Agent Identity: The First Problem That Agent Protocols Should Solve

[chgaowei]

Agent Identity: The First Problem That Agent Protocols Should Solve

We believe that agent identity is the first step toward enabling agent-to-agent connections, and it should be the first problem that agent protocols aim to solve.

The solution I proposed is a decentralized identity system for agents, which we designed in ANP based on the W3C DID specification. It builds upon existing web infrastructure, offering strong scalability that can support billions of users, while maintaining a degree of decentralization and enabling interoperability across different systems.

We explored various approaches including blockchain, OAuth, and API keys. In the end, we believe that the W3C DID specification is currently the most suitable identity authentication technology for agents.

In addition to the specification itself, here are a few blog posts to help you better understand the design philosophy behind did:wba:

• The Most Suitable Identity Authentication Technology for Agents: Comparing OpenID Connect, API Keys, and did:wba
  https://github.com/agent-network-protocol/AgentNetworkProtocol/blob/main/blogs/comparison-of-did%3Awba-with-openid-connect-and-api-keys.md

• did:wba - A Web-based Decentralized Identifier
  https://github.com/agent-network-protocol/AgentNetworkProtocol/blob/main/blogs/did%3Awba%2C-a-web-based-decentralized-identifier.md

• Security Principles of did:wba
  https://github.com/agent-network-protocol/AgentNetworkProtocol/blob/main/blogs/did%3Awba-security-principles.md

• Three Key Issues of Agent Identity: Interoperability, Human Authorization, and Privacy Protection
  https://github.com/agent-network-protocol/AgentNetworkProtocol/blob/main/blogs/three-key-issues-of-agent-identity%3A-interoperability%2C-human-authorization%2C-and-privacy-protection.md

[RobWin]

Hello,

Thank you. What is your opinion about the statements in this blog post: https://cheqd.io/blog/moving-beyond-the-limitations-of-didweb/
Because the DID Web Method is not really decentralized.

Smart Home Matter protocol is using a Distributed Ledger. In this Ledger, various data are stored for each product – information about the supplier, such as the name of the company, brand, and Internet address. What device it is, its identification number, and whether it has passed the tests for conformity; a list of root certificates from the certification authorities (PAA, Product Attestation Authorities) and information on the current software version.

Verification happens by checking the device’s certificate against a distributed ledger of trusted manufacturers. But it's also only partially decentralized as it uses a distributed ledger but still relies on pre-approved certificate authorities.

https://matter-smarthome.de/en/benefits/benefits-of-matter-4-security-encryption/

Being able to persist and query historic versions of DID Document states seems to be highly valuable in production environments.

In the long term, we also need a reliable, trustworthy agent network.
You don't want to simply use any agent from an unverified provider.

Also an interesting commercial platform: https://godiddy.com/ for a Universal Resolver and Universal Registrar