Proposal: RFP: The Aragon Network needs a decentralised ID solution!

Archive: AN DAO
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Proposed decentralized identity solution for Aragon Network DAO: BrightID.

What makes it unique

BrightID is a layer-0 identity system for the decentralized web. It is a privacy-preserving, social graph based identity lego that allows users to prove to applications that they are human and only exist once in any given system.

Structured as an open source public good, it is available to any interested application.

29,000+ verified users and rapidly growing in dozens of countries around the world.

Applications including Gitcoin, 1Hive, Rabbithole, and CLR.fund are using it today for Sybil resistance.

Background

The first version of BrightID was created through a grant from Aragon Nest to build a pseudonymous decentralized unique id solution. The final milestone (integrate with Aragon app’s planned “identity” module) was cut due to a lack of funds in Aragon. (Every Nest grant received a budget cut at that time.)

The BrightID team has a deep working knowledge of Aragon. Its own DAOs have pioneered several innovations–such as “membership” DAOs (one-person-one-vote), and the use of Sub-DAOs.

A decentralized unique identity solution ought to be pseudonymous–all that should be required is a simple check mark showing that the DAO user is unique. Any use of a profile should be optional when considering a member’s uniqueness.

Solution

The integration can be done conveniently through an Aragon app.

Here is the original sketch of the BrightID Aragon app integration from 2018. The basic idea of scanning a QR code to link a person’s BrightID to an application (or in this case a DAO) has since been implemented and used by all integrating apps. (See https://apps.brightid.org.)

BrightID uses social graph analysis to identify duplicate accounts.

BrightID’s architecture allows a person to use a different address with each app (or DAO) and still be verified as unique. Addresses or personas in different apps or DAOs are unlinkable through the use of blind signatures released in API version 6.

Links

Advantages

  • Pseudonymity
  • A person can use a separate, unlinkable address or persona for each DAO and still be considered “unique.”
  • The solution can be delivered as an Aragon app
  • Verifications are always improving. The upcoming Aura app creates a self-regulating “helper graph” that can in turn be used to verify most users. It will overcome the first problem mentioned in limitations, below.

Limitations

  • The verifications generated by BrightID may be considered too permissive or too strict. On one hand, “connection parties” allow someone to create a small number of sybils by being a tourist among different verifying groups. On the other hand, “yekta” verifications require proximity to the center of the graph, which isn’t practical for most new users.
  • A decentralized, pseudonymous ID user could rent their verification to someone else. E.g. user A doesn’t care about Aragon Network DAO, but user B does, so user B pays user A to use BrightID for pseudonymous verification for a second account in the DAO. This limitation isn’t unique to BrightID.

Cost

Each BrightID user must be sponsored once in their lifetime to fund BrightID as a public good. The current cost is about 10 cents per user. Aragon Network DAO could choose to sponsor its users or it could refer users to other DAOs or apps to sponsor them (or users can sponsor themselves.)

Smart contracts cost gas. BrightID’s contracts have been deployed on Mainnet, IDChain, xDai chain, and Arbitrum.

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