[ENG] @Unikname, the next-gen identifier
Not a day goes by without us surfing the internet. Be it at work or at home, we are often glued to our computer or to our phone. And everyday we log in to dozens of websites and applications, and identify ourselves to different service providers.
Usernames, email addresses or Facebook names, logins are part of our daily life. Unique and personalized, we share them with our friends and colleagues. Simple and intelligible, they sometimes reveal more about ourselves than we like to believe.
What is a @unikname?
Most of us have all sorts of different identifiers for different websites. Sometimes it’s an email address, sometimes another one, sometimes it’s our Facebook or LinkedIn account, sometimes it’s a username we came up with.
The idea of the @unikname identifier is simple: to propose an universal identifier, that can be used everywhere. Like a username, a @unikname is a human-readable sequence of characters. It is pronounceable, easy to remember, and can be used without making mistakes.
A @unikname is therefore, as its name indicates, a unique identifier, designed to be easily used in everyday life.
The different types of @unikname
Depending on your profile and your needs, you can choose one of three types of @unikname identifiers:
- The first and most common type is the individual @unikname: it can be used as a universal identifier by any individual;
- The second type is the corporate @unikname, which serves as an authentication certificate for organizations;
-The third type, less common, is the network @unikname, which finds its use as a global identifier for sharing and configuring access to blockchains.
While the overall principle remains the same, the type of a @unikname determines most of its functionality as an identifier.
Uses and advantages of the individual @unikname
Let’s focus on the most common type of @unikname. The individual @unikname is a personal identifier that can be used to log in to any website. It is short, quick to remember, and is not shared with the website when logging in. You can thus serenely select the identifier of your choice, no one will have access to it without your consent.
As its name indicates, the @unikname is meant to be unique and usable everywhere. It leaves no trace when you connect, and remains confidential for the websites you connect to — it is therefore advisable and relevant to have only one per person.
How to get a @unikname?
Acquiring a @unikname is free as long as it is more than 15 characters long. For a shorter one, you can wait to get a promotional coupon, for a communication operation, you can get it with UNS tokens (the utility token that runs the uns.network blockchain on which the @unikname are based), or buy it in euros.
The reason is simple: the shortest names are the rarest. The value of an @unikname is therefore inversely proportional to its length.
Once acquired, your @unikname is yours for life, as long as you keep using it. If you stop however, it will fall back into the public domain after 18 months, in order to avoid any “squatting” of identifiers (as can be observed today with website domain names).
More than a simple identifier
The primary use of your individual @unikname is, of course, to log in to the websites of your choice, in a strong way, and without having to provide a password.
However, this is not its only use. Its blockchain-based nature makes your @unikname an excellent way to store sensitive personal information securely, either on your smartphone or on the blockchain.
This has simple immediate applications.
First example: you can choose to store your personal information such as your address, email address, or bank information in your My Unikname application. This way, when you create an account that requests this information, you don’t have to enter it again. This information is stored privately until you decide to share it.
Second example: at a time when cryptocurrencies seem to be emerging as a viable new means of payment, an individual wanting to make a cryptocurrency transaction (Bitcoin or Ethereum) could benefit from storing their cryptocurrency address with their @unikname. In order to receive payments, they would just have to share their @unikname with their debitor. The data related to the payments is then associated to the identifier, and accessible in a public directory: the blockchain.
Adopting a @unikname today means joining a community of early adopters who are curious about cybersecurity and data protection issues. Above all, it means taking part in a European initiative that competes with the non-secure password-based authentication schemes or non-confidential log in solutions of the web giants.
Are you interested in My unikname? Would you like to get your @unikname today?
Follow this link to download the application: My.unikname.App
Follow us!
- Website : https://www.unikname.com/
- Twitter : https://www.twitter.com/Unikname_UNS
- Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/UniknameConnect/
- Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/company/unikname
