PubHubs Moderation update 2024-01¶
This month I have been building a PubHubs-specific feature, the ability for a moderator to ask a someone to disclose an attribute of their real identity.
When a person signs in to PubHubs hub through the Yivi verified credentials system, initially they are allocated a pseudonymous user identifier, for example @123-321:testhub.matrix.host
. From this pseudonym, not even an operator or moderator of the hub can discover the user's real identity.
A moderator may wish to ask a user to confirm their real identity, to some degree. Through Yivi it is possible to ask a user to reveal a cryptographic proof [1] of one or more of their identity attributes. Some common attributes are one's real name, physical address, or email address. An attribute could also be something like "age is at least 18 years".
First Demo Version¶
This demo may be seen and tested at https://testhub0.ph.s.trax.im (the hub-client alone) or https://central.ph.s.trax.im/client#/ (in the global-client). (This is a staging/testing deployment, not stable.)
In this demo version:
- the moderator is concerned about a user (pseudonym 'bad-apple3'), and starts the disclosure request
- moderator chooses: a user, a message, a set of attributes
- on submitting the form, a private room with the recipient is created or opened, and a request message is sent into that room
- a Yivi signing session is started (DEMO: this signing session runs on the moderator's side; it should run on the recipient's side)
- the recipient uses Yivi to provide the requested attributes, with which Yivi signs a (pre-filled) reply message
- the reply, signed with the requested attributes, is received by the moderator in the private room
TODO:
- The Yivi signing session must be initiated on the recipient's client, not the moderator's. [DONE, 2024-01-30]
This version does not need or use Draupnir.
[1]: A proof that such an attribute has been attested by some mutually trusted authority.