usually think of film or drama or we might think of myths and novels. Next to language, narrative is the defining trait of our humanity [2]. As perhaps the only species with an awareness of the passage of time, narrative helps us to organise our understanding of time. If you go looking for it, you will find narrative in Science, Religion, Economics, or just about any other field of human endevour. We can think of discourse as a contest of narratives. We can think of all the stories that compete for our attention. We can think of White’s idea of history as a literary construct [3].
The blockchain as an instrument of narrative can do something we’ve never been able to do before, it can provide a mechanism to create an unshredable record of who said what and when. Just as the clock gave us an objective mechanical reference point to organise our affairs [4], the immutable, timestamped entries of the blockchain now give us an objective mechanical reference point for organising our narratives. We can come to a common agreement on history and records. The applications for finance are perhaps the immediate and obvious low-hanging fruit for this technology. We hold the view that identity could be another major application.
In the olden days our identity could be fixed to some thing; our physical bodies. Our hands attached to our arms attached to our body, which also attached to our head and face, and those hands could sign a document, that head could speak, that face could smile etc. All of our current identity infrastructure is built around the assumption that the body is the fixed site of identity. We also typically operated in smaller communities and could keep track of what was said by whom, when, about what. Now that we are often interacting with each other via computers, often separated by vast geographical distances, the existing infrastructure for identity simply doesn’t work.
The problems with existing identity infrastructure as it interfaces with the digital world, are numerous. Everything from the countless hacking scandals, where private customer data is exposed, to the deluge of fake consumer reviews. Proving who you are online is painful, time-consuming and insecure. Stolen identity documents can be easily purchased on the black market. On the other hand, pervasive surveillance has stripped away our privacy. Yet the irony is that these monolithic surveillance apparatuses are ineffective, as they’re simply drowning in data.
The new site to fix our identity in the digital world will perhaps be a set of public/private keys and timestamped encrypted data on the blockchain.
When we talk about self-sovereign identity, it’s this idea that we want to empower the indivdual to be able to control what story they tell about themselves and to whom. To give people the ability to selectively reveal themselves to the world. Whereas the status quo is that our digital identities are created and maintained on platforms controlled by corporations or governments, whose interests may not always neccasarily align with the interests of the individual. The adage goes that if you’re not paying for it, then you are the product being sold.
So taking this narrative approach, our identity could be said to be the sum of;
- what we say about ourselves
- what others say about us
- what we say about others
- what others say about what we say about ourselves
- what we say about what others say about us
- what others say about what others say about us
- what we say about what others say about what others say about us
and so on.
Identity is not just the communication that happens between agents, it’s the narrative and history that such communication creates.
We are still very much in the early stages of tackling this difficult problem. The holy grail of self-sovereign online identity promises to bring about great efficiencies and at the same time transfer power back into the hands of the individual. A win win situation for businesses and individuals. A framework for identity is the building block of many cool things; such as de-centralised governance applications, to a reputation system that might make it easier to trust strangers and do business with them. There will need to be an open interoperable standard on identity and this can only be acheived through a massive collaborative effort. We are looking at how we can pull everyone’s efforts together. If you are also working on the identity problem please get in touch.
[1] ‘Life as Narrative’ Jerome Bruner
[2] ‘The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative’ H. Porter Abbott
[3] ‘The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality’, Hayden White
[4] ‘A Measure of Sacrifice’ Nick Szabo, http://szabo.best.vwh.net/synch.html
