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Decentralized Credential Status Management: A Paradigm Shift in Digital Trust

Patrick Herbke, Thomas Cory, Mauro Migliardi

TL;DR

The paper addresses weaknesses in centralized PKI and privacy concerns in credential status management. It surveys the evolution toward Decentralized PKI with blockchain, MPC, FHE, and ZKP. It proposes a framework for Dynamic and Decentralized Credential Status Management aligned with Self-Sovereign Identity principles, detailing components, governance, and data handling. The work identifies key challenges in scalability, privacy, and legal compliance and outlines avenues for practical deployment and further research.

Abstract

Public key infrastructures are essential for Internet security, ensuring robust certificate management and revocation mechanisms. The transition from centralized to decentralized systems presents challenges such as trust distribution and privacy-preserving credential management. The transition from centralized to decentralized systems is motivated by addressing the single points of failure inherent in centralized systems and leveraging decentralized technologies' transparency and resilience. This paper explores the evolution of certificate status management from centralized to decentralized frameworks, focusing on blockchain technology and advanced cryptography. We provide a taxonomy of the challenges of centralized systems and discuss opportunities provided by existing decentralized technologies. Our findings reveal that, although blockchain technologies enhance security and trust distribution, they represent a bottleneck for parallel computation and face inefficiencies in cryptographic computations. For this reason, we propose a framework of decentralized technology components that addresses such shortcomings to advance the paradigm shift toward decentralized credential status management.

Decentralized Credential Status Management: A Paradigm Shift in Digital Trust

TL;DR

The paper addresses weaknesses in centralized PKI and privacy concerns in credential status management. It surveys the evolution toward Decentralized PKI with blockchain, MPC, FHE, and ZKP. It proposes a framework for Dynamic and Decentralized Credential Status Management aligned with Self-Sovereign Identity principles, detailing components, governance, and data handling. The work identifies key challenges in scalability, privacy, and legal compliance and outlines avenues for practical deployment and further research.

Abstract

Public key infrastructures are essential for Internet security, ensuring robust certificate management and revocation mechanisms. The transition from centralized to decentralized systems presents challenges such as trust distribution and privacy-preserving credential management. The transition from centralized to decentralized systems is motivated by addressing the single points of failure inherent in centralized systems and leveraging decentralized technologies' transparency and resilience. This paper explores the evolution of certificate status management from centralized to decentralized frameworks, focusing on blockchain technology and advanced cryptography. We provide a taxonomy of the challenges of centralized systems and discuss opportunities provided by existing decentralized technologies. Our findings reveal that, although blockchain technologies enhance security and trust distribution, they represent a bottleneck for parallel computation and face inefficiencies in cryptographic computations. For this reason, we propose a framework of decentralized technology components that addresses such shortcomings to advance the paradigm shift toward decentralized credential status management.
Paper Structure (21 sections, 2 figures)

This paper contains 21 sections, 2 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Evolution of Public Key Infrastrucure
  3. Foundational Cryptographic Primitives and Standards
  4. Security Protocols and the Rise of Decentralized Identity Management
  5. Advancements in Centralized and Decentralized PKI Systems
  6. Blockchain Era
  7. Related Work
  8. Transition from Centralized PKI to Decentralized PKI
  9. Operational Considerations
  10. Organizational Considerations
  11. Credential Status Management
  12. Framework for Dynamic and Decentralized Credential Status Management
  13. Identity Management
  14. Stakeholder Engagement
  15. Blockchain and Consensus
  16. ...and 6 more sections

Figures (2)

  • Figure 1: Taxonomy of Operational and Organizational challenges in CPKI and the transition to improvements with DPKI. The figure categorizes the limitations of CPKI, including operational inefficiencies and trust monopolies, and highlights DPKIs' enhancements, such as scalability, improved update efficiency, and diversified trust management.
  • Figure 2: Key components of a DCSM framework include identity management, stakeholder engagement, blockchain and consensus mechanisms, communication and data transport, and data management and storage. These components collaboratively ensure secure, scalable, and efficient management of digitally verifiable credentials in a decentralized framework.