Latest / Identity at the Center / #21 - Blockchain with Mike from idRamp

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#21 - Blockchain with Mike from idRamp · Identity at the Center

0:06
Do you know who has access to what this is?
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The identity at the center podcast?
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If you're looking for identity and access management talk
0:13
you've come to the right place and now on to the show, Welcome
0:26
to the identity of the center podcast.
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I'm Jeff. And that's Jim.
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Hey, Jim hey, Jeff. So we're going to skip our
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normal friendly, upfront inane. Banter, jump straight into
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today's topic which is blockchain, identity calculator.
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That's why most of the people have maybe we should start over,
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but as I was going to joke around and say that's why most
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of the people listen to our podcast or banter beginning,
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banter of friend, you know what, we're going to leave that in
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because It just shows that real life people.
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Yes, we too. Sometimes will stumble over
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things but that's fine. So we're going to skip the inane
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banter which we just had and get right into blockchain identity.
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It's the topic that you and I have been discussing off and on
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since we started this podcast, so back in July.
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So, a couple months now, we've brought in some experts to help
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us do today, to help us with that conversation.
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We have from ID ramp.com, Mike deasy.
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How you doing? Mike, I'm doing well.
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Q. Thanks for having me on the
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show, thanks for joining us before we get started here.
1:30
What if you could just kind of give a brief introduction of
1:31
yourself and your kind of role in the I am space and then we'll
1:35
jump right into the blockchain Extravaganza.
1:39
Sure. Yeah I d-- ramp was really just
1:42
born out of out of identity challenges and complex corporate
1:46
identity ecosystems that we would work in.
1:49
And, you know, I would say the last 18 months, we really
1:53
converted to adopting I'm more of a blockchain based model and
1:59
integrating the blockchain based identity into our existing, into
2:04
our existing Federation story for Enterprises.
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So that's that's where idea, rep is and where we came from.
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And yeah, we're excited to talk about it.
2:12
So before we get too far down the pipeline, I think we
2:14
probably want to talk about what is blockchain?
2:18
Can you give a brief or a simple explanation around that as maybe
2:21
something that you would describe it to your mother or a
2:24
young child? Is that possible certainly?
2:28
Yeah, I know. And that's that's the right
2:29
place to start because it really frames everything else.
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And one of the most important things about talking blockchain,
2:36
identity is really dispelling, you know, and outlining.
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What it's not right, because that's always where the
2:43
confusion comes in. Everybody has a notion of a
2:46
blockchain and, and cryptocurrencies and all the
2:49
places that we have familiarity. And so, so yeah, let me go
2:53
through a scenario because I think this really He draws a
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pretty pretty fine point on how blockchain is used in identity
3:02
verification and an authentication.
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So let's assume that I want to know something about you.
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So I may be a home address, for example.
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Now I can certainly ask you and you can tell me and and and you
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know, I had no reason to really not believe that but what if I
3:21
need a little more proof you could you can pull your driver's
3:24
license, right? Out of your out of your physical
3:28
wallet, your leather wallet. And you can show that to me and
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I'd say, you know, I'm pretty, I'm pretty comfortable that,
3:33
that I now have the address. What if I really wanted to know?
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If what if you pull out your passport and showed me the
3:38
address for your passport? And then maybe you dug around
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and found your voter ID card. And you pull that out and said,
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here's an address on this. Now I'm really sure that if I
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send you a letter, you're going to get it, right?
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I'm pretty sure I've got your physical address.
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That's the way the world works today.
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So, What is happening in the industry right now is all of
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those government issue credentials that I just
4:02
mentioned. There are projects going on all
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over the world where government entities and corporations are
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are transforming the way they issue those physical credentials
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and also issuing a digital counterpart.
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So many states in the u.s. here are are either active and
4:21
projects or looking at projects to perform digital Digital
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copies of your driver's license. And all of that stuff is going
4:30
to is going to be issued and live together.
4:33
And now it opens the market to applications to create digital
4:40
wallets instead of physical wallets for you to hold those
4:44
credentials. And the really important thing
4:46
is that you are holding those credentials, right?
4:49
It's not being held in some cloud-based service, or Google,
4:54
or Facebook, or someone else. That's acting as a as a champion
4:57
of your identity or a steward of your identity.
4:59
Those are, those are yours and they're issued in some, in some
5:02
digital wallet and that could be an app on your smartphone, it
5:05
could be a website somewhere. I mean, there's going to be a
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lot of different permutations of digital wallets, but the
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takeaway is ultimately, you are responsible for the information
5:16
in there and you alone have the ability to Grant access to the
5:20
to the content contained within so.
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So how does that pertain to the block?
5:26
You know, I didn't mention anything about storing
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information on the blockchain because in fact we're not right?
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And this scenario those credentials are being held in
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your personal wallet and and and here's where blockchain fits.
