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author here. what distributed database would let you own your identity without any third party party being able to take it away from you? that's a necessary c

• a3w 4y ago
  > What distributed database would let you own your identity Owning a private key file when signing transactions allows to prove your identity to other parties. That is, what a blockchain uses to map identities to accounts/wallets, too. Having a consensus protocol does not provide identity proving, but the eponymous censensus is based on a share of either state or computational power. And state is just a database. State that decides what goes into the database is a recursion, voila an example would be Proof of Stake. Or as censensus protocols go, other names exist for the concept of proof of previously-done-arbitrary-things, which allowed you to mention a share with you cryptographic signature (i.e. hash derived from your private key) in the append-only database. Cases like a "plant a tree" eco-coins. Also, to see the bigger picture on > What distributed database would let you own your identity: from a technically more complex angle: Tim Berners-Lee proposes a DRM system for users to own their content, instead of using this technology against user liberties. That would include owning your identity and enforcing your will on you intellectual property. I found these plans not feasible, yet, but at least people who know about cryptography still research the topics of user rights and P2P networking.