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Issuance Status

OpenAttestation checks that the document has been issued and that it's issuance status is in good standing (for instance, that it hasn't been revoked). As of today, OpenAttestation supports two ways to issue documents: DIDs and Ethereum Smart Contracts.

Ethereum Smart Contracts#

The document store is a smart contract on the Ethereum network that records the issuance and revocation status of OpenAttestation documents. It stores the hashes of wrapped documents, which are the records of the owner of the document store having issued the documents. Before we explain the verification process in detail, we need to introduce a new concept: the merkleRoot.

Let's imagine that we need to wrap thousands of files and had to issue the targetHash for each of them. It would be extremely inefficient because Ethereum is slow, and we would have to pay for each transaction.

That's where the merkleRoot will come in handy.

merkleRoot#

Once the targetHash of a document is computed, OpenAttestation will determine the merkleRoot. The merkleRoot value is the merkle root hash computed from the merkle tree using the targetHash of all the document wrapped together. Each targetHash is a leaf in the tree. After computing the merkle tree, the merkleRoot associated to a document will be added to it as well as the proofs (intermediate hashes) needed to ensure that the targetHash has been used to compute the merkleRoot. The proofs are added into the proof property.

On a side note, when we wrap only one document at a time, the targetHash and the merkleRoot are identical and the proof is empty. This is completely normal. When we wrap at least 2 documents at the same time, we will notice a difference between targetHash and the merkleRoot, and proofs appended.

The merkleRoot will always be the same for all the documents wrapped together (in a batch). It will be different for documents wrapped separately.

Issuance#

Now that our batch of documents has a common identifier and that we can prove (thanks to the merkle tree algorithm) that the targetHash of a document was used to create a specific merkleRoot, we can use the merkleRoot in our document store and issue it.

Revocation#

As discussed above, issuance of documents can happen individually or by batch. Issuing a batch documents is by far the more efficient way. When it comes to revocation both values can also be used:

  • targetHash will allow for the revocation of a specific document.
  • merkleRoot will allow for the revocation of the whole batch of documents.

Issuance process and verification#

To issue a document, an institution or individual :

  • Deploys a new document store on Ethereum and get the address of the deployed contract. (this action needs to be performed only once)
  • Adds the address of the deployed contract into the document (before wrapping).
  • Wraps a document (or a batch of documents) and get a merkleRoot. The wrapped documents can be shared to the recipients.
  • Issues the merkleRoot by calling the issue function from the document store contract.

An OpenAttestation verifier:

  • Checks the merkleRoot of the document has been issued:
    1. Gets back the document store contract address from the document itself.
    2. Ensures that the targetHash and the proof matches the merkleRoot.
    3. Checks the merkleRoot is in the document store provided, by calling the isIssued function from the deployed contract.
  • Checks the merkleRoot of the document has been issued:
    1. Gets back the document store contract address from the document itself.
    2. Checks the targetHash is not in the document store provided, by calling the isRevoked function from the deployed contract.
    3. Checks the merkleRoot is not in the document store provided, by calling the isRevoked function from the deployed contract.

DIDs#

Decentralized identifiers (DIDs) are a new type of identifier that enables verifiable, decentralized digital identity. DID document associated with DIDs contains a verification method, often a public key. The owner of a DID can use the private key associated and anyone can verify that the owner control the public key.

At the moment, OpenAttestation only supports one DID method: ethr.

Issuance#

DIDs are significantly faster and incur not costs. They could directly use the targetHash of the document (which is unique) and sign it using the private key associated. However for consistency with our initial design, we sign the merkleRoot.

The information about the signature are added to the document, into the proof property. That's it, the document has been issued.

Let's dig a bit more to understand how it works.

An ethr DID document looks like ::

{  "@context": "https://w3id.org/did/v1",  "id": "did:ethr:0x6813Eb9362372EEF6200f3b1dbC3f819671cBA69",  "publicKey": [    {      "id": "did:ethr:0x6813Eb9362372EEF6200f3b1dbC3f819671cBA69#controller",      "type": "Secp256k1VerificationKey2018",      "controller": "did:ethr:0x6813Eb9362372EEF6200f3b1dbC3f819671cBA69",      "ethereumAddress": "0x6813eb9362372eef6200f3b1dbc3f819671cba69"    }  ],  "authentication": [    {      "type": "Secp256k1SignatureAuthentication2018",      "publicKey": "did:ethr:0x6813Eb9362372EEF6200f3b1dbC3f819671cBA69#controller"    }  ]}

Three important information can be found:

  • the DID identifier (here did:ethr:0x6813Eb9362372EEF6200f3b1dbC3f819671cBA69). It's used to identify the DID and must be added into the issuer.id property of the document.
  • The DID controller (here did:ethr:0x6813Eb9362372EEF6200f3b1dbC3f819671cBA69#controller). It's used to identify which public key control the DID and must be added into the issuer.identityProof.key property of the document. It's also worth to note that the value is equal to the DID identifier, appended with #controller.
  • The ethereum address associated to the DID controller (here 0x6813eb9362372eef6200f3b1dbc3f819671cba69). We will use it to verify the signature.

You can find an example of document using DID in our guide.

A proof of signature looks like:

{  "proof": [    {      "type": "OpenAttestationSignature2018",      "created": "2020-10-05T09:05:35.171Z",      "proofPurpose": "assertionMethod",      "verificationMethod": "did:ethr:0x6813Eb9362372EEF6200f3b1dbC3f819671cBA69#controller",      "signature": "0x6d0ff5c64b8230cdc471f38267495002f2c762acf7a80250599809ee32b4255377f1adcb56fb712dee66bfeb21be6b5d802f299aea1f1edca129e88e4c1742ce1c"    }  ]}
  • signature is the signed merkleRoot
  • verificationMethod is the DID controller.

That's all the information that we need to verify that the document has been signed with the correct private key. Indeed,ethr DID uses ECDSA with Secp256k1 as parameter of the elliptic curve which provides an interesting property: when we verify a signature, using the initial value (merkleRoot), and the signed value (signature) it will recover the ethereum address associated with the private key used. We can then compare the ethereum address from the DID document, with the ethereum address returned by the verification. If it matches, the signature is valid.

If you want to dig more on ECDSA, you can read this guide from Yos Riady.

Revocation#

It's possible to revoke a DID document if a document store has been declared in its revocation block. You can revoke a document using a document store or with an OCSP.

Note that if you do use revocation for DID, you still need to have at least 1 transaction with the ethereum blockchain to deploy a documentStore, which means DID flow is not free anymore.

Issuance process and verification#

To issue a document, an institution or individual :

  • Creates a new ethr DID (this action needs to be performed only once) and get the private key and the public address.
  • Adds the DID address and controller into the document (before wrapping).
  • Wraps a document and get a merkleRoot.
  • Sign the merkleRoot using the private key. The signature must be appended into the wrapped document.
  • The wrapped document can be shared to the recipients.

An OpenAttestation verifier:

  • Retrieves the ethereum address associated with the DID identifier and DID controller from the document.
  • Retrieves the ethereum used to sign the merkle root.
  • Makes sure both addresses match.