Token Negotiation: An Alternative to Universal Login

EDCON 2021 · 28 Aug 2021 · 10:38

Weiwu Zhang of AlphaWallet presents token negotiation as an alternative to treating an Ethereum address as a universal login. Using a Devcon-ticket hotel-booking example, he shows how a website can respond to a selected token and request proof of ownership later, while limiting disclosure of a user's other tokens and balances.

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From EDCON 2021, hosted by EDCON.

Transcript

good um so i'm online um thank you everybody um this is will and i'm from alpha wally why universal login uh isn't working and this one might um so up to this year um i can in the previous year and every year before periods here a little bit like in parallel universe in the sense that if you build web3 website it's usually targeting web3 audience you are building d5 or you're building a dial and if you build web 2 well there's no reason to use web3 technology between web 2 and web 3 is only happening this year and the most prominent connecting point

is something um in the line of universal login where the user up 2 and web three websites uh with their ethereum address or some kind of um identifier and that um enables um webster web websites to use [Music] so to say and it's also decentralizing the web a little bit because now the users can take their identity into their own control and they don't have to be concerned for someone deleting their identity or leaking their password before i go into that technology i wish to step back a little bit and talk about

why are we doing web 3 in the first place the way i see it the reason is because centralized web talks innovation that's the first reason so if you have a new idea or a new website it won't work without participating in the centralized and second is confidentiality issue the website knows everything about you and third is that competition is about who has a data so without data and technology innovation in point um will universal login solve these

problems and this is a screenshot i take i took just a few hours on the left side there is um steam app this is the map store on the left side on the right side is indigala which is also a computer games i logged into both website and you can see on the left side the website is presenting uh highly customized choices advertisement for some computer game hardware which every gamer should be interested but

only a little interested and a few random games that is not up to my taste so well that is a platform and it not only sells me game it also rents my game on the right side in the gala it's only a store front indigala does not have data needed to compete if we add universal login let's say users can log in with their ethereum address on both websites what will change frankly i think nothing will change the advantage and the steam will still be a platform they didn't get us where we wanted for

decentralized web now if you think what um what can prove the um what is most most differentiating point of web three i don't think his ethereum address i think is a token so for this game it will change there are a few things we can we can we can change by using tokens so first we can tokenize the products i effectively own the game token ownership talk that allows me when i log into indiegala

the website on the right side to share my so that they can make better suggestions and secondly i can i should be able to tokenize my identity and more specifically in this case uh prove uh to indiegogo that um that indigala can show games such as the sexy lady to the left side and and third i should be able to tokenize my membership so if i have for example humble bundle membership or then games that would be discounted because of that membership should jump out these

would give um indie gala this gives us what we wanted in the for decentralized web in the first place which is allowing innovation which is um allowed users to share their own information in their own confidential manner and allow computation and this brings us um the need for new technology which does not authenticate users by their id but by what they have like the product tokens and membership tokens i just mentioned so this would be token negotiation um token negotiation is a protocol that enables users to use tokens and websites

in plain language now it's not just where you have the ethereum address and website can look up what tokens you have by looking at ethereum blockchain it includes negotiation component where the user is able to decide and the website is able to react to it and here is the example now before i introduce this example um uh i need to mention that we worked with devcon for the next devcom project where the ticket was tokenized uh with our technology which do use the token negotiation that allows um devcon tickets to be used by other websites so in this case it's a

hotel website it's a hotel and it's um um you can see here there are the hotels offering three rooms this is a concept and you can find the the code for this concept so first look at this um hotel has been offered and on the lower right corner there is an ethereum icon if you click that you can you it shows what devcon tickets you have and if then you can see the website changes according to the tokens you have in this case the price is discounted then when you choose to

book one of the hotels when you choose a token to be used on a website there's no authentication this is um something called adaptive authentication that we implemented in token negotiation that allows website to react to our tokens actually own the token and this uh allows the website to ask to ask you to verify the token ownership at the last stage when you are ready to book the hotel and pay for the hotel so if then the authentication request is um popping up and then you need to authenticate by signing the message and confirm the quick booking so

this is a three two minute overview of how token negotiation works um but i wish to take this example and analyze what are the features we need for such a process and the features which is trust interoperability and privacy um first trust the technology need to ensure that tokens being displayed on the web being used on the web is what you really have so and the website really reacts to the fact that you really own a a devcon ticket token and not fooling you by saying that you have a token or accept a non-token

probability issue where token issuers in this case has to participate in web service to a certain extent and uh because this is this is step content that can take it being used the issue here we will have will influence the process a little bit for example by displaying the ticket in the way that devcon prefers and third we have a privacy issue so the website should only learn about tokens being used so taking in the example hotel bagota trust element is um at work by having devcon ticket displayed rendered by a token script provided by devcon

devcon controls revocation expiry and widely switches out other websites that can use the token without asking users for permission first and third point privacy where the website does not learn about users other unless user choose to expose them to the website and i'll quickly go over another uh go go over the the previous example of indigala if we use this um indigo trust indiegogo learns what games you have for your token and it will interrupt interoperability in the sense that user your game thumbnail can be customized to your character and finally privacy night which came to have a you know that

doesn't know your ethereum balance in a nutshell this is what token negotiation does and it opens doors for few types of innovations such as identifier token identification by giving attribute tokens proof of age and product tokens for example getting uh token related services and finally this is a quick link to the download code and run the demo thank you very much i think it's 10 minutes exactly right