4  Preface

Identity underpins countless fields and products, and privacy should be a human right. Protecting that privacy for the people who use identity-enabled products is hard work, but it is work worth doing.

What drew us to digital identity was a possibility: genuine privacy for transactions between people. In Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace (1999), Lawrence Lessig warned that technologies born in freedom, the Internet among them, come under steady pressure from governments to be controlled and regulated. Left unchecked, freedom curdles into control and privacy into surveillance.

Centralized systems carry an innate capacity for control, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Decentralized technologies like blockchains and Self-Sovereign Identity reject the premise that all information must pass before a single set of eyes. Encryption, cryptography, and decentralized architecture prove we can have provable identity, commerce, and trust without surrendering privacy.

Identus is one expression of that ethos. With it, you can build applications that get real work done without feeding the surveillance machine. Maybe the goal is private conversations, agreements, and shopping. Maybe it is simply knowing that the people you deal with online are who they claim to be. Self-Sovereign Identity hands back the freedom and privacy we deserve in order to create and connect. It is, quite simply, the right thing to do.

We wrote this book to show fellow developers how to wield this powerful toolset, and we hope it moves you to build something great for all of us. We can’t wait to see what you make.

Jon Bauer & Roberto Carvajal