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I've been reading about several alternate uses for the underlying technology behind Bitcoin:

I was wondering if there is any project or team working on a system for registering devices that are marketed broadly (like cellphones) with decentralized set of identity servers. Once it is registered with one server it cannot be registered with any other server, and if it is identified someone else they can look up which server and which identity manages the device. Also, if the valid user transfers the identity of the device to a new server, then everyone can be certain of the new host.

Nick ODell
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Jason Sperske
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  • I'm not sure I understand your use case. I think you're asking for a mechanism that can map, f.e. a phone's MAC address to, "Mike's awesome identity server." That's something you could do with Namecoin, but I'm not sure why you'd want to. – Nick ODell Oct 20 '14 at 02:24
  • You may want to if your device is stolen! – Wizard Of Ozzie Oct 20 '14 at 04:36
  • @wizard, exactly! I'm building an identity service for a type of commercially available device that lets new owners register their device (binding it to their identity), with a centralized service the task of preventing someone else from registering the same device is simple, but what if we allow other entries to set up their own services, the ideas of a decentralized identity service sounded very much like the blockchain to me but I wanted to know if this is already being done (or if I fundimentally don't understand the blockchain (also a possibility)) – Jason Sperske Oct 20 '14 at 05:34
  • I'm in the preliminary stages of a similar project. I'll add contact details to my profile if you want to get in touch as there's way to do this using new homonorphic encryption – Wizard Of Ozzie Oct 20 '14 at 05:37

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As mentioned in the comments, I can certainly see the benefit of using the immutable recording function of the blockchain to identify and record parameters, in this case MAC (media access control) addresses, which are unique to each device.

Here a few challenges which will need to be overcome:

  • having a device's MAC details would be fantastic for tracking ownership, for example, in the case of stolen goods. However, anyone with even IT basic knowledge knows it's trivial to change a MAC address; so whilst the blockchain is immutable the data (ie MAC) addresses is not
  • privacy concerns also arise. Without going in to too much detail, it's problematic to say the least to be sharing one's identifying information on a public ledger if one had less malicious intentions (eg identification of MAC address for a stolen iPad, which could then be used to match up with social phishing (social engineering) with Apple Tech Support to match an owner's name with the stolen device)
  • The MAC address (or similar identifying number) should be encrypted, ideally. Homomorphic encryption allows for manipulation of data without decrypting it, and will be of great use for secure cloud based access. That being said, we're still a long way off meaningful use cases of homomorphic encryption in conjunction with blockchain ledgers
Wizard Of Ozzie
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    MAC addresses are supposed to be unique but this is not always the case with some manufacturers: http://superuser.com/a/268009 –  Oct 20 '14 at 12:11