Hyperledger Aries Archives – Hyperledger Foundation

May 10

Cardea, a privacy preserving open-source ecosystem for verifying health data, joins Hyperledger Labs

By Ken Ebert and Keela Rose Shatzkin, Co-Chairs, Cardea Working Group Blog, Healthcare, Hyperledger Aries, Hyperledger Indy, Hyperledger Labs, Identity

Cardea, a complete open-source verifiable credential ecosystem for sharing health information in a way that preserves patient privacy, has been accepted as a Hyperledger Lab.

Cardea emerged from a project to share proof of Covid 19 test status for entry to Aruba. Developed by Indicio, a leading developer of privacy-first decentralized identity and verification solutions, for SITA, the leading global supplier of IT to the air transport sector, the solution went on to win an EIC and SuperNova award for advancing decentralized identity.

Cardea contains all of the necessary components to issue, share, and verify a variety of health information using decentralized identifiers, a mobile application, and a distributed ledger. The unique parts of the codebase were built on Hyperledger Indy and Hyperledger Aries and originally donated by SITA as the Cardea Project to Linux Foundation Public Health, where it was further developed to address the broader need for a complete open source solution for sharing health data in a privacy-preserving and secure way. (Read this white paper for a deep dive into how Cardea works and some of the initial use cases.)

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Be sure not to miss our next meeting on 5/11/2023 at 12 noon Eastern Time featuring Sarah Samis, VP of Public health Products and Platforms of GCOM, on vital records!
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Preserving privacy is a critical need both for digital health credentials and travel passes. A recent poll from IATA highlighted that 78% of passengers who took part in the survey will only use a travel health credential app if they have full control over their data.

Data privacy and security are equally critical in healthcare. In 2021, 93% of healthcare organizations experienced a data breach, while 57% of healthcare organizations have had more than five breaches. By using a decentralized approach we are putting control of the end user’s data back into their own hands to store locally on their own verifiable credentials, reducing both the impact of these breaches and the incentive for bad actor’s to attempt them.

By becoming a Hyperledger Lab, Cardea aims to empower public health authorities to design, build, and deploy open-source, privacy-first, and simple-to-use digital health solutions. With this technology, the community can work together to reopen economies without people having to give up their privacy.

“With the migration of Cardea to Hyperledger,” says Heather Dahl, Indicio’s CEO “Indicio has taken the lead on privacy-first decentralized identity technology. And as a Public Benefit Corporation, we believe that open sourcing decentralized identity technology through Hyperledger Foundation will lay the foundation for a better, fairer world to come.”

To learn more about how you can participate in the Cardea lab, keep an eye on our wiki: https://wiki.hyperledger.org/display/labs/Cardea+Lab or sign up to receive emails at https://lists.hyperledger.org/g/labs

Apr 11

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Why Hyperledger Foundation Sponsors, Attends and Works at Internet Identity Workshop

By Sean Bohan, Community Architect Blog, Hyperledger AnonCreds, Hyperledger Aries, Hyperledger Indy, Hyperledger Ursa, Identity

Since the launch of Hyperledger Indy, a DLT purpose-built for decentralized identity, in 2017, Hyperledger Foundation has been a proud sponsor, attendee and contributor to the Internet Identity Workshop (IIW) community. We continue that commitment in 2023 and welcome new and existing Hyperledger community members to join us at IIW. Not only is it a good event with great people, but it is an event/space/community where the work is getting done.

“IIW is not the place where CEOs gather to spread their feathers and show off. That’s one reason it’s the most leveraged conference in the world. Actual work happens at IIW, and all of that work is toward starting and moving projects forward. It’s where fully constructive people and organizations such as Hyperledger Foundation come to roll up sleeves and get together with participants old and new, to make new connections and leave knowing more, doing more and working faster on stuff that matters.” — Kaliya Hamlin, Doc Searls and Phil Windley, IIW Organizers

Identity, privacy, anonymity and agency have been intrinsic concepts for the blockchain and decentralized technology ecosystem since the beginning. Even before Satoshi’s whitepaper was released, the Internet Identity Workshop (IIW) was a twice-yearly “gathering of the clans” for the identity space. It has a long tradition of being where connections are made, projects are presented, code is shared, (vigorous) debate occurs, and people of varied and diverse skill sets who are passionate about these topics work to bring these solutions to life.

