It takes me a while, but I wrote a thing! In a world where our identities are controlled by centralized entities, either corporate or governmental, what does it mean to say "This is Me"? Decentralized Identity can help: https://rbs.io/2018/06/this-is-me/
@ross Cool!
How is this different from using WebFinger to access the account information for my Mastodon account, or any other identity/domain that I choose to use to represent myself?
e.g. @npd has information, including keys and links, at https://octodon.social/.well-known/webfinger?resource=https%3A%2F%2Foctodon.social%2F%40npd
@npd It wouldn't be tied to octodon.social, mainly. Generally DID Documents are expected to reside on the blockchain/IPFS or similar, so they can't be shutdown/taken away.
@ross yeah, I get that, there's some freedom in the permanence/independence.
But I think there could be so much improvement just by making profile information federated and accessible over the Web, rather than moving to an opaque identifier stored in an irrevocable way.
@npd I think there's definitely an improvement to be made by federated identity over the current situation, for sure. The DID folks have other incentives that are driving them, including some interesting stories about refugees and identity.