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So back in our scenario, now I have my digital wallet and it
5:45
created it contains those three, those three digital credentials.
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My digital, driver's license, voter ID, and passport.
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And now I'm going to ask you digitally to prove your address.
5:55
All right. So this is some some application
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or some site or something that I've developed and I'm going to
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say I would really like to know your home address.
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And I'm going to ask specifically for your home
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address, from your driver's license, and your passport, and
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your voter ID card. What happens is you're going to
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receive a prompt right from your digital wallet and it's going to
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say, hey Mike really wants to know your address from these
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three sources. Are you willing to share that
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information and I'm going to say Sure and I send that information
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back to back to the the application and I now have a
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tested that digitally. So that's great.
6:38
But it's not any more secure, right?
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All I've done is trade one, physical process.
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Showing you a credential for a digital one block chain allows
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when that issue or issues that credential.
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So the state issues that driver's license, they sign that
6:53
with some cryptography and they can store or those keys or store
6:57
that representation think of it as like a certificate of
7:00
authenticity, right? And they say I certify that this
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information contained within this credential that I have
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issued Mike is accurate and it's valid hasn't been tampered with
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and it has not been revoked. So so now what happens in that
7:18
application when the application asks for that address in the
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three different sources, it can also go to the blockchain and
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Wide real-time validation that. All three of those things are
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still valid. And if all of that checks out
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now, I absolutely know that that's your address.
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So that's the role. The blockchain plays in
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identity. It's never storing the
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information that you hold near and dear.
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It's only providing the ability to validate that information on
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a on a globally deployed Network.
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So what happens when there is a conflict in the accuracy
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information, what if my wallet is different than let's say the
7:58
driver's license or the DMV, right?
8:00
They would say yeah, this this license is valid or not.
8:03
How does that get resolved? Sure.
8:05
So, if and this, at the risk of getting, you know, to technical
8:12
the proof that is asking, for that makes that determination.
8:16
So, if I asked for your address, your wallet can return an
8:21
address from any credential that satisfies that.
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If I specifically, Ask for your drivers, like the address
8:27
contained with on your driver's license.
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That's the only credential that can provide that proof.
8:31
So, in the case of where that information is not available,
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then it's up to you. I guess, as the as the proving
8:39
party to decide, how to how to go by that, you can say, okay?
8:43
Well, since you don't have an address from a state issue,
8:46
driver's license. Maybe I'll take an address from,
8:50
you know, some other some other credential or some other piece
8:52
of information. Is that does that answer your
8:54
question? Yeah, I think so.
8:56
I think one of the things that I'm curious about to is, you
8:59
know, one of the concepts of blockchain least that way I
9:01
understand is you have this immutable record, right?
9:03
And the data essentially, traverses the chain and it's not
9:07
really held any one spot if I wanted to tamper with one data
9:13
source, theoretically, there should be some check right
9:15
somewhere that would say, wait this data source is out of sync
9:18
with all these others. What's going on here, correct?
9:21
Right? Yep, you're absolutely right.
9:24
And what we're seeing, Big what we're seeing an emergence and
9:27
now are things like like Sovereign Foundation you know
9:32
which is they're building a public permission ledger so and
9:38
they're providing a governance layer to help with things like
9:41
that. So you know where the big one of
9:44
the really big challenges is we have to provide public proofing
9:48
so that anybody can validate our ask for validation of those
9:51
credentials, but in order to provide governance, we really
9:54
have to have Control over the, you know, the people that are
9:58
issuing, those credentials and how those credentials are being
10:00
issued. So, so I think that's why it's
10:03
actually another reason why this technology is now ripe for
10:06
adoption. Because we have some of that
10:09
governance concept and governance layer in place and
10:12
it's not truly, you know, the Wild Wild West.
10:15
What's the speed? Like if you have a is it the
10:18
bigger? The blockchain?
10:19
It's just faster connections are needed or how does that is the
10:23
processing take place when you've got you know let's say
10:25
Pretty big worldwide blockchain going.
10:28
What applications have to take into account to, you know,
10:32
expected time to read, you know, for results.
10:34
It's those sorts of things. Sure.
10:36
And the nature of the nature of the, of the network, as I have
10:41
described, it really takes a lot of the complex processing out of
10:45
it. The amount of information, and
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the amount of those, those proofs that are being generated
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or pretty lightweight because of the, the nature of what they're
10:53
validating. I I don't know exactly how many,
10:57
how many stewards are on sovereigns network.
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Now I think there's an excess of 70, so there's a lot of nodes
11:01
that are running globally. Handling, this handling, this
11:05
load. And we've never, you know, never
11:08
seen any indication that performance is going to be a
11:10
problem in the way that this network is designed.
11:12
Anyway, got it. Now you mentioned the term
11:13
Steward for the folks that aren't familiar with that term.
