Role of Secret Credential is Missing in This Report

Hitoshi Kokumai
2 min readSep 2, 2022

https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/15/tencent-veterans-web3-decentralized-id-bit/

I owe this report on ‘decentralized identities for the next generation of the internet’ to Bianca Lopes’ Data Game newsletter — https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/data-game-second-edition-bianca-lopes/

Missing in this report is the critical role of a secret credential, usually a password.

- A key authenticates the lock. A lock authenticates the key.

- However sophisticated it may look with an advanced mechanism (or clever cryptography), a key is prone to theft and abuse.

- What can authenticate the person who is now holding the key?

Whether centralised or decentralised, a solid digital identity would be a pipe dream if the authentication scheme comes without the solid secret credential that enables citizens to give a firm answer to the question of ‘Is this person who claims to be?’.

The conventional text password used to make a valid secret credential many decades ago, but it is no longer good enough. (Beware! ‘Not good/helpful enough’ is NOT the same as ‘bad/harmful’)

We propose that we make use of our own non-volatile episodic memory as the seed of solid secret credential — have a glance at Page 6 of this explanatory slide with scripts — “Fend Off Cybercrime with Episodic Memory” https://www.slideshare.net/HitoshiKokumai/slide-share-updated-fend-off-cybercrime-with-episodic-memory-29aug2022

Looking to the security effect of removal of the password? — Then, visit this blog collection on this subject — “LOSS of Security Taken for GAIN of Security” https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/loss-security-taken-gain-hitoshi-kokumai/

Website — https://www.mnemonicidentitysolutions.com/

Digital identity blogs collected at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/collection-digital-identity-comments-hitoshi-kokumai-posted-kokumai/

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Hitoshi Kokumai

Advocate of ‘Identity Assurance by Our Own Volition and Memory’, Inventor of Expanded Password System and Founder of Mnemonic Identity Solutions Limited in UK.