Last year around this time it became clear that a guide to understand the Decentralized Identity OR Self-Sovereign Identity Technologies was needed.
Last Summer I partnered with Heather Vescent to write the guide designed for C-Level Executives.
You can buy it here on Amazon.
It has three big parts:
Part 1 explains the context of where the technology came from. It is rooted 15 years of work by the user-centric identity community that has gathered at IIW. It articulates the core technology that came together to make it possible. None of it totally new, PKI is 25 years old mobile phones 10, blockchains 9 -> but pulled together for the first time in a way that made sense.
Part 2 explains in more detail the core building blocks that make it work.
1) the Wallets/Hubs/Agents that people have to manage their identifiers and verifiable credentials.
2) The Issuer Code & Verifier Code. So to be issued verifiable credentials they have to be issued by a institution or enterprise (ok people can issue other people them but…). Verifier code is used by the institutions individuals share their credentials with.
3) The Distributed Ledgers or Blockchains – these are actually kinda optional. They are handy to get all this to work but not essential. They provide a place for decentralized identifiers to be place so the the keys associated with them can be found (via resolution).
Along with the explanation of the technology we also go through companies building each of these. So it is like an analyst report.
Part 3 cover the Open STANDARDS. These are the core of how we create a new layer of the internet…for identity…using open standards. So this goes into detail explaining at a high level what they are and how they work and provides links down into the specifications and locations of where to participate in the work.
The ending of the report covers the events where work is ongoing along with organizations.
You can Buy it Here on Amazon.