Intro, Demo

Video opens by mocking a man who wants to go to the farmers' market in an incogneto browser so that he won't be recognized and could freely be rude.

Our goal is opposite:

• identity, authenticity

• reputation, respect

• community (on the Internet!)

(1) Start

• 1 Paradigm, 2 Demo Apps

• Nerdster! with Simpson's Bot Farm.

(2) Demo: Identify yourself to the Nerdster

--ONE-OF-US phone app

• launch app on demo phone (App Store links on home page: http://one-of-us.net)

• create key (Congratulations!)

--Nerdster web app

• fresh start with blank slate using new phone and identity, http://nerdster.org.

  • (no content, no people)

• Identify ourselves, click "Sign in"

  • Nerdster confirms: has my identity, does not have a delegate key for me.

  • scan my own key to verify

  • (no content, just "Me")

What happened?

• Phone app sent credentials (public key only) to Nerdster.

(3) Demo: Trust Tom (vouch for his humanity and identify)

Connect with a person.

--ONE-OF-US phone app

• Scan Tom's phone to vouch for his identity and humanity

• • Name him

  • Confirm (Phone app signs and publishes a ONE-OF-US.NET statement)

What happened?

• Phone app used Demo phone's private key to sign and publish a ONE-OF-US.NET statement identifying "Tom" and his public key on the Internet.

This builds our (decentralized) network.

(3.1) Demo: Trust recognized

--Nerdster web app

• Refresh

• Witness: a network of folks as well as their content (all trusted, whitelisted)

What happened?

The Nerdster

• found and processed the Demo phone's signed statement on the Internet referencing Tom's public key.

• proceeded to locate and process Tom's portable, signed statements.

• continued...

In Depth

• Cryptography - fundamental for this paradigm - works, cryptic, public/public pairs (can't recover or replace a private key.)

  • ability to authentically sign using your identity is now on your phone.

• Sign-in to Content - 

• Identity - Bart@nerdster.org, Bart@discord.com, Bart@craigslist.org, Bart@vrbo.com ... Bart! 

• Delegates - Use any service without accounts. Give the service a key pair to use, and tell everyone that its yours.

--demo features on the Nerdster

• Use menu: Settings => Show => JSON, keys, statements

• Click on keys

  • Scan my own key (Demo phone's)

  • Scan Tom's key

• Click on statements

• Use "Interpret" toggle on both keys and statements

• Right click on people or their delegate keys to show published statements (signed and portable)

  • Both ONE-OF-US.NET and nerdster.org

--Show demo features on the Phone app

• Double click or long click keys

• (mention already dimissed the statement confirmation)

Dive in to a particular like

• Demo phone can know who's like this is (and that it's not robot).

  • Paths (park mouse on Smiley icon): me => Tom => Someone => ... (possibly multiple paths - a network!)

  • ... => Someone's delegate (Someone@nerdster.org)

  • Signed Nerdster rate statement

  • Complete cryptographicly signed chain starting with Demo phone's public key.

• The Nerdster whitelists (no blacklisting / spam detection) - only trusted, authentic content is shown.

(4) Demo: Like (part 1: Sign in with a delegate key)

Try to like something. Nerdster says "You are not signed in".

--ONE-OF-US phone app

• Sign in again, and authorize a delegate this time.

• (View confirmation)

• (View credentials sent: identity key and delegate key pair)

--Nerdster web app

• Sign in again

• View credentials received confirmation (scan keys to confirm)

• Now Demo phone is signed in; the menu now offers to sign out.

(4.1) Demo: Like (part 2: Carry out the like)

Nerdster web app: like should work now

• Click on the chat icon at the left edge of any content.

  • Click like

  • Nerdster signs and publishes a nerdster.org "rate" statement (this time using the Nerdster's delegate key, which was delegated and signed by Demo phone's identity key).

  • Confirm as usual. (Maybe Don't show again.)

• The Like should now be reflected in my (Demo phone's) view.

What happened?

--ONE-OF-US phone app

• Created a delegate key pair (private) for the Nerdster.

• Signed and published a statement using Demo phone's private identity key that this key (public) represents him on nerdster.org.

• Communicated credentials to Nerdster.

--Nerdster web app

• Signed and published a Nerdster rate statement using the delegate key Demo phone gave it.

Anyone who has Demo phone in their network should now be able to see this content and trust that it's Demo phone's.

