[SSI 101] Part 2: Drawbacks of Traditional Identifiers and An Introduction to WEB3
A jargon-free deep dive on online identity, identifiers, and their role in a WEB3 world. This article is Part 2 of Hypersign’s Explainer Series on Self Sovereign Identity.
Previously, we outlined the nature, history and importance of identifiers on the internet in Part 1 of this series. They play a vital role in your existence online and are essentially your passport to traverse the web. If compromised or revoked, it could prevent you from accessing services that we consider fundamental to modern life.
You would imagine that something this important to your identity and privacy would have layers of security built into it. After all, IRL identifiers like your passport, driver’s license and credit cards have multiple anti-fraud features to prevent abuse but the truth is that online identifiers are sorely lacking in this department.
Why? Well, because they weren’t designed to hold this much power. Nobody, not even our Silicon Valley overlords, could have envisioned the sheer power that a simple email address or social media handle would one day hold.
Unsecure, not private, and impossible to get rid of
Sounds like we’re talking about that one terrible relationship from your college days but these hold true for traditional online identifiers as well. IdPs let you access their services for free but actually cost you in many ways.
Here are just some of their drawbacks.
- Controlled by the Identity Provider (IdP — to find out what this is, read Part 1), your access can be revoked at any time.
- Services are advertised as free but actually cost your data privacy.
- Most IdPs are centralized, creating attractive honeypots for hackers.
- Many IdPs sell your data to third parties without your consent.
- Often, your identifier is used to track your whereabouts and behaviour online.
- Even if you unsubscribe from their services, it’s very difficult and often impossible to get them to delete your data from their servers.
It’s clear that we’re in dire need of new types of identifiers, safer ways of interacting online and an internet that is fundamentally more user-centric and privacy-preserving.
Enter WEB3
You’ve probably heard the term used by everyone from your local barista to Mark Zuckerberg but, all the jargon aside, what exactly is WEB3?
Put simply, it’s the next stage in the evolution of the internet. And it’s being designed from the ground up to resolve the issues we laid out in the previous section.
To begin with, WEB3 is user-centric. In WEB2, the narration began from the service, whereas in WEB3 the narration begins from the user. While previously IdPs were all-powerful, in WEB3 the user sits at the centre of the ecosystem and has full control over the extent to which their data is shared with providers.
Identifiers actually empower users. In WEB3, the user creates their preferred identifier which only they control as opposed to them being allocated by IdPs. Users can then use these identifiers to access any of the services they want. A single user can create as many of these identifiers as they need without any requirement to link one another — thereby guaranteeing their privacy.
Sounds great, right? So how does one create these “new WEB3 identifiers” and what does it have to do with SSI? Wait, what even is SSI?!
Worry not, we’ll demystify this and more in our next blog. See you then!
Side Note: This series is intended to be a basic, easy-to-understand introduction to SSI, but for a much deeper dive, check out Hypersign Labs — our technical blog. Here’s a good place to start on SSI:
