The W3C Credentials Community Group

Meeting Transcriptions and Audio Recordings (2014-today)

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education\

Transcript for 2022-06-27

<simone_ravaioli> gm everyone :wave:\
<kerri_lemoie> Hello all. Thanks for joining us.\
<evin> gm gm\
<colin,_learning_economy> gm gm
Our Robot Overlords are scribing.

Topic: IP Note\

Topic: Call Notes\

Topic: Introductions & Reintroductions\

Chandi_Cumaranatunge: I am Charlie come on I work at Arizona State University and we had a meeting with Simoni last week pretty excited to join in contribute if you can.\
<colin,_learning_economy> queue\
<kerri_lemoie> Sounds great Philipp! Would love to hear more - kerrilemoie@gmail.com\
Colin,_Learning_Economy: I'd like to hop in and just reintroduce say hi to everybody this is Colorado's with learning economy foundation and just put in a plug for anyone that will be in Barcelona next week for each Barcelona will do today's conversation I think is a great sample of some of the panel discussion and engagements that we're hoping to have with with anyone present so excited to hear the dialogue today and for anyone will be in Barcelona.\
Colin,_Learning_Economy: July 6 28 we will be there as well.\
Colin,_Learning_Economy: I'm with look forward to connecting with you.\
Kerri Lemoie: +1 @Colin\

Topic: Announcements & Reminders\

<colin,_learning_economy> you can find me on telegram if you want to connect re: EthBarcelona @mistereynolds\
<philipp> @Kerri Lemoie: Thank you - i'll be emailing you shortly with a short summary of our project\