“Hyperledger Foundation’s presence at IIW means that the projects that we believe are central to advancing decentralized identity — Hyperledger AnonCreds, Hyperledger Aries, and Hyperledger Indy — have the presence they need to receive the attention they deserve from the community. As Indicio relies on these Hyperledger projects we, as a longstanding attendee of IIW, are grateful for Hyperledger’s presence and support.” — Sam Curren, Senior Architect and Deputy CTO, Indicio

Hyperledger Foundation is a sponsor of IIW because it is a rallying point for the decentralized identity community, including those contributing to Hyperledger and other LF Identity projects as well as standards and technologies such as W3C Verifiable Credentials and DIF. We look forward to attending for a number of reasons, including:

Potential users of and prospective contributors to Hyperledger projects are at IIW, and we want to meet them.
Stephen Curran and Timo Glastra, new members of the Hyperledger Technical Oversight Committee, will be there talking about Hyperledger technologies and community.
Contributors and maintainers working on Hyperledger identity projects like Hyperledger Indy, Aries, Ursa and now Anoncreds are there to gather, share, hear feedback and work. This list includes Char Howland, Sam Curren, Berend Sliedrecht, and many others.
For the Linux Foundation, IIW is an open forum where other LF Digital Trust initiatives like Open Wallet Foundation, Decentralized Identity Foundation and Trust Over IP can cross-pollinate ideas, get direct feedback from the community, find consensus on direction and build relationships.
IIW is where members of the ecosystem gets to roll up their sleeves. One great example of this is the DIDComm Connect-a-thon.
The most engaged and vocal thinkers and doers in the identity space are at IIW, and it is a critical opportunity for the team to collaborate with them in person, gather their insights and work that feedback back into our community.

Hyperledger Foundation’s sponsorship of IIW takes different forms for every event, but we as a team feel supporting this community is critical to the identity ecosystem in general and Hyperledger identity projects. We are thrilled to fund the incredible work that goes into putting on each IIW, the community that emerges and the work that results.

Please join us April 18, 19 and 20 for IIW #36. Hyperledger community members save 20% using this link.

If you want to find out more about Hyperledger identity initiatives, please check out

Mar 28

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#HyperledgerHybrid in action: Connecting permissioned and public networks to maximize value

By Hyperledger Blog, Hyperledger Aries, Hyperledger Besu, Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger FireFly, Interoperability

We have long said there will not be one blockchain to rule them all. It will take a mix of blockchains and blockchain technologies to maximize the value of distributed ledgers, smart contracts, digital assets and self-sovereign identity between businesses, across industries and around the world.

Hybrid networks, which combine the capabilities of private and public blockchains, can deliver a number of advantages, including high levels of scalability and performance, and provide the right balance of security, privacy and transparency. The private blockchain offers secure, permissioned data storage—an essential feature that’s particularly crucial for highly regulated industries. Meanwhile, the public blockchain brings scale and immutability, enabling a more open and transparent ledger.

As part of our spotlight on #HyperledgerHybrid, we’ve compiled a sampling of production deployments and solutions leveraging Hyperledger technologies to deliver value across a mix of permissioned and public chains.

Blockchain for Energy

Energy industry consortium, Blockchain for Energy has launched a new decentralized and interoperable platform powered by Kaleido and leveraging Hyperledger FireFly. The B4E Network & Platform allows energy companies to access proven solutions and build applications that leverage Web3 constructs including smart contracts, digital assets, NFTs, and tokenization across both public and private chains. The first production-grade solution released on the new platform is from the B4E Commodity Transport Program, a collaborative effort led by Pioneer Natural Resources, that utilizes IIOT and blockchain technology to track chemical deliveries.

IPwe Digital Assets

In September 2022, Casper Labs and IPwe developed and launched a dynamic NFT blockchain solution, IPwe Digital Assets. The solution uses the permissioned distributed ledger technologies of open source Hyperledger Fabric and the public Casper Blockchain to securely store verified public and private information about each patent. The integration capitalizes on the data security and trust inherent on a Hyperledger Fabric network and enables Casper to securely bring assets locked on the private ledger to the public chain.

IPwe is now deploying 25 million patent NFTs leveraging the hybrid Casper Blockchain and Hyperledger Fabric network. On top of that, IPwe’s solution includes Smart Intangible Asset Management (SIAM), a comprehensive SaaS tool for IP valuation and management that allows enterprises to fully utilize these patent NFTs to transact, manage, and value their IP. This revolutionary implementation of blockchain technology will enable IPwe to bring liquidity to the IP space, where currently approximately 95% of IP assets are not transacted or commercialized

Palm Network

The Palm network is an Ethereum sidechain dedicated to selling, purchasing, and trading NFTs that are associated with real-world and digital assets. It is built with Hyperledger Besu and uses IBFT 2.0 proof of authority (PoA) consensus, with network validators being run by key stakeholders. IBFT 2.0 offers fast transaction speed and free minting.

An automated bridge relay service connects payment tokens, like DAI, and NFTs on Ethereum and the Palm network, with bridging contracts deployed on both networks to manage the connection. Fees collected from this bridge are partially used to purchase carbon offsets.

