A Comprehensive Approach to User Delegation and Anonymity within Decentralized Identifiers for IoT

Abstract

Decentralized Identifiers have recently expanded into Internet of Things devices and are crucial in securing users’ digital identities and data. However, Decentralized Identifiers face challenges in scenarios necessitating authority delegation and anonymity, such as when dealing with legal guardianship for minors, device loss or damage, and specific medical contexts involving patient information. This paper aims to strengthen data sovereignty within the Decentralized Identifier system by implementing a secure authority delegation and anonymity scheme. It suggests optimizing verifiable presentations by utilizing a sequential aggregate signature, a Non-Interactive Zero-Knowledge Proof, and a Merkle tree to prevent against linkage and Sybil attacks while facilitating delegation. This strategy mitigates security risks related to delegation and anonymity, efficiently reduces the computational and verification efforts for signatures, and reduces the size of verifiable presentations by about 1.2 to 2 times.