This is a first draft of having multiple anonymous mobile crypto identities. The thought might be (probably is) already out there but I wanted to record my thoughts before I get any input so yes, there will be a follow up.

So cryptocurrencies are decentralized, secure and anonymous by using blockchain. What about using the same technology with digital identities that can be created on demand and unlimited like the wallets in a cryptocurrency and transactions of (mis?)trust and others between them? The ledger is decentralized eliminating the power of a central authority and secure so data cannot be manipulated.

Web identities

Modern Internet is very much based in free services that, in exchange, gather data from the user for advertising or  other purposes. It is common to say, if the service is free, you are the product. Data, especially personal  data is very valuable, and as it seems, investors think that it will be even more valuable in the future. So we login into our mail account, which is the same account as our web search account, video viewing etc. But there are some moments that we don’t want our ‘official account’ to contain some searches or activity and thus, we use tor browser or a private browser window or another browser profile.

We don’t want the coupling of the account that we use to contact the bank or apply for a job with things that are not relevant with these two aspects of our life. Most of the times we just use a private browser window, so we can be identified from our ISP up to the web applications (via our browser fingerprint for example). We do that for privacy reasons but we are not taking the extra steps because it’s a “high level”, a subset of privacy that we are after. We have different parts of our life that we want them to be separated from others.

What about having anonymous crypto identities unique for every aspect that we want to keep separated? We would be able to use the advantages of big data (relevant search results, locations memory etc) and have a better control of our data and privacy.
On the other side, web services could still provide relevant advertisements (since this profile is in general interested in knitting for example), so more probable to click on.

and beyond

What about beyond that? Have them mobile. Use these identities in the physical world building a web of trust with other people and groups in a decentralized and anonymous manner.

Since these identities are mobile and secure, nothing stops us from using them in the physical world. For example, there is a group meeting for some political action. There are people from many different groups that would join, but we haven’t met all these people. Trust is the serious issue here that blockchain can solve. Since we have a log of transactions that cannot be manipulated, we can create a web of trust by setting one transaction to be ‘trust’. I trust this specific identity. Forget not, this is just one of the identities a person uses. And she could be using it only for political specific things (or not). She comes to the meetings and unlocks her identity (in her phone for example) and at the entrance the other side checks this identity against the rules of the event. The rules can be ‘you have to be trusted from at least on person that any of the organizers trusts’.

Or there can be another approach. Every group (that also has identities) that takes part in this event has already trusted the identities of members. So the requirement can be ‘you need to be trusted from at least one of the groups’  that are taking part in the event. Maybe the event is kind of open, but trust is still required, so we can have more complicated trust relationships like ‘you need to be trusted from a group’s identity or to be trusted from a person that is trusted from a group’s identity’. Or ‘You need to be trusted as a ‘member’ or as a ‘friend’ of any of the groups’. Any of your identities that meet the criteria would do, you can have an identity just for that.

Other examples, public services

A city’s transportation system uses electronic cards to authenticate users of the system. The big disadvantage of these cards is that a person can be physically identified. Not only who is the person but also where and when this person went. But I could use my travelling identity. I will just pay the cost for a month and i will use this identity to use the system. The provider can be sure that I have paid the cost for traveling and I can be calm knowing that nobody tracks my moves. (tracking of the moves of that identity is of course possible, but I might as well make a new identity next month, pay and travel with this from now on.

Financial

My bank provides me with a card that I can make transactions to shops and ATMs and a limit on the amount I can withdraw as means of security. I have a second bank account and card that I take with me in cases where I want to have only a limited access to money mostly for security reasons. What about the bank trusting your identity, that would be your main bank identity, the one that stays home in a secure place, and you in turn trust other identities that have limited access to the account? One of them can be the going out identity where you allow yourself only a limited amount of money per time-frame. Access rights can be as complicated as needed like ‘this identity can spend 60 euros per day but only 100 euros per weekend and only 200 euros per week. Another can be a child’s access to a limited amount with allowance to overdraft in case of emergency. All these are totally separated identities with full access to transaction history from themselves and the identity on the level above, in this case the mail bank identity.

Relationship with state/large organizations

We currently use a passport or an id card to identify ourselves to the state, regardless of the service we are using. But should every state’s department or employee have access to our identity? There are laws that protect for information to be shared between different organizations but at the same time we provide them with the same data and identification documents. What about having a different identity for different offices or organizations? After all, when we are stopped for a traffic control, our name, age or relationship with other state offices doesn’t matter. What matters is that we are trusted by the ministry of transportation to drive. This identity is trusted because we have license to drive and it doesn’t get untrusted as long as our license is not expired and we have sufficient points left etc. On the same line, an id verification doesn’t have to do with the name or driving allowance, but with the fact that this identity is still trusted (hasn’t committed any crimes for example).