Starling Lab

Starling Lab is a joint effort developed by the USC Shoah Foundation and Stanford University’s Department of Electrical Engineering. The initiative’s goal is to develop a set of tools and principles to be used across non-profit organizations, news outlets, and industry experts to solve challenges when it comes to the uncertainty of the media we see today and our enduring effort to preserve the truth.

Starling provides an open-source, end-to-end framework for the media generation and verification process. The framework consists of three modules: capturing the image, storing the information, and verifying its authenticity. It leverages multiple blockchain and distributed ledger technologies. Each metadata record, such as the caption or photographer byline added by an editor to a photo’s record, is relayed to a Hyperledger Fabric peer for notarization on a private permissioned ledger. Each transaction posted to Hyperledger is recorded on Hedera Consensus Service (HCS) using a hashgraph that rapidly orders and stamps each entry.

Toko

Global law firm DLA Piper developed its TOKO tokenization platform to issue non-fungible tokens across asset classes including real estate, fine art, debt and even intellectual property. Toko is a digital asset creation engine to solve inefficiencies in today’s capital markets by using DLTs to distribute, trade and settle transactions rapidly, bypassing the need for trusted third party intermediaries that are both expensive and slow. It is built using the combination of a permissioned Hyperledger Fabric network and the Hedera Consensus Service.

Join the conversation about the use of Hyperledger technologies delivering value across permissioned and public networks with #HyperledgerHybrid.

Jan 25

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Hyperledger Mentorship Spotlight: GVCR: Secure Verifiable Credential Registries (VCR) for GitHub & GitLab

By Sarvesh Shinde Blog, Hyperledger Aries, Hyperledger Indy, Hyperledger Mentorship Program, Hyperledger Ursa, Identity

What did you work on?

Project name: GVCR: Secure Verifiable Credential Registries (VCR) for GitHub & GitLab

My name is Sarvesh Shinde and this is my personal blog that I’m writing to share my experience of working on the GVCR Project. A little background about the project is really necessary to fully appreciate the objectives of this project.

Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) is a digital identity management model in which an individual or a company has the exclusive ownership over their accounts and personal data. A verifiable credential protocol, in turn, forms one of the three pillars of Self-Sovereign Identity, along with the Decentralized Identifiers protocol (DIDs) and Distributed Ledger Technology (or blockchain).

This project was conceptualized to provision secure verifiable credential registries that utilize Github’s data model and API to offer exactly the same APIs for any other verifiable credential registry. This project exists as an extension to the DRMan project.

The DRMan project, inspired by the SDKMan, acts as a tool for managing multiple versions of different software development libraries. These libraries form the necessary dependencies for the extended feature modules that reside inside DRMan, including GVCR.

What did you learn or accomplish?

GVCR, along with DRMan, is a command line utility. This project has been entirely written in shell script. Shell script has a distinct advantage of making the tool light weight, easy to install and to use.

As of now, GVCR has been provisioned to utilize Github and Gitlab as its two git based registries. The plugin architecture of GVCR allows it to provision for more VCRs in the relative future. The APIs of these individual git based registries are designed to be a collection of facade functions that provide the same feature on the surface, all the while accommodating for the individual data models of the specific registry under the hood.

GVCR can be utilized in an Hyperledger Aries Framework as an implementation of VCR and collaborates with existing Agent and Wallet open source projects in Hyperledger Aries. It can also be used in Hyperledger Indy projects by providing endpoints of cryptographic verifications for credential issuers.

In near future, GVCR is envisioned to leverage Hyperledger Ursa to implement encryption, decryption and verification functions for verifiable credentials.

I was responsible for the design and implementation of this very GVCR module.

Now coming to the topic of the mentorship program itself, let me give you a rundown of its structure, working mechanism and decision making process. This mentorship was a careful balance of a hands-off approach towards the design planning and realization part that I undertook and the existence of biweekly meetings that acted as an efficient feedback mechanism from the mentors. These biweekly meetings were really efficient in setting the tempo of the progress and made sure that all the involved participants were aware of their individual tasks at hand.

The mentorship started on June 1st and continued until November 16th. Further, the mentorship was broken into two halves. In general, the first half was more focused on the design aspect of this project while the second half came down to its implementation.

What comes next?

Overall, this mentorship has been a wonderful experience and has enabled me to pursue my career in blockchain. The future of a secure, verifiable digital identity and its co-operability with a decentralized ledger brings a new outlook to the future of digital identity and just how important its acceptance is to finally realizing the ultimate goal of exclusively owning our own identities. New technologies are constantly coming up to make this future a reality, and I’m looking forward to contributing my part towards it.

Nov 10

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Process Transformation for Public Services Driven by Blockchain

By Gopikrishnan Konnanath, Senior Vice President, Global Head – Engineering Services and Blockchain, Infosys, and Srikanth Challa, Senior Director, Blockchain, Infosys Blog, Hyperledger Aries, Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Indy

Several government departments around the world are keen to offer their citizens seamless interactions and engaging experiences, akin to those in the private sector.