11:16
How do you define Steward on a blockchain?
11:18
Sure. So a steward is an organization
11:22
that has been vetted and To the ability to promote, trust
11:29
anchors. And a trust anchor is basically
11:31
anyone that runs a node on the network.
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So unlike other public non permission blockchains, where
11:38
you can just stand up a server and plug in to the to the
11:42
network for for a permission to block chain with with the
11:48
governance layer such as this, you have to be, you have to be
11:51
vetted and certified. So Steward has the ability to
11:53
take an organization and say okay, Okay.
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You want to start issuing credentials and and doing proofs
12:01
to use for your services or employees or whatever.
12:04
The case might be a steward where has the ability to form
12:08
that relationship and Grant them the ability to, to deploy their
12:12
own nodes on the network. So who does the wedding?
12:16
Then of the stewards is that an organization like Sovereign or
12:19
some other organization that would be responsible for that?
12:23
Yeah, that's correct. The Sovereign Foundation.
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Why that's actually that's their biggest role is just to provide
12:30
that the oversight in the end, the structure and doing that
12:33
vetting of the stewards, got it. And then I would assume it was
12:37
that. Let me say, I hope that once you
12:39
become a steward there is still some sort of process to validate
12:42
that, that still accurate going forward, right?
12:44
Is that okay? You're always certification or
12:47
some other time frame, that's correct.
12:49
It is that it's a, it's not a terribly easy process.
12:53
There's a lot of, there's a lot of Hoops.
12:55
Jump through but but we found it.
12:58
We found a pretty easy pretty straightforward and it's
13:03
definitely it's definitely worth the heavy lifting up front just
13:08
because there's so much certainty and control over
13:12
things like performance and and and knowing that you know,
13:18
knowing that this people that are signing these requests have
13:21
actually been through that that governance process.
13:23
So are different blockchains? Interoperable with each other.
13:28
That is a very, very good question and there's a lot of
13:31
work going on in the industry right now.
13:33
So did routing the decentralized identifier became a standard
13:39
very recently and it is the standard that everyone is
13:43
marching toward right now and using whether you're building on
13:47
ethereum or more hyper Ledger everyone is has standardized on
13:52
this decentralized identifier, which is great news for the
13:55
industry. There is still A lot of a lot of
13:59
routing conversations going on and there's a working group for
14:03
the called Universal resolver, which is basically a way to use
14:08
prefixes. In the end, the decentralized
14:10
identifiers to handle the routing between networks.
14:12
That is going to be a place where we obviously have to have
14:15
some Evolution to make sure that, that, that all of the
14:20
different networks that are coming up to handle identities,
14:23
have the ability to, you know, to accept and consume
14:27
credentials no matter where they're created.
14:29
So we're still pretty early pretty early days in that in
14:34
that conversation. But there are a lot of people at
14:38
that table and the big, you know, the big people in the
14:41
industry or certainly leading that charge and making sure that
14:46
the technologies that come out from Microsoft or IBM and the
14:49
hyper Ledger team are all consumable and interoperable.
14:56
Okay, I would imagine that. That's something that's going to
14:58
have to rapidly iterate, if blockchains going to grow.
15:02
Because I can see something like people getting fear of vendor
15:05
lock-in or something like that, where they're stuck on one
15:08
chain, right? And they should have gone to
15:10
another. I like it it very similar to the
15:12
kind of like Gmail versus Yahoo mail in the old days and you
15:15
know now it's out looking at which Mail system are you on.
15:17
It's got a very deep hook into people and it's very difficult
15:20
to make change sometimes? Yeah, but I'm also wondering
15:24
what about International Well, concerns where you might have, I
15:29
don't know, we use the dresses and example, but some of those
15:33
conventions, you know, change from country to Country and
15:37
certainly, you know, language differences, I'm wondering, are
15:42
there any impacts when it comes to, especially if you're looking
15:45
at a global Enterprise? Maybe talk about that.
15:49
Mike. Yeah, I think the I mean the did
15:52
spec is pretty routable. I don't I don't think there's
15:54
any issues internationally. I know of anyway, there are in
15:58
fact, most of the work that that is being done in practice right
16:02
now. Are coming from places not in
16:05
the u.s., right. The province of British Columbia
16:10
is way ahead of where we are. They're issuing digital
16:15
credentials to their citizens today that are actually, I
16:20
believe they're going to go on The Sovereign Network and be
16:24
provable there. There's other other countries
16:28
that are, you know, I said much further ahead than where we are.
16:31
And so we're catching up though and really things like like the
16:37
network and the the ability for us to interoperate with
16:44
Technologies as the technology like, you know, hyper Ledger and
16:48
Hyper Ledger in D, for example, is suspect that that everyone on
16:52
Sovereign or a lot of most people in Cyber Network anywhere
16:55
following this. This Indie spec.