(5) Change Point of View (PoV)

• Use Tom's and another's.

  • Demo phone gone (I haven't scanned his phone, won't vouch that it's human because it isn't.)

    • Notice notification: You're not in this network

    • Demo phone can still rate, comment, follow, etc... but whatever it does won't exist in this whitelisted view.

    • In case others have Demo phone in their networks, then its actions will bring that content their views.

    • This can also happen if you use a follow context that doesn't include you, say your neighbor's family, or your sister's women friends (unless you qualify, of course).

  • My name changes (Tom, tom, Tommy, Yotam), minor content chages (major changes can be seen using The Simpsons Bot Farm demo on the Nerdster!.)

All views are available to anyone. (Other services don't have to make this same choice.)

(6) Paradigm Highlights

The content we found is signed by folks' own crypto keys. They chose to publish content for anyone to use and trust instead of authenticating with a particular service account and to keep their content locked in a silo (Amazon reviews, Yelp ratings, Airbnb ratings, tweets (choice of 4 different ones), Faceposts, etc...)

• Decentralized.

  • Signed by us, not them. No central authority.

• Verifiable by anyone or anything

  • Portable trust. Signatures are publicly checkable, independent of who stores or serves the data. (You don’t have to trust one-of-us.net or nerdster.org.)

• Heterogeneous, interoperable, non-proprietary (standard cryptographic keys, common JSON formats).

  • Your data on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, etc... cannot be viewed, understood, or relied upon without those companies' specialized browsers (or websites or widgets). Data you sign can be leveraged anywhere.

• No special access. (Nerdster.org and ONE-OF-US.NET do not have any.)

  • (The Nerdster doesn't know what was is used to sign in.)

  • (ONE-OF-US.NET doesn't know what reads signed statements it published.)

• Tom and the Demo phone have no Nerdster connection or relationship.

  • Layer 1: identity. Allows using identities instead of accounts everywhere.

  • (Why see your Facebook connections only on Facebook? Your follows and followers could be people, not accounts, across all platforms.)

• Demo phone doesn't have any relationship with Nerdster. It can see content it trusts just by telling it who it is and so can anyone else.

--Opt-in Identity, public Follow relationships

• Consider online newspaper comments, host or driver ratings, forums... Why not be recognized for who we are when we want, right? Follow "Jim" or "Jimmy" on one platform and find him on all others.

• Consider following someone you actually know (not on Insta, not on Reddit, not on NYT or WSJ.. A college roomate, a relative, a colleague, ... like really know)

• If I state an opinion, I want you to know that it was I who said it.

We build the network (decentralized) and let them use it.

(8) Bonus - Follow, Block Follow

• Layer 1: Identity

• Layer 2: Affinity, Content

Follow Andrew and block Tom for context "<nerdster>".
(The "<nerdster>" follow context is a catch-all that includes everyone whose identity you've vouched for unlike "social", "local", or any other specific follow context.)

• The Demo phone doesn't know Andrew, but he trusts that he's human and goes by "Andrew". (Identity layer)

• Following Andrew's contributions more closely is will bring that content closer to folks who might follow Demo phone. (Affinity layer)

• Blocking Tom on the Nerdster is exactly what anyone should do if they're not interested in my contributions, and doing so will also affect content shown to folks follow them. (Affinity layer)

• Content different..

• Switch to Tree structure: Follow network. (Identity layer)

The Nerdster publishes follow statements, and so any platform could leverage not only your identity network but also your nerdster follows if it cares to.

(9) Close my account?

--Nerdster

• No accounts, Delegates!

  • You don't have a Nerdster account. If anything, the Nerdster has an account with you.

  • You don't have a ONE-OF-US.NET account. If anything, you have an account with those who vouched for you.

• Revoke delegate key (choose "since always"). refresh, works (my Nerdster contributions are gone)

• Clear delegate. refresh, works (my Nerdster delegate key is gone)

• Note: I didn't do the above with the Nerdster. I signed and published statements using my identity key to state that my identity is no longer associated with that delegate key. The Nerdster is powerless.

--ONE-OF-US.NET

• I posses a key, and it's stored and used by my ONE-OF-US.NET phone app.

• If anything, I have an account with the fine folks who've vouched for my identity.

• (And so no, there is no ONE-OF-US.NET account.)

(10) Closing

• Goal, Plan