The public sector is often riddled with manual processes, time-consuming verifications, legacy systems leading to low transparency and high costs. Over the years, digitalization has alleviated some of the challenges, but rising threats on privacy, data security coupled with the increasing legislations that enshrine the right-to-be-forgotten such as Europe’s GDPR or California’s CCPA pose new challenges for leaders serving in the public sector.

In the future, we will witness a monumental shift in what citizens will come to expect from their governments – nothing short of how they experience retail or banking in their life. While this digital transformation has already begun in the public sector, technologies such as blockchain are essential foundations that will power the next generation of citizen experiences. Blockchain and, more broadly, distributed ledger technologies will create a core of trust, transparency, and immutability that breaks down information silos, reducing cost all while vastly enriching the citizen experiences.

Infosys is proud to have been part of the transformation that is driving change in the public sector. We are happy to share a couple of examples where Infosys brought our strong capabilities in blockchain to help clients reimagine citizen experiences.

Blockchain helps reimagine public records validation for Riverside County California

Riverside County California relied heavily on security paper and wet signatures to establish ‘trust’ and authenticate records. Citizens often had to wait for the physical copies of verified documents to reach them by post, which led to delays. In addition, easy access to numerous online tools increased the incidence of fraud, making it challenging to verify proof-of-records and physical documents, which was done manually.

Infosys Public Services helped create a blockchain-based digital records fulfillment solution for Riverside County’s Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder Office. Built on the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain framework, the new platform can seamlessly verify and authenticate several types of digital records (like land records, births, marriages, and deaths). The solution also bypasses physical paper records by issuing digital documents when a citizen or entity requests them, thereby providing an e-commerce-like experience. The blockchain solution will help Riverside County California achieve cost savings, faster turnaround time, and enhanced customer service.

Read the full case study to see how Riverside County authenticates and delivers digital records with 100% trust to citizens.

Blockchain streamlines professional license issuance and verification for the State of Rhode Island

The Department of Business Regulation (DBR) in the State of Rhode Island chose to pilot a blockchain solution for identity validation, which is a pre-requisite for issuing licenses. The department used paper-based applications to issue nearly 200,000 licenses annually. This led to high operational inefficiencies, greater costs, and a poor citizen experience.

DBR partnered with Infosys Public Services (Infosys) for its proven expertise in transforming government processes and implementing blockchain technology. Infosys implemented a blockchain-based identity and credential management solution using Hyperledger Indy and Hyperledger Aries that can quickly and securely validate an individual’s credentials. The solution is built on the Self-Sovereign Identity Model where citizens are the custodians of their data (i.e., personal data is stored on citizen mobile wallets, not on the blockchain). Instead, the blockchain stores the information needed to cryptographically validate the citizen’s credentials, which is shared with other parties. This solution can be easily adopted by other departments within the state paving the way for greater adoption across the entire state.

Read the complete case study to see why blockchain was the right solution for the State of Rhode Island.

Beyond the buzz, blockchain is proving to be a beneficial technology in the real world across banking, insurance, retail and other industries. Governments around the world are not sitting on the sidelines but jumping mainstream into this disruptive technology to drive citizen-centered governance.

To learn more about how Infosys leverages blockchain technologies to build reliable, trusted and sustainable ecosystems for governments and other organizations, go here.

Sep 28

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#HyperledgerIdentity round-up: A cross section of production digital identity solutions built using Hyperledger technologies

By Hyperledger Blog, Hyperledger Aries, Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Indy, Hyperledger Ursa, Identity

Verifying identities and information in a digital world is critical for establishing trust. But there are issues of privacy as well as efficiency, scale and accuracy in models that rely on centralized data collectors and databases.

The adoption of a new generation of digital identity solutions that leverage decentralized technologies such as distributed ledgers and verifiable credentials is accelerating. And Hyperledger technologies are playing a major role in this transformation.

Read on for a cross section of the many Hyperledger-powered solutions that are in production now. For other examples, check out these past #HyperledgerIdentity round-ups:

IBM Digital Health Pass

IBM Digital Health Pass, built on Hyperledger Fabric, offers a multi-credential verifier that organizations can use to manage and execute their verification policies for COVID-19 and vaccination status in a way that balances the privacy of the individual with the requirements set by the organization and local health authorities. With IBM Digital Health Pass, organizations can verify multiple types of health credentials, such as Good Health Pass, IBM Digital Health Pass, Smart Health Card and EU Digital COVID Certificate. Privacy is central to the solution, where the verifier application minimizes the personal data that is ever displayed to the user through the execution of business rules and it never lets any personal data leave, or be stored in, the verifier app.