16:57
And what that means is, I can issue a credential and that
17:01
credentials consumable by a multitude of wallets.
17:04
You don't have to use, just my, my agent or my application in
17:09
order to hold that credential and provide validation of that.
17:13
So that that's the common framework that everybody is
17:16
writing to. And that's why that's why it's
17:19
getting exciting in this industry because we're seeing
17:22
now multiple people come in and and are able to issue
17:27
credentials. And those credentials are
17:29
immediately consumable by a host of other applications.
17:33
And so, so either way, I think that's the most exciting thing
17:36
that I'm seeing right now, what about data sovereignty?
17:39
I know that, you know, there's there's a big deal sometimes
17:42
about where the data is stored countries like Russia and China
17:45
tend to want to have it and within their own reach and
17:48
control and be able to inspect the data.
17:50
How would that apply to the blotching that spreads across?
17:53
And by its very nature, distributes that data.
17:55
Much everywhere. Yeah and and you might be a
17:59
little bit beyond me there, I'm not sure if there are any active
18:02
nodes running and in Russia or China and and how that would how
18:07
that would play, I do know that by nature of the data.
18:10
There's not any there's not any personally identifiable or any
18:14
data that we would consider it risk, right?
18:16
These are just records of decentralized identifiers and
18:21
and a public key you know so there's not any significant Data
18:26
at risk. That would that would cause
18:29
concern. But I do appreciate fully having
18:33
worked in some of those regions. The complexity of just
18:36
deploying, the technology may be a challenge in itself, so maybe
18:39
we can shift gears and talk anymore on the internal
18:43
Enterprise use case. What are some current or maybe
18:46
near-term use cases that you could see.
18:50
Let's just take, for example, a US company, you know, they
18:52
operate their own environment and you know, they sell It's or
18:56
whatever it may be. Things are taking place inside
18:58
the firewall, where would blockchain come in handy for
19:01
something like that? Sure, I see it.
19:05
And I've been around, you know, the identity space for a long
19:08
time and one of the biggest heaviest and most expensive
19:13
systems to maintain is the identity and access management
19:16
system. It's, it's a beast and it's
19:19
involved in every transaction, every service authentication,
19:23
every user Authentication, Goes through the identity and access
19:27
management system. So if you have an application
19:33
that is very heavy in nature and we all know obviously, you know,
19:37
8:00 9:00 eastern time when everybody's logging in and
19:41
onboarding. That's always a huge Spike.
19:42
And I am systems, right? For for an organization that has
19:46
primary user base and Eastern us.
19:49
We see you know, systems are ramping up their scaling up
19:52
providing more resources and it's you know, there's there's a
19:55
Exposure. Also, if that system happens to
19:57
fail. So the I am systems today are
20:00
critical but they're also front and center.
20:02
All of that information is exposed publicly because our
20:06
services are tied to it directly and and they're absolutely
20:10
critical, right? If a system is deferring to
20:13
that, I am system for for authorization and
20:17
authentication. It absolutely has to be
20:19
available hundred percent of the time.
20:21
So one, you know, one thing that we think of where digital Real
20:25
credentials really plug in and help here is they can they can
20:28
help flatten out that that Peak and Valley.
20:33
Spike that the I am systems go through.
20:36
So if you consider that a user comes in and they log in through
20:41
your IM system and some intelligent policy says okay
20:46
you're in Human Resources. So we're going to give you a
20:48
credential to use sap or something and maybe it says okay
20:55
here's a This guy we're going to give you access to you
20:57
Salesforce and issues credentials for the services
21:00
that these users consume throughout the course of their
21:02
day. And then those systems that that
21:07
the users are interacting with instead of deferring, back to
21:10
the identity management system. If instead, they just say
21:13
present your digital credential and I will grant, you access
21:17
directly as long as that credential is not been revoked.
21:20
Using the same, the same scenario and flow that I
21:25
outlined. And at the beginning of the
21:27
podcast, right? Where that service says, I just
21:30
need to know who you are, and I tell them directly from that,
21:34
credential that I present from my personal wallet, and that
21:38
gets validated on The Ledger. So the Enterprise is not revoked
21:42
my ability to log into Salesforce.
21:44
Therefore I can then, you know, then I'd never have to go back
21:48
through. I never have to be dependent
21:50
upon that identity, and access management system.
21:53
I still may want those metrics and all that can be baked in But
21:55
they can be distributed at the perimeter instead of centralized
22:00
at the. I am so for a very bursty
22:04
service like Sabia webcasting service or something, where we
22:07
have 30,000 users, that are going to descend on this
22:11
particular platform for a, for a webcast, they're all going to
22:15
come in a two to three minute period.