Topic: Main Topic - SBTs and VCs\

Kerri Lemoie: +1 Philipp!\
<kerri_lemoie> Paper that has prompted this agenda & conversations: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4105763\
Jonny: I can jump in here Simona that's okay yeah it smells yes I understand it sorry I was a little late so I don't know what all the the setup was but soulbound tokens as their kind of conceived of right now are largelyNFT\based I guess there is a little bit of Need for clarity around people think.\
Jonny: if people think that's old.\
Jonny: Tokens are necessarily in Ft based but they're intended to be kind of have a different way of being transferred so they're not transferable just all over the place like a regular nft but they are a token that is transferable to other accounts based on some other logic and its intended to not be transferable to another human right so a human might have multiple ethereum addresses or.\
Jonny: or some other chain addresses and you only want.\
Jonny: That soulbound token to be transferred to other accounts or addresses that are mutually controlled by some actor some human and the idea here is that these NFTs/\ can contain some amount of data that is about an individual you've seen there's you know good ideas or at least non-offensive ideas I think for what type of data might be in a soulbound token stuff like membership to adapt to or something like.\
Jonny: like that.\
Jonny: And then there's other bad ideas which I think we could talk about which are the idea that you might put a medical record or citizenship or something that has pii in it into this in ft and the whole purpose of this there's like lots of other kind of ideas that surround this but one of the big Ideas is that now you can bring a piece of your identity and your reputation to some on chain logic smart contracts for instance to do certain things.\
Jonny: right and gives us some level of.\
Jonny: I was a.\
Jonny: That's how I understand the state of soulbound tokens right now.\
Evin: I'm happy to hop in and and discuss thank you so much so and thank you also for creating a forum for us to continue this this discussion I think it's been so fruitful this far so to recap for those of us who might not have joined us in our most recent conversation we actually had a wonderful opportunity to discuss with Pooja the co-author of this paper her intention and objectives in in pursuing this conjecture so she really articulated her interest in multi-party computation.\
Evin: Data that is created by multiple parties in collaboration so it was really wonderful to learn that she actually shares some of the objectives and interests of those on on this call and those who have been working their identity space for a while and that actually is some of the objective she was looking to achieve can can be successfully achieved using verifiable credentials so we agreed that there actually might be some better implementation details than those proposed in this initial paper.\
Evin: / that might be more uniquely well-suited to the objectives that.\
Evin: Into to pursue so it was really wonderful to learn that you know not only do we have a shared of a shared set of goals but we also agree that the implementation details discussed might not actually be the best when we think about the you know optimal self custody experience so I think you know there's a lot of ample ground to be explored together I also think there's an opportunity for us to have a broader convert more inclusive conversation that.\
Evin: seems the web three.\
<mahesh_balan_-_pocketcred.com> +q\
Evin: A lot of folks look at soulbound tokens as the only way for key holders in the ethereum ecosystem let's say to have non-transferable traits that can interact with on chain activities but I think that's just an issue of Education because for most people they're not aware of the other Primitives that are available that this group you know leads and is focused on the education space for implementing so the our common ground is vast I think you know.\
Evin: the difference is in our opinion are much smaller.\
Evin: Originally thought and so what we can welcome in this moment is a practical discussion of implementation how might we explore these ideas in a manner that preserves the well-being and optimizes for you know minimum rather minimizes harm for end-users helping them to address real challenges that they're facing today with tools that are going to make sense for them in the short term so you know while sold on tokens do not yet.\
Evin: Community College last Speck or are you know what that kind of guidance or interoperability across chains in the interim we might be able to explore some more practical implementations using the the specs that we already have but take into account these new ideas that that you know the people want to have non-transferable traits associated with their public addresses in aetherium that can be composable so that was a really fruitful discussion one that I'm really really glad that we had because now we can.\
Evin: see that you know at the end of the day we are all really you know human.\
Evin: Another trying to solve problems for human beings with these human coordination tools.\
Kerri Lemoie: +1 Evin - thank you\
<evin> Would love to welcome more in this group into the web3-native convos as well\
Mahesh_Balan_-_pocketcred.com: Sure my name is Mahesh Balan I have a I'm the founder of pocket read we've been working in the in the w3c verifiable credentials pays for the last few years thank you for this opportunity as I look at as beep he's the one thing that I think the w3c community right here and the extended community.\
Mahesh_Balan_-_pocketcred.com: Has done really well is to give control back to the to the holder right and to me I can see there are some use cases wherein people want to put something public like for example in a LinkedIn profile High I put the fact that I study today see you but the main question I would have is a protocol involving sbts should first.\
Mahesh_Balan_-_pocketcred.com: take the permission.\
<phil_t3> @Evin is you have a suggestion as to where that convo is periodically convening please share it!\
<evin> q\
Mahesh_Balan_-_pocketcred.com: The person who is actually receiving a credential because that would be my main concern that somebody had does not have a right to put anything about me in a public Ledger without my explicit permission so I see a workflow where in you know it's the classic you know issue ever holder interaction that is a presentation done I accept.\
Mahesh_Balan_-_pocketcred.com: out and then.\
Mahesh_Balan_-_pocketcred.com: This carried on and say posted as an SVT and as matter of fact the nfte could ideally point to a verifiable credential so that that document has some value as opposed to just some Json that is unsigned right so so there may be a use case right there but I would love to see the thoughts of this group on how that problem needs to be addressed thank you.\