Indicio Network

The Indicio Network is a collection of four professionally-staffed, enterprise-grade public-permissioned ledgers that provide a neutral, independent, and reliable network for the exchange of verifiable credentials. MainNet, DemoNet, TestNet, and TempNet are all Hyperledger Indy-based networks with nodes operating on five continents—and a growing number of node operators. The Indicio Network is one of the networks that can support Indicio Proven, a complete suite of decentralized identity components for authenticating and sharing high value data in a privacy-preserving way using verifiable digital credentials. Built on Hyperledger Aries and Hyperledger Ursa, as well as AnonCreds and DIDComm, Proven is designed to make implementing and using these open source codebases simple, providing users with a fully-owned solution that’s easy to integrate with existing systems, to innovate on, and to scale.

IDUnion

IDUnion, the European identity verification network created as part of the “Secure Digital Identities Showcase” funding project, brings together public institutions, government agencies, private organizations, associations, educational institutions and other stakeholders from various fields to enable a fundamentally new, secure digital infrastructure for the verification of identity information. In August, 2022, IDUnion spun off Sociedad Cooperativa Europea (SCE) to operate the production network for credential verification.

The IDUnion network, which is built on Hyperledger Indy, enables the clear verification of individuals, companies and institutions while allowing people and organizations to manage their identity information by themselves and to decide when they want to share this information and with whom. It has a decentralized structure and stores no personal data – not even as a hash. In order to protect privacy right from the start, all personal data is stored on the user’s end device. Users have a choice of wallets for storing and presenting credentials to third parties as required. Credentials are issued, verified and stored using open standards to ensure interoperability. Hyperledger Aries is the framework for managing the credentials.

NHS Covid-19 Digital Staff Passport

In 2019, the NHS was preparing to pilot a digital passport project that would allow staff to carry their HR and other records as credentials on their phones as a long-term plan to make it easier to transfer from one facility to another. When the pandemic hit, this went from a pilot to a production deployment quickly. The NHS Covid-19 Digital Staff Passport rolled out in summer to support swift and efficient staff movement between NHS organizations in response to the response health emergency. The COVID-19 Digital Staff Passport provided a solid legal framework for staff to be temporarily deployed into other NHS organizations with evidence available that checks have been completed before staff move. As laid out in the pilot, the information was transferred securely by the staff member as verified credentials stored on their own smartphone, putting them in control.

This staff passport used the Sorvin Network, which is built on Hyperledger Indy, to verify the digital credentials, and the Evernym (now Avast) Connect.me digital wallet app, which is powered by Hyperledger Aries, Indy and Ursa, to enable staff to store and share their credentials.

The NHS is now gearing up to roll out the next generation of its Digital Staff Passport, which will streamline transfers and staff movements through the NHS.

OrgBook BC

OrgBook BC is a searchable public directory of organizations registered in British Columbia, Canada, provided by the BC Government’s Ministry of Citizens’ Services. OrgBook BC provides verified data, including legal names and DBA names, business numbers, BC registration status and select licensee and permits, for more than 1.4 million organizations. All of the information in the OrgBookBC is received, stored, verified and displayed using the latest digital trust technologies.

OrgBookBC uses verifiable credentials to ensure that information about organizations are digitally signed by the entity that issues it. Issuers are public sector organizations that hold information about businesses, issue licenses or permits or certify processes. That electronic signature stays with the data throughout its life in OrgBook and is validated before its is display on the website.

OrgBookBC is part of an overall commitment to digital trust technologies by the Government of British Columbia. In addition to deploying Hyperledger Aries, Indy and Ursa, the team there is leading much of the open source development for those projects. Read more on the Government of BC’s investment in verifiable credentials and digital wallet technologies here.

Digital Identity updates from Hyperledger Global Forum

At Hyperledger Global Forum 2022, there was a range of business, technical and demo sessions focused on digital identity, including:

Bringing Trustworthiness in Industrial Device Lifecycle using Verifiable Credentials – Marquart Franz & Saad Bin Shams, Siemens AG

Findy Agency — Highway to Verified Data Networks – Laura Vuorenoja & Harri Lainio, OP Financial Group

Digital Identity Using the vLEI – Christoph Schneider, Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF)

Blockchain, Biometrics and Geo-Location: Lessons Learned from the Implementation of Innovative Technologies at the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund – Dino Cataldo Dellaccio, United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund & Shashank Rai, United Nations International Computing Centre (UNICC)

Hosted Discussion: Rhode Island Leads on Digital Identity Solutions with Hyperledger – Liz Tanner, State of Rhode Island & Jim Mason, DTCC

Last Mile Problem in Self-Sovereign Identity – Biometric Authentification and Device Independent Wallet for Hyperledger Indy – Non Kawana & Ken Naganuma, Hitachi, Ltd.

