2023-02-13 AnonCreds Specification Working Group Meeting

Owned by Stephen Curran
Last updated: Feb 13, 2023
4 min read

Summary

  • PRs, Issues
  • Issues to be Closed
  • ANDs and ORs
  • Progress on the anoncreds_rs implementation
  • Open Discussion

Recording of Call: dummyfile.txt


Notices: 

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Meeting Attendees

Stephen Curran (BC Gov / Cloud Compass Computing Inc.) <swcurran@cloudcompass.ca>

Rodolfo Miranda (RootsID)<rodolfo.miranda@rootsid.com>


Related Repositories:

Meeting Preliminaries:

  • Welcome and Introductions
  • Announcements:
  • Updates the Agenda

Agenda

Open Issue

  • PRs for review and merging
    • AnonCreds Rust 102 – handling combinations of Revoked/Non-Revoked presentations
      • Timestamp
      • Handling of both revocable and non-revocable credentials in a single presentation in all cases (bug in older implementation).
    • ANDs and ORs in the spec. are wrong – need to update the specification.
  • Issues to Discuss – notably, issues that are ready to be closed.
  • Checkin: anoncreds-rs implementation progress, requests
    • NodeJs wrapper performance issue: https://github.com/hyperledger/aries-askar/issues/76
      • Not happening in react native 
      • Use a patched version of napi-js that solves the problem; use Node.JS 18, drop support for Node.JS 14.
      • Later switch the library - liquify.js
    • Discussion about what to do about wrappers, especially if there is a need to drop the napi-js library to overcome this issue.  Various options were discussed, and links provided:
      • Keep napi-js
    • Current work – testing with AFJ, and now working on integrating the AFJ version into Aries Bifold.
      • main branch of AFJ
      • Lots of work on getting the publishing pipeline ready – done.
      • indy-vdr based version is working – use its implementation as the basis for other ledgers
      • Need a document for how to do that in AFJ
  • Discussion from last week – having an intermediary collect presentations from holders and then share them with the final verifier.
    • Use Case:
      • A bus is visiting a secure site for which all visitors must present ID.
      • Site sends the bus operator a nonce.
      • The bus operator uses the nonce in a presentation request flow with each passenger.
      • Bus operator verifies all of the presentations.
      • The Bus operator forwards all of the presentations to the site for verification.
    • Questions:
      • Is there value in the use of the nonce in this way?
      • Does this alter the cryptography in any way?
      • Terms of use of the data received by the bus operator?
    • Discussion to be carried forward to next week.
  • Proposal: Should we move attribute encoding into the specification and out of the hands of the issuer?
    • Approach:
      • Deprecate the inclusion of encoded values from the "sign credential" process
      • If passed, recalculate and error if they don't match the canonicalization algorithm
        • If integer or string integer - leave as is
        • Else stringify and hash
      • In presentation – recalculate on use, as needed.

Future Calls

To Dos:

  • Discussion: Mike Lodder has proposed that a group start on "Next Gen" AnonCreds based on his this recorded presentation at out 2022-11-28 meeting
    • Stephen Curran to find times that work for Mike and propose times for the group.
  • Issue #137 added regarding further investigation into what happens to the issuance data flow nonce(s) by Belsy – definition completed, to be added to the spec. Stephen Curran 
  • Issue #140 should WQL be allowed in a Presentation Request?
    • WQL is supported currently in the Indy SDK, but not in the Aries Frameworks
    • Should it be in the specification?
    • If so, in what form. From Sam Curren — don't call it WQL if we do include it – just describe it.
    • Not used and it is not clear there is a good reason to support it.
    • Complicates the specification and the implementation.
    • Decision:
      • Not supported in the specification – let's keep it out in this version
  • Revocation Interval
    • Approach to determine if the holder used an acceptable RevRegistry – see this Issue comment
    • Who calls the AnonCreds method to get the Revocation Registry from the ledger for verification
      • Verifier or AnonCreds?
    • To set "validation" to true/false based on the RevRegEntry timestamp in relation to the revocation interval?  Presentation 
    • Key points:
      • 1. an RevRegEntry is “current” from the time it is written, to the time of the next RevRegEntry
      • 2. “within the interval” is based on when a RevRegEntry is “current” (see 1.), not its timestamp.
      • 3. AnonCreds or the Verifier (calling AnonCreds) should calculate “within interval” (using 2.) and mark verification true if the RevRegEntry used by the Prover is within the interval, else false.
        • Dangers:
          • False-Negatives: If a strict "timestamp used is between from, to" and not based on when a RevReg is "current" (per 2.), we will get "not verified" incorrectly.
          • False-Positives: If we don't do any checking of the timestamp and the interval, the holder could incorrectly use an old RevRegEntry.
      • 4. General point: AnonCreds should return both a summary (true/false) and if false, additional data about why it was false.
    • Decision – add an optional `at_from_ts` set of entries, one per NRP, that AnonCreds can use for determining if the holder_ts is within the Presentation Request interval.
  • Backwards Compatibility
    • PRs in (#82, #105) that seem to change public data structures – ones that are handled outside of AnonCreds and/or by two or more participants (issuer, holder, verifier)
    • We want to retain compatibility with existing data – credentials that have been issued and the published AnonCreds objects on which they rely.
    • That extends to business logic – e.g. the handling of the objects not just by AnonCreds, AnonCreds Methods and Aries Frameworks, but also by business applications built on Aries.
    • Suggestion:
      • Include in the specification a statement about backward compatibility
        • Perhaps this is what Ankur had planned to do?
      • Formalize what data structures will be expected by AnonCreds
        • This is being done throughout the specification and verified against the current implementation.
      • As needed support sending and receiving data in "old" and "new" formats, but (for now) always sending "old" formats.
        • TBD if there are any such cases.

Action items