22:17
That's going to that's going to really be heavy on the IM
22:20
system. You know, it's going to it's
22:22
going to cause a great Spike big load and a A real dependency on
22:27
that to be up and active. If instead we just say, oh,
22:30
you're registering for a webcast crate.
22:32
Here's a digital credential, and issue that to the consumer.
22:36
Then all the consumer has to do is go to that web, casting
22:38
service present that credential be validated and and and go do
22:43
their webcast. And the I am never sees that
22:45
traffic. So I think there is significant
22:49
performance you know, in cost Savings in infrastructure that
22:53
an Enterprise can realize but also You know, security, you can
22:57
literally take the IM system off the front line.
23:01
You know, I RI the IM system that we use it.
23:04
ID ramp isn't even publicly available so it all sits on the
23:07
internet and you pick up your credentials and then you go
23:09
interact with your services and and the identity and access
23:13
management system is never physically available to the
23:17
public internet. Hey Mike, when you mentioned
23:19
that you would take that webcasting example.
23:25
Thank you, dish. You a credential to the user and
23:28
they would present that certain that credential the other
23:33
wallet. So, picturing something in their
23:36
browser or something is managing a certificate so can you get
23:41
down into the, you know, basic blocking and tackling of how
23:46
would the user go about presenting?
23:47
That sure certainly could be. It certainly could be something
23:52
in the browser that was referencing a Kind of an
23:56
identity Hub, they contained that you know that collection of
24:00
wallets right those storing them on behalf of the users it could
24:03
also be a personal wallet application living on your iOS
24:09
or Android phone. So there's it could.
24:12
I mean literally the wallet itself is just a virtual
24:16
software agent and it can be it can live anywhere you could
24:19
write it right into the browser. If you if you choose.
24:22
We see the most popular without question the most popular way.
24:25
That those digital, those personal digital wallets are
24:27
being developed, today is smartphone applications.
24:32
So there these are sitting on IOS and Android devices.
24:36
But there are also a lot of a lot of players that are building
24:42
the ability to really hold those in kind of a kind of a personal
24:47
wallet identity management system at that point if you
24:49
will. And while I feel that has less
24:54
long-term value than Then something I give you personally,
24:57
I'm totally understand and and respect the fact that that we
25:03
may need some, some kind of a middle middle Gap there.
25:07
Before we get to a full user user hosted wallet, but you
25:13
know, I'll Riff on that a little bit because there is a big
25:16
advantage to a personal wallet. If we have a world where there's
25:20
a bunch of these personal identity wallets and they're
25:22
coming on the scene, right? There's more and more every day.
25:25
Day. And and I have my employees go
25:28
out and download one of these personal identity wallets,
25:31
right? They and it's theirs.
25:34
It's their identity. They create their identity.
25:35
However, they see fit. They put the attributes in there
25:38
that they see fit if I can interoperate that, interoperate
25:42
with that as an Enterprise, and I can say great, you got your
25:46
personal wallet. Here's some credentials that you
25:49
need from my organization to interact with these services
25:53
that I think you need access to. And the user says, okay, great.
25:57
I'll just put those in my personal wallet.
26:00
You're really tearing down a huge barrier and a huge wall
26:04
that exists today between the employee and the employer.
26:07
Now, my employer is is literally my technology partner, right?
26:11
I'm not saying here is an identity I created for you and
26:16
to use it. Go through this proprietary
26:18
laptop with this proprietary, VPN client, and all of this
26:22
really proprietary software. Instead, I'm just saying these
26:27
are your access credentials and you put them wherever you hold
26:29
your identity information and it will seamlessly coexist.
26:33
I mean, I think that's a very powerful message that the
26:36
Enterprise can put out as well and it really does bring the two
26:40
closer together and in true partnership form, which is a
26:44
popular place to be for the Enterprise today.
26:46
I think it's cool. I think it's powerful.
26:47
I just don't think companies are there yet.
26:50
I think it's there's there's a trust issue.
26:53
I think I feel like we're organizations Do not want to
26:56
expose their active directory, right to outside of the network,
27:00
for example, but I see the benefit of having something like
27:04
an apple wallet, right? Or a Google pay wall or a
27:06
Samsung pay wallet where your credentials are in there and
27:10
stored and you have a way to visually organize them and
27:14
somehow use that kind of analogy to authenticate to a network is,
27:20
are you aware of any companies who are doing, what you just
27:23
described where they're letting their Employees, give them that.
27:27
Digital credential, I'm not obviously other than ID room we
27:32
do. And, and, you know, others that
27:36
are that are close to the technology are doing similar
27:38
things. But yeah, that is and I agree
27:41
with you on one front that I think they're there.
27:44
They are standoffish about access but I also think that
27:47
lends itself to this technology very well, they don't want to
27:50
provide access to that active directory.
27:52
So you know, so hide it, right? Keep it behind the scenes.