Workshop: How To Build a Self-Sovereign Identity Agent With Hyperledger Aries Framework JavaScript – Timo Glastra & Berend Sliedrecht, ANIMO & Jakub Koci, ABSA

Join the conversation about blockchain-based identity technologies and solutions with #HyperledgerIdentity on social channels. For a hands-on introduction to the market and technologies, join the free four hour Build Your Identity Solution Using Hyperledger Aries workshop. Or, for a more business level introduction, sign up for the free Getting Started with Self-Sovereign Identity (LFS178x) online course from Linux Foundation Training & Certification.

Sep 28

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Get started with Hyperledger Aries: Accelerate your decentralized identity skills with a free instructor-led Workshop

By Hyperledger Blog, Hyperledger Aries, Identity

Hyperledger Aries is one of the fastest growing open source projects propelling the advancement and adoption of decentralized identity and verifiable credentials out there today. More companies than ever are deploying Aries-based agents that allow for trusted online peer-to-peer interactions.

Hyperledger Foundation has partnered with member company Indicio and its team of deeply experienced developers and architects to develop a free workshop to help developers and architects gain a deeper understanding of decentralized identity and become familiar with the technologies that are made possible by using Hyperledger Aries.

This four-hour hands-on workshop provides beginner level opportunities to install and run the Hyperledger Aries components just like you would if you were making a real Aries-based application. Learn where to find the necessary Git repos and see how to use the Indy Command Line Interface (Indy CLI), and run the Aries toolbox to create and issue a verifiable credential.

This course also introduces some current projects using Hyperledger Aries to help you accelerate your understanding of decentralized identity and build the skills necessary to successfully make changes to the underlying code with hands-on guidance to develop your own projects.

About the Course

Build Your Identity Solution Using Hyperledger Aries
Thursday, November 10, 2022
8 AM to noon Pacific
Register for free

This course, “Intro to Decentralized Identity,” is part of the Hyperledger Foundation Community Workshop series. It is a four hour online course that introduces the core concepts and principles of decentralized identity. As you progress, you’ll learn how to use a Hyperledger Indy-based network, be introduced to the Indy CLI, and install and run the Hyperledger Aries toolbox to create, issue, and verify a verifiable credential.

Topics also include:

Decentralized identity concepts and principles
The verifiable credential data model
Decentralized identity ecosystem
Introduction to network tools Indyscan and SelfServe
Intro to Indy CLI and how to use the CLI to access a network
What Aries is
Install and run the Aries Toolbox
Create connections and issue a credential
How to verify a credential

Participants are encouraged to review the course prerequisites, including the installation of docker, installation of Indy-CLI, and download of important repositories. Information on prerequisites can be found here.

This course is offered by the Hyperledger Foundation for free to expand the use, contributions, and maintainer community of Hyperledger Indy and Aries. A recording of the course will be made available at the conclusion of the instructor-led event.

Registration links and further information about the prerequisites and course materials can be found at https://wiki.hyperledger.org/display/events/Build+Your+Identity+Solution+Using+Hyperledger+Aries

Sep 13

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Energy & Mines Digital Trust: The Open-Source Journey Towards a Clean, Resilient Economy

By Energy & Mines Digital Trust Blog, Climate, Hyperledger Aries, Hyperledger Indy, Identity

As the world works towards climate goals, a government project from Canada is using digital trust technology to make it easier and more secure for natural resource companies to share sustainability data.

Energy & Mines Digital Trust (EMDT) was established by the Government of British Columbia in recognition that we must do more to facilitate the transition to a clean, resilient economy. British Columbia (B.C.), Canada’s western-most province, was the first province in Canada to implement greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and mandatory sustainability reporting for major sectors of the provincial economy. As leaders in climate change legislation, B.C. is well positioned to explore cutting-edge technology in the journey towards a low-carbon economy. To improve trust, accuracy, and efficiency when sharing sustainability data, EMDT is coordinating a digital ecosystem – a network of organizations including environmental auditors, government bodies, mining and energy companies, and non-government organizations.

Improved Sustainability Reporting

Currently, reporting sustainability data can be challenging. Data is difficult to exchange internationally, and consumers cannot always access, or trust, reported data, not to mention the administrative burden.

EMDT’s digital ecosystem makes it possible to exchange sustainability information simply and securely, using digital credentials.

Digital credentials:

Can be shared quickly and are tamper-proof.
Allow companies to control their data.
Guarantee the integrity of the information.
Preserve privacy in business-to-business interactions.

Digital Trust Ecosystem: EMDT Pilot

EMDT has been testing and refining their technology and governance through multiple pilot projects to demonstrate how sustainability reporting can be made more efficient and trustworthy. Two pilot projects explore greenhouse gas emissions reporting in the mining sector and the natural gas sector. These pilots allow participants to test sharing and receiving digital credentials that include verified GHG emissions data for a specific mine site or natural gas facility.

