Between the Equifax scandal, the breach of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and the revision of the 2013 Yahoo breach to include 3 billion compromised users, 2017 may go down as the year that brought down centralized data. These high profile cyber security screwups have brought the vulnerability of centralized databases to the public’s attention, creating a major market opportunity for secure identity management services.
If the year’s big data breaches have taught us anything, it’s that bundling user data essentially incentivizes hackers. By breaching one provider, a bad actor can gain access to literally billions of users’ most sensitive personal information. It’s clear that continuing to warehouse user data is no longer an option. Of course, the solution is clear, to call on an old catchphrase, “decentralize everything.” As any self-respecting techy knows, blockchain provides a ready-made template for doing just that.
By enabling a shift away from centralized data storage, blockchain is helping individuals tighten security and regain control over their personal information, fostering what’s come to be known be known as self-sovereign identity. Seizing on the current market opportunity, dozens of blockchain backed identity management services have sprung up to bring self-sovereign identity to their users. The blockchain identity space now touches on much more than just user security, so its about time we establish how Aversafe sets itself apart from the rest of the scene.
The Aversafe Approach
Aversafe’s design was partially informed by the successes and failures of previous attempts at blockchain backed identity services. Without naming any names, we’ve learned from the mistakes of our predecessors and added more than few key innovations of our own. To capture what Aversafe brings to the identity space we’ll start small and work our way up to the big picture.
To begin, a handful of companies offering identity management services actually outsource the creation of users’ private keys to third-party wallets. While meant to provide a kind of firewall between these platforms’ internal databases and users’ sensitive private information, the recent Parity wallet fiasco should clearly demonstrate how this can be a major liability for users. Rather than incorporate a third-party wallet, the Aversafe mobile app creates and manages identity keys directly on users’ own secure devices.
Next, while most identity verification services allow certificate issuers, employers and trusted third parties to verify users’ claims, Aversafe provides a space for peer to peer attestations as well. Given that more than 75% of businesses fail within their first few years, its crucial that former coworkers and peers are able to verify users’ claims in the event of an absent employer.
Aversafe continues to set itself apart in its approach to account recovery. Poorly conceived account recovery options can present some alarming security risks. For example, some of the biggest names in the blockchain identity space publicly record users’ recovery delegates on the blockchain. This presents an opportunity for attackers to compromise users’ identities by targeting their trusted peers. Aversafe avoids the problem altogether by allowing users to back up their account information to existing secure stores like iCloud or Google Drive.
Zooming out, Aversafe distinguishes itself from much of the competition in the identity space by opting not to build on the Ethereum or Bitcoin blockchains. Now before you break out the torches and pitchforks consider that many of the identity management services currently on the market expose their users to destabilizing externalities like hard-forks, 51% attacks, and extortionary miners. While seasoned crypto veterans might know how to handle these upsets, industry newcomers are less likely to opt in when faced with these concerns.
What’s more, Services built on the Ethereum or Bitcoin blockchains are set to wrestle not only with increasing electricity and mining costs, but with horrendously reduced transaction rates. This risks their ability to provide a functional consumer based product—after all, why should a casual user stick around for 30 minutes waiting for a block to clear or a transaction to be confirmed? To avoid all this, we’ve opted to develop the Aversafe platform on the Hyperledger blockchain instead (more on this in the days to come).
At the end of the day, the single greatest factor distinguishing Aversafe from the competition isn’t really technical at all. Nearly all of the companies currently operating in the blockchain identity space have chosen to market themselves as providing full digital identity packages. The idea is appealing enough, after all, everyone can relate to the frustration of juggling dozens of passwords across their various personal accounts.
While the digital passport concept is undeniably appealing, we believe that its an overly ambitious goal for any blockchain project to take on from day one. These “holistic” digital identity platforms need to develop impossibly robust lists of partners to meet consumers’ expectations—let alone to match consumers’ pre-existing choice of legacy services. In short, by establishing themselves as a mile wide, they’re doomed to roll out a product that’s only inches deep.
By contrast, Aversafe has chosen to develop its platform with a specialized focus on decentralized credential verification. By providing a concrete and manageable solution to a single well-defined market need, we’re able to develop partnerships with reputable employers, job boards, and educational institutions from around the globe. These partnerships ensure that our network will be highly-functional and market-ready from moment we go online.
Ultimately, we suspect that demonstrating the success of Aversafe’s credential verification service will help us integrate other identity management features into our platform down the line. To sum it up, years of real world experience scaling up hypergrowth global companies has taught us the value of the adage “build your house solid ground.”