Bootstrapping trust in decentralized identifiers

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11729157-B2
Application number	US-202117331494-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 26, 2021
Priority date	May 26, 2021
Publication date	Aug 15, 2023
Grant date	Aug 15, 2023

Abstract

Bootstrapping trust in decentralized identifiers (DIDs) includes in response to receiving a request from an entity associated with a DID in a decentralized system, obtaining a DID document associated with the DID, and extracting a linked domain that is linked to the DID from the DID document. The DID document contains data associated with the DID that is recorded on the distributed ledger. The request contains the DID and data associated with the DID. Metadata associated with the linked domain is then retrieved from a domain name system (DNS). Based on the metadata associated with the linked domain and the data associated with the DID contained in the request, a trust score, indicating trustworthiness of the DID, is generated.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computing system comprising:
one or more processors; and
one or more computer-readable hardware storage devices having thereon computer-executable instructions that are structured such that, when the computer-executable instructions are executed by the one or more processors, the computer-executable instructions configure the computing system to at least:
receive a request from an entity associated with a decentralized identifier (DID) in a decentralized system, the request containing the DID and data associated with the DID, and the decentralized system using one or more distributed ledgers to authenticate or authorize transactions associated with DIDs;
obtain a DID document associated with the DID, the DID document containing data associated with the DID that is recorded on the distributed ledger;
extract a linked domain that is linked to the DID from the DID document;
retrieve metadata associated with the linked domain from a domain name system (DNS); and
generate a trust score indicating trustworthiness of the DID associated with the entity based on the metadata associated with the linked domain and the data associated with the DID contained in the request.

2. The computing system of claim 1 , the computing system further configured to:
visualize the trust score in a graphical user interface.

3. The computing system of claim 1 , the computing system further configured to:
recommend whether the request should be accepted or rejected based on the trust score; or
automatically accept or reject the request based on the trust score.

4. The computing system of claim 3 , the computing system further configured to:
automatically accept the request when the trust score is greater than a first threshold; or
automatically reject the request when the trust score is lower than a second threshold that is higher than the first threshold.

5. The computing system of claim 4 , the computing system further configured to:
when the trust score is between the first threshold and the second threshold,
generate a notification, notifying a user of the trust score; or
request the user to manually select whether the request is to be accepted or rejected.

6. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein recommending whether the request should be accepted or rejected, or automatically accepting or rejecting the request is further based on one or more characters of the request, the one or more characters of the request comprising (1) a type of data requested by the request, or (2) a type of service that the entity is to provide.

7. The computing system of claim 1 , generating the trust score comprising:
extracting one or more first values of one or more first attributes from metadata associated with the linked domain;
extracting one or more second values of one or more second attributes from data associated with the request; and
comparing the one or more first values of the one or more first attributes with the one or more second values of the one or more second attributes to determine one or more scores for one or more scoring criteria.

8. The computing system of claim 7 , generating the trust score further comprising:
assigning a weight for each of the one or more scoring criteria; and
computing an overall trust score based on weighted one or more scores for the one or more scoring criteria.

9. The computing system of claim 7 , wherein the one or more first attributes include at least one of (1) creation date of the linked domain, (2) an organization name of a registrant of the linked domain, (3) an address of the registrant of the linked domain, (4) a phone number of the registrant of the linked domain, or (5) a fax number of the registrant of the linked domain.

10. The computing system of claim 7 , wherein the one or more second attributes include at least one of (1) a name of the entity, (2) an address of the entity, (3) a phone number of the entity, (4) a fax number of the entity, (5) an email address of the entity, or (6) a creation date of the DID associated with the entity.

11. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein:
the DID associated with the entity is a first DID;
the computing system is associated with a second DID, or a user of the computing system is associated with a second DID; and
obtaining the DID document comprising:
sending the first DID associated with the entity to a DID resolver, causing the DID resolver to access a distributed ledger to obtain data associated with the first DID and resolve the first DID to generate the DID document; and
receiving the DID document from the DID resolver.

12. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the computing system is further caused to:
access a distributed ledger to obtain data associated with the DID; and
resolve the DID based on the data associated with the DID to generate the DID document.

13. A method for bootstrapping a trust score in a decentralized identifier, the method comprising:
receiving a request from an entity associated with a decentralized identifier (DID) in a decentralized system, the request containing the DID and data associated with the DID, and the decentralized system using one or more distributed ledgers to authenticate or authorize transactions associated with DIDs;
obtaining a DID document associated with the DID, the DID document containing data associated with the DID that is recorded on the distributed ledger;
extracting a linked domain that is linked to the DID from the DID document;
retrieving metadata associated with the linked domain from a domain name system (DNS); and
generating a trust score indicating trustworthiness of the DID associated with the DID based on the metadata associated with the linked domain and the data associated with the DID contained in the request.

14. The method of claim 13 , further comprising:
visualizing the trust score in a graphical user interface.

15. The method of claim 13 , further comprising:
recommending whether the request should be accepted or rejected based on the trust score; or
automatically accepting or rejecting the request based on the trust score.

16. The method of claim 15 , further comprising:
automatically accepting the request when the trust score is greater than a first threshold;
automatically rejecting the request when the trust score is lower than a second threshold; or
when the trust score is between the first threshold and the second threshold,
generating a notification, notifying a user of the trust score; or
requesting the user to manually select whether the request is to be accepted or rejected.

17. The method of claim 13 , wherein recommending whether the request should be granted, or automatically accepting or rejecting the request is further based on one or more characters of the request, the one or more characters of the request comprising (1) a type of data requested by the request, or (2) a type of service that the entity is to provide.

18. The method of claim 13 , generating the trust score comprising:
extracting one or more first values of one or more first attributes from metadata associated with the linked domain;
extracting one or more second values of one or more second attributes from data associated with the request; and
comparing the one or more first values of the one or more first attributes with the one or more second values of the one or more second attributes to determine one or more scores for one or more scoring criteria.

19. The method of claim 18 , generating the trust score further comprisi

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Murdoch Brandon
• Patel Ankur
• Morton Sydney
• Mikolajewski Andreas
• Godbout Daniel
• Ganesh Nithya

Classifications

• H04L63/08 Primary

  for authentication of entities (cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32) · CPC title

• G06F16/2379

  Updates performed during online database operations; commit processing · CPC title

• H04L9/30

  Public key, i.e. encryption algorithm being computationally infeasible to invert or user's encryption keys not requiring secrecy · CPC title

• H04L61/4511

  using domain name system [DNS] · CPC title

• H04L9/50

  using hash chains, e.g. blockchains or hash trees · CPC title