*Because this is a pilot, the process depicted in this diagram does not satisfy or replace existing regulatory reporting obligations.

The greenhouse gas (GHG) mining pilot builds upon the existing regulatory emissions reporting process in British Columbia. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), an environmental auditor, issues a digital credential to Copper Mountain Mining Company containing verified GHG data. Copper Mountain can then use the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Report Verification Credential as part of their GHG emissions report to British Columbia’s Climate Action Secretariat. Copper Mountain can use the same digital credential to complete voluntary reporting to organizations such as the Open Earth Foundation.

Increased Connections

To facilitate the broad exchange of sustainability data, EMDT used Hyperledger Indy and Hyperledger Aries to create a highly interoperable tool, called Traction. Traction is an API accelerator built on top of Hyperledger Aries Cloud Agent Python (ACA-PY). Traction streamlines the process of sending and receiving digital credentials for governments and organizations.

Hyperledger Aries makes Traction highly interoperable with the technological solutions of companies and organizations around the world. “While two wallets might be different implementations or might be written in different code, they can still exchange data because both wallets use Aries,” explains Kyle Robinson, EMDT’s Senior Strategic Advisor.

Traction makes it easier to integrate digital trust technology into existing lines of business:

API-first Architecture: Traction is designed with an API-first architecture. This RESTful API allows for integration into existing line-of-business applications already being used by organizations. The Tenant user interface is built on this API to enable adoption prior to integration and for low-use functions.
Multitenancy: ACA-Py is implemented on a cloud-based server so multiple wallets can be managed with one Traction instance.
Higher Scalability: Traction is open-source technology, encouraging collaborative refinement, faster release, and higher scalability of the technology.

Collaborative Climate Change Progress

With an increasing emphasis on responsibly sourced products, simplified methods for exchanging sustainability data ensures that B.C. natural resource providers can compete in a global market. Digital trust technology streamlines access to trustworthy sustainability data, allowing businesses, governments, and non-government organizations to work towards climate change goals more efficiently and effectively. Visit our website to learn more about Energy & Mines Digital Trust.

Sep 02

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Developer showcase series: Jason Sherman, Developer at Energy & Mines Digital Trust, Government of British Columbia

By Hyperledger Blog, Climate, Developer Showcase, Hyperledger Aries, Hyperledger Indy, Identity

Back to our Developer Showcase Series to learn what developers in the real world are doing with Hyperledger technologies. Next up is Jason Sherman, Developer at Energy & Mines Digital Trust, Government of British Columbia’s Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation.

Give a bit of background on what you’re working on and how you got into blockchain

Energy & Mines Digital Trust (EMDT) is a pilot project enabling a collaborative digital ecosystem between the B.C. government, natural resource companies, and organizations around the world, making it simpler and more secure to share sustainability data. I am currently working on EMDT’s technology, called Traction. Traction is basically a layer above Hyperledger Aries Cloud Agent Python (ACA-Py) that enables the Government of British Columbia to use our technology for line of business applications. This allows the government to onboard into the world of digital credentials easily, and to track their business data with their credential and presentation exchanges.

What Hyperledger frameworks or tools are you using in your projects? Any new developments to share? Can you sum up your experience with Hyperledger?

We are using Hyperledger Aries Cloud Agent Python (ACA-Py) and Hyperledger Indy. Using Hyperledger frameworks has increased Traction’s interoperability, making it possible to incorporate a broader range of participants, tools, and technologies into the digital ecosystem EMDT is coordinating. We’re using Hyperledger’s open-source software to accelerate the Government of B.C.’s ability to adopt these tools. My experience with Hyperledger technologies is that things change quickly! And any problem or use case I identify is usually already being addressed.

What do you think is most important for Hyperledger Foundation to focus on in the next year?

I think the Hyperledger Foundation should focus on multiple ledger support (which is already underway) and onboarding users (not developers) of the implemented technology.

What advice would you offer other technologists or developers interested in getting started working on blockchain?

There is a very steep learning curve, but it’s extremely worthwhile. You will very quickly identify areas where the technology could benefit your clients.

As Hyperledger’s projects continue to mature, what do you see as the most interesting technologies, apps, or use cases coming out as a result?

I am interested in the ability for Hyperledger projects to enable more automated business flows using truly trusted and tamper-proof data. The number of personnel hours that can be saved just through automated conversation and interchange of data programmatically is massive.

What’s the one issue or problem you hope blockchain can solve?

I am hopeful that blockchain has the potential to improve trust between businesses. By exchanging information using blockchain technology and digital credentials, the validity and origin of the credential can always be verified, and businesses can proceed with their interactions confidently.

Where do you hope to see Hyperledger and/or blockchain in five years?