27:55
Command, I authenticate, and maybe this is even it could be
27:58
as literal as going into HR, you know, and for your onboarding
28:02
process and at that time they say, yep, your you and they
28:05
issue that credential and it lives in your wallet.
28:07
It doesn't tell anyone anything other than, you know, you, I've
28:12
got this association with my employer and so there's no,
28:17
there's no information really to leak their secure.
28:19
They're more secure than allowing you to go to active
28:23
directory, over some internet connection and in anything short
28:27
of, you know, an encrypted connection VPN.
28:29
So, I mean, I think there's a lot of Technology advantages
28:32
that we could evolve into that are going to help tighten
28:35
security and control that information, as well as
28:38
providing a reduced friction for user consumption.
28:42
I also think I mean, to your point.
28:43
Jeff. I think that a lot of companies
28:46
are followers, right? And so, but there are some
28:50
companies that will they see a solution that is Better in some
28:56
way or another, you know, be leaders in the that way.
29:03
And, you know, I think if governments are, you know,
29:07
adopting this and it's some of the bigger players like Apple
29:10
and Google started adopting, those then you'll see more.
29:14
I mean, certainly the company said, I tend to work with are
29:19
not looking to be bleeding edge, right?
29:21
If you're doing Enterprise identity management, it's not an
29:25
area. Where you want to take a lot of
29:26
risks. However, technology leader
29:29
companies, when they start to say this is important to we're
29:33
using it, other companies will follow soon.
29:36
Yeah, I agree with that. I think there is, you know, the
29:41
and you're right. The Enterprise is pretty
29:45
conservative with how they're doing this, which is why I
29:48
really believe it's important to build Bridges, from where, you
29:51
know, from where we're at today into this new technology.
29:54
So we're not asking. For lift and shift.
29:57
Ironically, I think there's a huge Improvement to the SMB
30:01
market and the smaller organizations that that don't
30:04
have the infrastructure and Staffing of some of these large
30:07
Enterprise to protect themselves.
30:09
I think this this, you know, even a even kind of a closed
30:12
ecosystem for credentialing for their employees is is a huge
30:16
step forward if their employees can bring a and all a self
30:20
Sovereign identity and they don't have to build out a
30:21
complex identity management infrastructure.
30:24
Instead, all they have to do Is associate a set of metadata,
30:27
with some personal identity. There's, you know, there's a,
30:31
that's a, that's a transformational thing as well.
30:34
It gets them a lot more velocity and a lot more control over
30:37
what's going on without without having to go and invest in
30:42
these. Massive, I am systems that the
30:45
Enterprises is buying, so I think there's I think there's
30:49
some opportunity for for both sides there as well.
30:54
One thing that this really You're staying and I think this
30:57
is where I mean, I think this is what's going to help really lead
31:00
to a lot of adoption as well as if we assume now that our
31:04
government credentials are being digitally issued and that's
31:08
going to happen, right? We're going to have there's
31:11
going to be the debates with, where they go and
31:13
interoperability, and all that stuff.
31:15
We're going to have to figure that out.
31:18
And I think we figure that out by Leading instead of, instead
31:20
of waiting, right? We try to inform and guide these
31:24
organizations and Enlighten them into the art of the possible
31:27
before they end up just building another, another set of silos
31:32
that we have to that, we have to worry about tearing down some
31:34
point in the future. But what really starts to happen
31:38
is if I mean, think about onboarding an employee.
31:41
Now, if I have, if I know that you as a consumer, have a
31:45
credential from the Social Security Administration, who by
31:49
the way, is working on that very thing.
31:52
And I know that you have a state Driver's license or at least I
31:57
hope you have a state-issued driver's license and you come
31:59
into on board for HR maybe I want to validate so I can simply
32:05
present a proof request to you as a consumer and say we would
32:10
really like to know your educational background.
32:14
We want to know your degree status, you know we want to know
32:18
your state of residence, driver's license, just whether
32:21
you have it or not, whether it's valid.
32:23
Maybe we ask for a confirmation of the Address or whatever, but
32:27
it really is. It's a game-changer from an
32:29
identity proofing perspective. And from an onboarding
32:33
perspective, a lot of the stuff that we go through over and over
32:36
and over again. As we on board employees or we
32:38
set employees up simply, you know, wouldn't be needed or will
32:42
be much more easy to access and we don't have to create
32:47
replication of that information over over again.
32:50
Instead, we just store an associate of record to a
32:54
decentralized Identity that we know of belongs to you and your
32:58
in your personal wallet and we can request information from
33:02
that at any time. So it really provides a much
33:05
more streamlined workflow and the big Power of using these
33:09
credentials and credential based systems is not in the ability to
33:13
say. Okay, I'm going to issue you
33:15
this thing, and you can come back later and I'm going to ask
33:18
you to present me that thing like a password, right?
