Note: This wiki version of the Report has been obsoleted by the live Google Docs version. Information confirmed to appear there has been removed from this version.

Summary of Liaison Activity

tbs - both internal and external - IRM, IDoT, UMA, CIS, other

Purpose

(new crystallization of the purpose, derived from a BSC DG blog post directed to the Kantara LC) The BSC Discussion Group is offering these recommendations and observations to Kantara Initiative regarding solving use cases for empowering traditionally disempowered parties (such as individuals) to "contract and transact", e.g. with parties that traditionally hold greater power (such as companies and large countries), given the new landscape of "decentralization and distributed" technologies and techniques (such as blockchain and smart contracts) and their mixture with identity.

(from July 26 discussion) 

We should ensure that we satisfy the needs of an external audience that shares our purpose too. We could, in part, do this by including a review (John: "environmental scan") of other activities attempting to address some of these issues. The world seems to just be entering the trough of disillusionment. We want to achieve empowerment and the "P2P-ness" in a functional sense, even if not in a strictly technical sense. It's a good idea to reference the Kantara vision/mission wording. Jeff suggests: Maybe we shouldn't say "P2P" at all in our goal, because it implies a (technical) technique too strongly. We could illustrate the power imbalance instead by talking about "contracts of adhesion" or simply talk about addressing the power imbalance directly (brute force method!).

Eve essays a goal: Solve the use cases, with whatever technologies. This may mean not always using a pure blockchain model if that has certain vulnerabilities, or requires a TTP in the mix, or whatever. We could discuss how blockchain has started to be over-applied to solve problems it perhaps wasn't meant for (the root of the trough-of-disillusionment phenomenon!).

From the chat: Technology cannot solve problems that require management and governance
. But technology can provide tools to manage and govern.

Technologies and Techniques Potentially Applicable to Solving Use Cases in Scope

Blockchain

Other axes

• Permissionless/permissioned...
• etc. (which graphical form(s) of analysis? diagram? matrix? etc.)

Smart contracts:

(see Nov 1 notes for a "starter pack" of content)

...elephant in the room: performance?...

Use Cases

tbs - present each of the analyzed and approve use cases here, presumably each in a subsection (or transcluded?), drawn from this page