Multi-Network Decentralized Identifier

The lifeID platform uses pairwise decentralized identifiers ("DIDs") for people and organizations to identify themselves to one another. This repository is a suite of tools allowing anyone to create, encode, decode DIDs for any blockchain.

A lifeID DID looks like this:

"did:life:Lo3gVgN4WnXe6CnVn1zFSXGK4wL6eMJ7W1"

There are three parts to a lifeID did:

1. The DID prefix did: This indicates that you are presenting a standardized DID according to the specification outlined by the World Wide Web Consortium ("W3C").

2. The DID method. life: This signals to everyone that you are presenting a DID for use on the lifeID platform.

3. The Base58 encoded DID string. Lo3gVgN4WnXe6CnVn1zFSXGK4wL6eMJ7W1 Base58 encoding is a way to store large integers as alphanumeric text, similar to Base64 but doesn't have the 0 O i or l because they might look ambiguous when printed or written down. MNDID library has functions to encode and decode base58 DIDs.

When decoded, a DID string includes the following parts:

• The version number. Currently this is a single one byte version number it will start at 1 and can be updated in the future.

• The network ID. This part of the DID describes which blockchain stores its public key. It is 4 bytes long.

• The type of identity. What is the DID identifying? There are three possible values. 1 for an individual, 2 for any other kind of legal entity such as a corporation or non-profit organization, and 3 for a physical items or property.

• The public key. Different blockchains use different encryption schemes, but they all require a cryptographic keys to prove ownership. It 65 bytes long.

• The checksum. A SHA3-256 digest of the version number, network ID and public key. The checksum provides a way to quickly verify whether the DID is correct or has been changed in any way.

An example decoded DID:

API

This library provides the following functions for working with DIDs

createDID(didObject)

This function takes a valid DID object and returns an encoded DID wrapped in a promise

input: didObject

An object with the following fields. All are required.

  didObject: {
    method: string,
    network: string,
    version: string,
    key: string
    }

return value : Promise(did: string)

decodeDID(did)

This function takes a valid DID string and returns a DID object wrapped in a promise.

did

A string that is a validly formatted DID.

return value : Promise(didObject: object)

validateDID(did)

This function takes a valid DID string and returns a promise. The promise will resove to true if and only if the DID is correctly formed.

did

A string that is a validly formatted DID.

return value : Promise(boolean)