33:20
Ami passwords. We all agree are.
33:23
They should have been gone years and years ago and we're still
33:25
Still, we're still fighting them but that's what a password is,
33:28
right? You can you give me this thing
33:29
and then when you come back I'm going to challenge you and ask
33:31
you for with credentials. I never have to give it to you,
33:35
right? I mean, we never have to do
33:36
that. All I have to do is all I have
33:37
to know is what I'm asking for. So you come to my service?
33:41
If all I need is your email address.
33:43
Why am I going to force you to create a new account and create
33:46
a new password and all the stuff.
33:47
When I just say, you have a valid email address and if you
33:50
can satisfy that I let you in, so it really changes.
33:55
It changes a lot of things because now we don't have to
33:59
create an issue. Something for everything that
34:04
we're trying to prove, all we have to do is know what
34:07
questions to ask that makes sense.
34:08
Let's talk a bit about ID ramp itself as a product so I'm a
34:13
see. So and we get in the elevator at
34:15
the same time. What problems are you going to
34:18
help me solve? Sure.
34:20
So ID ramp is ID rope will Give you the ability to bring in any
34:28
identity source so this can be an IM stack, it could be
34:32
whatever you have and connect that with traditional
34:36
Federation. Protocols Samo off, open ID
34:39
connect take your pick apis and we can provide credential
34:44
issuance based on that metadata. So we can do.
34:47
The example I used earlier was with something that's absolutely
34:52
possible. I can say all of people in
34:55
human. Arizona issue a credential for
34:57
human resources and then and then I can ask for that.
35:00
So idea app also then provides the the other side of that
35:05
equation where I can figure that service.
35:08
You know, I mentioned, I mentioned sales for Salesforce
35:12
today, doesn't know how to go and ask hyper Ledger or The
35:16
Sovereign Foundation Network, or they don't know how to build
35:19
that bridge into that into that system and ask for those
35:22
credentials directly so idea, right?
35:25
Provides tools and services to do that as well.
35:28
You go into Salesforce and you can just can just configure as a
35:31
sample service or oauth or whatever put it back to ID ramp
35:35
and ID ramp will do that translation for you.
35:37
So, what we've built today is the bridge that will take an
35:43
Enterprise from a from a traditional, I am funnel based.
35:49
I am workflow process to a decentralized credential based
35:55
In process with simple reconfiguration and and clicks.
36:02
So, we support that in a, you know, just kind of an a
36:06
configuration pay as you go type model or we provide apis and
36:11
then web hooks, you can bake that into native applications,
36:15
you know, or we can help you get there.
36:16
As I said, we're Steward and Trust anchors.
36:18
So we can take, we can take an organization all the way to
36:21
standing up their own nodes and educating their staff on how to
36:25
How to get closer to to building those things themselves.
36:29
So that's where ID ramp is is focused today and we have a long
36:34
Heritage of traditional I am we understand Enterprise, I am and
36:38
the challenges that exist there very well and so we felt that it
36:44
was our really our responsibility if we're if we're
36:46
out here saying credential based dish access management is, is
36:51
this really cool thing that can help save you time and money and
36:54
make your Make your business more more profitable and
36:59
successful and secure. And we really had an obligation
37:02
to build the tools and services that the Enterprise needs today.
37:05
In order to dip their toes in the water and start using this.
37:08
So giving them the ability to just say, not.
37:11
Just say, I want to take this one service and I want to take
37:14
these 10 users and let them log in with the distributor
37:18
credential an issue that might be distributed credential.
37:21
That's really what we've built. So it's a way to really do your
37:24
own. Proof of concept and figure out
37:27
if the technology is right for you, it's think.
37:29
So. Where do I find talent to help
37:32
me with this? Because I think there's this,
37:35
this, I don't, it's a stigma or not, but watching is complex.
37:40
You know what do I need? Is an organization to dabble
37:42
into this, right? Yeah.
37:45
And you're exactly right. It's it's growing the community
37:49
of people that are knowledgeable about this is growing
37:53
exponentially every day but the Exciting thing than that is the
37:57
tools. The products and services are
37:58
coming on board or really help the Enterprise and, and Beyond
38:03
right to adopt this technology. So ID ramp.com, I mean,
38:08
certainly we're willing to help those other organizations that
38:11
are building similar tools products and services, that will
38:14
help the Enterprise really understand what the stuffs all
38:19
about and how to do it. And like I said, the beautiful
38:22
thing is it's all open, you know?
38:24
I mean there's really no There's nothing close.
38:26
There's nothing proprietary and what we're doing, if an
38:29
organization comes in and uses our technology or technology
38:33
from from one of our competitors, that that's using
38:36
the same underlying governance framework and underlying
38:41
technology stack, there's absolutely nothing preventing
38:44
them from completely displacing, what they put in place with with
38:50
ID, ramp with their own technology, just simply by
38:52
learning more and, and standing up their own.
