Login with Ethereum
We have for long been aware of social plugins that allow us to login on various websites. I use Login with Twitter to login to write this post.
However, I can’t login from a different computer into CryptoKitties. The only way to access my kitties is if i am at my primary laptop.
This felt like a major step back. I decided to fix it.
There is no way to authenticate on Ethereum
No decentralized solution
OAuth that Facebook, Google and Twitter use for their service login use OAuth and are highly centralized. This is a major let down for any service that aims to be truely de-centralized.
No way to authenticate claims
As of today there is no good way to map a user to his or her Ethereum address.
No human readable identifiers
The only way to identify some entity on Ethereum is using the address, which is hard to remember and not human friendly at all.
No way to decouple identity from payment
Most authentication procedures i have seen on this use the public-private keys associated with the Ethereum address. So, if the keys are compromised — so are the Ethers.
No way to authenticate remotely
To login using a Ethereum account you usually need to have MetaMask installed on your browser and this browser is the only place where you can use the login. You cannot login from your iPad.
No way to authenticate without paying
Many solutions expect you to make a transaction and pay the transaction fees associated with it to merely login.
Non trivial to integrate
Using existing login mechanisms on Ethereum expect you to setup an Ethereum Node and use Web3 to authenticate.
Welcome DAuth
DAuth is decentralized
Building on the simplicity of OAuth, DAuth is a simple authentication protocol that doesn’t rely on a central authority. Anyone can setup their own DAuth servers
DAuth verifies address claims
DAuth provides a way for users to claim that they own a certain Ethereum address.
DAuth addresses are human readable
DAuth uses usernames instead of addresses. This makes it easy to remember identities.
DAuth is decoupled from payments
DAuth’s keys used for authentication are different from the ones used for Ethereum transaction signatures. This makes sure that the Ethers are never compromised
DAuth is in the cloud
Once registered, you can login using DAuth from any device anywhere in the world
DAuth is free
Users don’t have to make any payment to access the service.
DAuth is trivial to integrate
DAuth integration is very similar to an OAuth integration, no new technologies involved!
DAuth is open sourced!
Check out the Github Repo
I look forward to your comments.