Phil Long: +1 To Mahesh's concern\
Evin: I do and I absolutely would welcome you know notes from from others in this group as well I think that you touched on the crucial element here which is consent so to the extent that we can better enable individuals to decide the level of publicity and context of publicity of their personally identifiable information whether that is you know in this context and academic achievement I think that makes a ton of sense I think that the grand.\
Evin: Clarity of a.\
<phil_t3> This issue of consent is one of the concerns that has been at the forefront of the VC approach so that one isn't 'awarded' a credential, anchored in public, that is not wanted to be the recipient or target.\
<phil_t3> 'not wanted by'...\
<kerri_lemoie> Absolutely, @Evin.\
<phil_t3> One such recommendation is the more recent ethical design principles for VCs by Digital Promise\
<evin> ^^ love this\
<kayode_ezike> Domains of Identity by Kaliya\
<kerri_lemoie> 7 laws of identity: https://www.identityblog.com/?p=1065\
Kerri Lemoie: +1 @Phil T3\
<evin> and invite a shared dedication to minimizing harm to users\
<kerri_lemoie> Would love to leave this call with some direct actions like those being discussed.\
<colin,_learning_economy> I wonder what role "trusted issuers" play in the guardrails and intentions of issuing credentials...\
<kerri_lemoie> Evin & Vitalik on Bankless podcast about SBTs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbyVyVNsyys\
<phil_t3> There is also a reference to learners\'92 welfare, rights, and agency in the DCC whitepaper https://digitalcredentials.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/white-paper-building-digital-credential-infrastructure-future.pdf\
<mahesh_balan_-_pocketcred.com> While the body of work on VC on the one hand seems to have been overlooked, what do you all think of Jack Dorsey's TBD effort which seems to fully embrace VC's - https://developer.tbd.website/projects/web5/\
<evin> ^they're friends and allies!\
<kerri_lemoie> @Evin - would you mind explaining a little bit about TBD for folks here?\
<kaliya_identitywoman> It would be great if Shrey could share :)\
<kerri_lemoie> Would be interested in digging into pluralism in comparison to SSI (if there is a real comparison).\
<phil_t3> This sounds like an architectural design difference that identifies where VCs are of primary importance relative to the use cases for which Web3 & blockchains were designed. That begs the question - is forcing a merger the right strategy? Is there some other approach?\
<john_kuo> + Phil\
<> smart contract interaction (e.g. EIP-1812 style) that's the crucial technical unblocker\
Our Robot Overlords are scribing.
Jonny: Many of the ideas in that D sock paper are trying to get at.\
<mahesh_balan_-_pocketcred.com> How about chainlink verifying the VC and simply disclosing "Valid", can that work Jonny?\
Kerri Lemoie: Yeah that makes sense thanks explanation Johnny.\
Mahesh_Balan_-_pocketcred.com: Yeah thank you Johnny for that explanation I was wondering would chain-link be able to do something like that in terms of just doing a verification and saying yes or no so that you don't I mean that can just kind of tries to minimize the amount of information that is disclosed but also allows the smart contract to say yes Mahesh has a valid thing so now let's move on to the next he can.\
Mahesh_Balan_-_pocketcred.com: Give you the money or what.\
Jonny: Right yeah I do think that that is the at least in my mind right now is the is the most appealing way to maybe solve this problem so you know.\
Jonny: Right so thank you can publish a very minimized version of what it's almost a zkp right like you could even take it a little bit further and chain link you can prove something to chain link chain link is the trusted writer of some data to the chain about something and so they publish a some data on chain for that smart contract to read and in some way that only that contract knows how to read it I'm I mean it's a little.\
Jonny: a bit gets a little bit in the weeds and I.\
Jonny: I don't want to say anything that's you know technically incorrect here but I do think that that is at least right now the approach that I'm thinking about the most I don't know if it needs to be chain-link the one of the things that I'm really interested in is whether or not you can prove this without having to go through chain link so the user can be their own Oracle about this which would be interesting but there you know it might give you a level of abstraction you know kind of privacy heard privacy if you're going through.\
Jonny: chain link and chain links writing about a whole set of identities as.\
Jonny: And putting that data on chain rather than the thing that is being proved on chain coming directly signed from your wallets public key and that might actually be beneficial if you go through a service like that for some extra layer of you know a buffer in terms of coral ability so yeah I think there's a lot of little nuances and things here that I think we're just now beginning to dig into.\
Phil Long: Sorry about that I've got a layer upon layer of your of audio issues yeah I would it sounds very much like to communities that have been architecting for different optimizations with the web three Community coming out of the original blockchain World and and its intention to be as transparent and.\
Phil Long: Communicative as possible while at the same time dealing with peer-to-peer transfer of assets and things in ways that anonymized at least or pseudo anonymize the the transactions whereas the blockchain world excuse me of the verifiable credential world has been very much focused on enabling agency upon among the individual holders of credentials and raising their.\
Phil Long: Ability to express.\
Kaliya Young: Comment: the trouble is they are not "architecting" they are musing in pooly researched papers\
Phil Long: Their desires about privacy and such in the same way and at the same plane if you will as issuers and relying parties and so we have these two different philosophical approaches that are coming together and I'm wondering whether or not the goal isn't necessarily to merge these things but to find out where they do they intersect in a meaningful way and or is there a way to route.\
Phil Long: The kinds of.\
Phil Long: That are appropriate for each perhaps along the line of the previous speaker so that we are up we're using the architecture that is optimally designed for the intended privacy protections that's my comment.\
<kerri_lemoie> re chainlink reference: https://blog.chain.link/off-chain-data-and-computation/\