I would hope to see blockchain as a viable and easily selected technology, along the lines of Postgresql or MongoDb. I would hope that blockchain could be adopted as a mainstream technology that development teams can look at as a solution to solve their problems.

What is the best piece of developer advice you’ve ever received?

Your code isn’t precious.

What technology could you not live without?

Plumbing.

Aug 23

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Investing in Verifiable Credentials, Technical Interoperability and Open Source

By the Province of British Columbia, Office of the Chief Information Officer Blog, Hyperledger Aries, Identity

Our 20 Year Journey

Like many provinces and territories in Canada, British Columbia (BC) has a long history of providing secure access to online government services. We started our journey 20 years ago with the introduction of BCeID, a simple username and password solution. A lot has changed since then!

Today, we are investing in Verifiable Credentials (VCs) and a digital wallet. We see these as the cornerstones in the evolution of our digital strategy, adding a much needed layer of trust to the digital economy.

We want to share what we are doing, why we focus on interoperability and open-source, and why we are excited about VCs being our natural next step.

Why We Care

As a public sector organization, BC has a strong interest in seeing the adoption of technologies that are secure, privacy-preserving, and convenient.

Digital is obviously everywhere. In 2021, 94% of BC citizens said they are online, and 90% of Canadians have smartphones. Also, according to the Business Council of Canada, in the last decade Canada’s digital economy grew 40% faster than the overall world economy. In Digital ID terms, this growth is an opportunity to make people’s online lives easier and safer.

We also know that cybersecurity threats are growing and there are no signs of it slowing down. BC sees an astonishing 496 million unauthorized access attempts per day – that’s 5,741 every second! Identity theft and fraud also continues to rise. We need digital trust solutions that counter this increasing risk.

In responding to this new reality, we recognize that people are familiar and comfortable with the many credentials that governments issue today. Things like physical copies of drivers’ licenses, health cards, passports, permits, and reports are widely accepted and trusted. In BC, we are building on that trust and moving towards providing the same things digitally. We are also enabling confidential connections through the wallet to give people choice and confidence in their digital lives.

BC’s Approach

Clearly, digital trust goes far beyond just the government. Canadians expect more access, with greater security, to high-value services in both the public and private sectors. VCs and the wallet provide a highly flexible way to achieve that goal.

Collaboration is critical to achieving that goal and it’s important to us. BC’s Chief Information Officer, CJ Ritchie, strongly advocates for us working together to meet the expectations of Canadians. She notes, “If we don’t all act together to deliver solutions that protect privacy and interact securely, trust will erode and there will be negative impacts for businesses, people’s livelihoods, and the broader digital economy.”

As our approach evolves, we also remain keen to support open source solutions that interoperate with other national and international efforts. There is no dominant design yet, no one network or technology, so we must remain nimble and flexible in our exploration. We also need to coexist with existing identity solutions that millions of British Columbians already rely upon.

Technology Interoperability

In exploring VCs, BC is contributing to solutions that allow agents to verify credentials from multiple networks. Indeed, through one of our Code With Us initiatives, DID indy, we contributed over 11,000 lines of open-source code to support and prove the viability of a “network of networks”.

We also are focused on the interoperability of Hyperledger Aries agents themselves, another key success metric. We are leading contributors to Aries Agent Test Harness (AATH), open-source software that runs a series of Hyperledger Aries interoperability tests and delivers the results to the AATH website. Great interoperability requires that we test—and re-test!—that interoperability on a regular basis.

Side note: If you want to test the interoperability of any Aries agent with this ecosystem, please sign up to join the Hyperledger Aries Interoperability Event on August 31.

Driving Adoption

In BC we have a lot of technical skill in working with VCs and with Hyperledger Aries agents. However, for VCs to be successful, it needs to be easy for others to join in.

On the agents side, to complement our extensive contributions to Hyperledger Aries Cloud Agent Python (ACA-Py) and other Aries and Indy projects, we also contribute to Hyperledger Aries Framework Javascript (AFJ), the agent commonly used for mobile digital wallets.

That’s why, when thinking about mobile digital wallets, we opted to contribute to the Hyperledger Aries Bifold project, helping it also essentially become “Bifold as a framework”. Bifold uses AFJ, and BC and others can use it to easily deploy a custom-designed digital wallet. Jurisdictions within Canada and elsewhere in the world are already taking this approach for their own wallet explorations. It’s an open-source stack right the way down.

VC adoption will be helped by a thriving open-source community, and we are giving back wherever we can.

Open-Source Success

We believe the community’s success becomes our success. For years we’ve been committed to open-source, interoperable solutions in this space. Our approach is always evolving, but our contributions and commitment to various digital trust open-source projects and technologies continue.

We hope that even more organizations will join in and contribute. Our goal in BC is a new layer of trust for the internet, making it easier for people to work and play online with confidence.

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