38:55
And so that's the real exciting thing as we give its future
38:59
proofing, your investment because you're not walked into a
39:02
single vendor, it's truly vendor agnostic.
39:04
So, what I run then my own blockchain infrastructure.
39:07
If I'm ever ization, I want to get into this stand up my own
39:09
notes. Yep, you could.
39:11
You could come to idea up and say, hey, we really want to be.
39:14
We really want to stand up nodes on, on sovereigns network, for
39:17
example, and and make us a trust anchor.
39:20
We go through some paperwork, you trade, some employees and
39:24
and stand it up. It up and you have the ability
39:27
to issue your own credentials, build your own proofs.
39:30
Do everything you want to do directly with the network at
39:32
that point. Okay what about some IGA focused
39:39
use cases around blockchain? So identity Governor's
39:41
Administration. Typically this is where
39:43
automation of identities get built out.
39:46
You mentioned you know tying things to an HR Source access
39:49
review certification. Do you see any play with
39:52
watching helping with that in the future?
39:55
I do. And it's, it's hard to visualize
39:58
all the different places that can go.
40:00
But I think that, I think that anytime you have the user more
40:07
involved in the decision of what is being disseminated and where
40:12
that only, that only can improve your your governance.
40:16
In fact, if you think of an example, where cash, what's one
40:19
of the examples? I came out the other day, where
40:22
you're buying a buying a stock Right.
40:25
You're going to call up your local, Ed Jones, broker guy.
40:28
And you're going to say, I want to buy, I want to buy a couple
40:31
shares of Tesla because I think it's a good investment right
40:35
now. And he says, all right great.
40:37
I'll place that order for you and then and then it tanks and
40:39
you're going wait a minute. I didn't do that.
40:41
Right. So now is it's just really your
40:43
word against his if you think about it, if you think about
40:48
what we just went through and digital credentials and
40:52
involving me as a participating party in, Now, think about how
40:56
that workflow changes I can call and make that request and he can
40:59
program that order. But before that order goes, I'm
41:02
going to receive, I'm going to receive notification saying,
41:05
hey, we're going to going to make this transaction on your
41:09
behalf. Are you okay with it and I say,
41:11
yep. And now you have, you know?
41:13
Now I'm involved right. It's more than just well.
41:15
Yeah, I called and I actually have skin in the game now.
41:19
I'm literally confirmed that on a device.
41:22
That's biometrically checked my, you know.
41:25
My signature, we know that it's me that that made that request.
41:28
So I think that's a game changer.
41:30
And it really opens up a lot in the governance space to really
41:33
helping organizations control who's doing what with their
41:38
information. I can imagine casinos might be
41:41
interested in that. Yeah, yeah, all right, well
41:45
before I wrap it up here because you've given us certainly a lot
41:47
to think about and just for the folks who are listening and know
41:51
there was kind of a lot to cover today.
41:52
So I'll be sure to put links for idear.
41:55
Then some other information in the show notes, how should
41:59
people get in touch with idear a Mike?
42:03
Sure start with the website. We have a lot of good
42:06
information out there and and contacts ID ramp.com.
42:11
And you can always send an e-mail to info ID.
42:14
Ramp.com somebody to get back in touch with you.
42:16
We love talking to, we love talking to people about the
42:20
technology. We love talking to companies
42:21
about their potential interests and Synergy, so yeah.
42:25
Please reach out there. Going to be any conferences
42:27
coming up like gardeners. I am.
42:29
Summit. Biggest, we are not going to the
42:31
gardener, I am summit. We're going to be at the no 2020
42:34
conference in an April, we're going to be at the connect with
42:38
on next month, in Provo. And then I believe the next big
42:44
one is probably I see in Europe will be over there.
42:48
So yeah well and we'll I think we have a schedule of
42:51
conferences out there. I'm not sure if we do right now.
42:55
But check the website. All right well I think this is a
42:58
probably a pretty good spot to leave it for this week as
43:02
always. If folks out there listening
43:03
have questions they can always get a hold of the podcast at
43:07
questions at identity. The center.com want to thank
43:10
Mike for my dear Aunt from joining us.
43:11
Thank you very much, Mike also want to.
43:14
Yeah, I also want to thank the identity team.
43:16
I didn't come up with all these questions on my own.
43:18
I'm not that smart. So I certainly crowdsource some
43:21
things to think about as we kind of move forwards, want to thank
43:24
them for their questions. And then most of all want to
43:26
thank everyone who's listening taking the time out of their day
43:28
to listen into this. And thank you all for sharing
43:33
and we'll talk to you guys in the next one.
43:38
You've been listening to the identity at the center podcast
43:42
to access all episodes visit identity at the center.com.