Colin,_Learning_Economy: Hey I just wanted to kind of echo what Phil said and and sort of circle back to a comment that Evan made about sharing research and sharing just and in this mindset of curiosity around these two communities sort of intersecting in one way or another I think there's a lot of sentiment on both sides about what we are what we're trying to do for individuals in terms of credentials.\
Colin,_Learning_Economy: And achievements and and.\
Colin,_Learning_Economy: All the different parts and I'm I really appreciate people willing to engage in the conversation you know as somebody who is curious about things that's a mantra I've always sort of maintained as an educator as someone who's still learning you know every single day about all the work of behind the BCD you and Beyond but as you know to stay more Curious than certain and I think as these emerging ideas are shared and are starting to be explored that that that attitude is.\
Colin,_Learning_Economy: is is helpful in.\
<mike_peck> Love it. Stay more curious than certain.\
Colin,_Learning_Economy: Overlap and intersections and also respecting some of the differences and the value that they might add because at the end of the day I think we at least my my view on some of this and I think many is here share the similar view is that we're trying to empower and enable individuals to have a level of ownership around their identity around their achievements around their assertions that is in many ways fundamentally different than the world that I grew up in and I'm imagining the world that many of you grew up in as well.\
Colin,_Learning_Economy: so I just wanted to jump in and say that I appreciate the conversation.\
<phil_t3> My comments are in no way meant to suggest we should work together to explore opportunities for collaboration and perhaps there are ways to bridge the architectures. It has a superificial analogy to parachains bridging different blockchain architectures.\
Kerri Lemoie: +1 To constant curiosity & encouraging learning\
Colin,_Learning_Economy: I really want to continue to read and learn and find some of those intersections and and would be definitely interested in you know architecting or contributing to the conversations around the architecture and the systems for both because I think they are they do have unique use cases for both and the VC world I've spent more time in the VC world and again I'm a I think a little bit of a guppy amongst the.\
Colin,_Learning_Economy: the community here but you know that.\
<evin> @Phil - Disco's working with teams in ETH, BTC, DOT, web2 & more - totally agree!\
Colin,_Learning_Economy: There's some Frameworks and some some content behind that that I find uniquely position for Education whereas like sbts seem like they have potential application in in another space not saying that those are distinct from each other but just a couple observations and curious what others think about that as well.\
<phil_t3> oops "we should work together" for got the dbl negative (LOL)\
Phil Long: +1 @Evin\
John Kuo: Hey sweetie I was just you know listening very carefully to everything here and there's been this emphasis on you know preservation of pii and and privacy and control but you know one thing that VCS struggle with is to take types of credentials that you actually want to kind of broadcast publicly and you're not really that interested in maintaining privacy the intent of it is to show it off so a skill or a badge or things like that.\
John Kuo: You know you want to be able to make that public but there are some difficulties you know in doing that with respect to the very nature of what PCS are supposed to control so perhaps you know some collaboration with something like you know something on chain would be beneficial to making those types of BC's more accessible publicly.\
Evin: I'm John totally want to Echo your comment there that composability integrating both on and off chain proofs is a really exciting opportunity where we've addressed the discoverability of a user but those traits or those qualifications are not necessarily going to be appropriate so for example in the Dow ecosystem there are a lot of communities that represent marginalized communities so it's actually not going to be appropriate for members of an lgbtqia+ organization in a state where that.\
<john_kuo> +++@Evin\
<kaliya_identitywoman> <3 Evin - preach!\
Evin: Fully recognized and supported to publicize their participation in that Community similarly for a variety of Dow and decentralized communities that are primarily made of women and non-binary people it actually ends up being a risk marking their wallets in that way with their gender identity and so for marginalized communities that are active in the web three space that want to be able to take advantage of Access Control across platforms and a crew there non-financial reputation in a way that's self Sovereign or rather sorry self custody I think that verifiable.\
Evin: all credentials offer all the benefits of discoverability without any of the negative.\
Evin: Is that my.\
<simone_ravaioli> some curated reflections on SBTs / VCs (temporary and incomplete!) https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zn0IqMycuUwIbajnb4Y8Wafw0Ov3dIWEQuW55pu1XIo/edit\
Kerri Lemoie: +1 @Evin - also considering scotus ruling\
Evin: I'm being actually very tangible and harmful we also talked about this in the context of of course Women's Health this data is very timely so there's a lot of experimentation going on in this this sort of Realm where the Privacy preservation and consent is actually a mode and not diminishing the usability of these tools so totally hear you there and I think this really gets into the specific implementation details that we're talking about earlier so rather than thinking about you are hypotheticals like what are the.\
Evin: the actual credentials for which there is demand.\
<mahesh_balan_-_pocketcred.com> +evin, you bring up very current and real issues in this day and age. QUite frankly you opened my eyes to this issue of marginalized communities whose freedoms seems to be in a waning phase now.\
Evin: And very man for leveraging and so in our research at disco we've seen explicitly the Dow Community is that do not want to have unfettered secondary markets or necessarily you know publicity around their membership wanting to take advantage of these getting.\
<phil_t3> @ Erin great comments! The ability to control the attributes one wishes is critical to preserve as we seek points of synergy\
<kerri_lemoie> Thank you all for an excellent discussion!\
<kaliya_identitywoman> Thank you!\
<scott_meyer> great one Simone and team!\
<philipp> Thank you!\
<phil_t3> @John Kuo - that was a sharp observation\
<mike_peck> Thanks everyone for the conversation, and Simone for moderating!\
<taylor> thx! It\'92s in our nature as humans to coordinate and cross-pollinate. +1 to building bridges and assuming the better angels of our nature.\
Kerri Lemoie: Thank you I'll make you some money for hosting this call great work.\