Diro: A decentralised identity and access management platform

Modern technology has created unprecedented possibilities for the tracking and management of identity data. But even though those possibilities are being used extensively in many different spheres and has arguably become the cornerstone of today's economy, the current state of identity and access management is deeply flawed. Identity theft is commonplace and can be carried out in many different ways. The process of establishing, maintaining and verifying a digital identity can be very cumbersome, with a large paper trail and many technological complications. One of the results is that many people, especially in developing countries, do not have a verifiable legal identity at all. Those who do are often at the mercy of bureaucratic and technical errors.

https://www.diro.io/

Problems on such a scale result in massive economic losses every year and hobble both governments and industries as they attempt to expand their reach. Businesses are additionally hampered by the challenging obligation of KYC and AML procedures, which are increasingly required from them. These issues also undermine the ability of individuals to participate in many key economic and social activities. The blockchain may seem to offer a natural solution, but implementing it is easier said than done. Diro Labs Limited wishes to attempt this by harnessing a complex yet user-friendly technical setup together with crowdsourcing.

How will Diro's platform function?

Diro will allow people to manage their identities on the basis of MSISDNs (mobile phone numbers) and the Simple Public Key Infrastructure (SPKI). Users will be able to submit their own numbers and identity data and that of their contacts to establish Diro Identities. Anyone will be able to verify their own submitted data, claim Identities with their aggregated related data and confirm their connections with others. Users will also have the ability to establish and find separate directories, or phonebooks, for co-workers, family members, schoolmates and so on, tagging them from their contact lists. These directories will be used to verify information further. Each Diro Identity will have its own score, based on the number of validated connections with other users, their scores, legal verification through cryptographic documents and transactions recorded on the platform, guaranteeing the identity's “hardness”. A further method of validation will be based on live conversations between users (“proof-of-life”).

All identity data will be secured using an intricate blockchain architecture, including a public blockchain for storing decentralised identifiers on public keys, a private blockchain for identity ownership management and a transaction layer that would allow third-party access. Smart contracts will be used to manage the public key and bind it to a private key that could be recovered from a cloud server in the event of the phone being lost. Participants will be able to use their numbers instead of passwords for the purposes of authentication. They will also be able to narrowcast different parts of their information to different directories through separate Profile Cards attached to a single Identity.

https://www.diro.io/

Participation in the system will be incentivised through the use of DiroTokens (DIRO), which will be granted for validating connections within four particularly trusted categories of phonebooks (Coworkers, Family, School and College) and sharing Profile Cards. Further rewards will be given for each validated member added to a Phonebook. Rewards will be automatically converted to DIRO after three months. There will be a mechanism in place to prevent spam, duplicate phonebooks and other manipulations. Those will be punished with fines and bans. DIRO will be required to access some additional features, such as remote identity verification, Cloud LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol), enterprise-level large shareable contact directories and phonebook group access to third-party apps on the Diro Developer Store.

What are the key benefits of Diro?

Assuming Diro is a success and becomes widely adapted, it will be able to make life easier for everyone involved. Its potential benefits are practically infinite, though it should be particularly useful for the purposes of KYC and AML procedures, digital ownership, fintech and cybersecurity. Using a hybrid blockchain system would allow a large amount of data to be stored with heightened security, which together with other verification mechanisms should make identity theft and other attacks no longer worthwhile. A truly reliable identity and accessible management solution will be as helpful to businesses and governments as it will be to individuals, who will no longer have to cope with all the hazards of the old system. Users will be able to control their identities and the sharing of their information through what, on their end, will be a simple phone app.

Is the Diro team capable of delivering on this sensational promise? It is impossible to tell at this point. However, it does include some notable and knowledgeable identity data experts who are hoping to use this as an opportunity to carry their theories into practice. Nor is their experience purely theoretical, as the company already boasts 15 international patents. The platform itself is currently in open beta testing.

Token sale information

DIRO will be made available for purchase from July 4th to August 15th, 2018 (including the pre-sale). Pre-mined tokens will be distributed among the major stakeholders:

Utopia or an everyday reality of the future?

Diro may seem too good to be true. While the concept of “self-sovereign identity”, where all private information is managed entirely by the person it belongs to, is a popular one in cryptocurrency circles, the fact is that there are very strong obstacles to its implementation. Even if a perfect technological solution is found, such a system will require very widespread acceptance from among all stakeholders – individuals, businesses and governments – before it can become a civilisational standard, and until it manages to become such a standard then old, subpar identity systems will persist.

This is not to say that Diro is doomed to failure. Technological and social revolutions do happen, and this may be one whose time has come – or will come in the near future. It is also the case that blockchain technology is uniquely well-suited for securing and managing private information. Diro is a transformative project that will take both mass participation and some time to reach its goals. It is partly undermined by the rather obtuse way in which the details of the project are currently presented and by the team's comparatively low level of online activity. Those disadvantages can surely be rectified, in which case it should be able to gain a lot of support. After all, it promises a way to deal with some truly serious and urgent problems. It also could tap into a current of enthusiasm for privacy and decentralisation. If Diro manages to deliver on its promise, it may become a vital part of our everyday lives.

Links:

Website: https://www.diro.io/
WhitePaper: https://bit.ly/2HeRj2D
Telegram: http://t.me/dirolabs
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DiroBlockchain
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DiroLabs
ANN: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3266144.0
Author: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=980049

Disclaimer
This review by Bonanza Kreep is all opinion and analysis, not investment advice.