November 8th, 2024 meeting

ABSTRACT

The Internet has a trust problem. The Internet was not designed to exchange the monetary and the priceless value of our personal transactions.

The pandemic brought forth a rise in our dependence on digital life: from videoconferencing to shop-at-home applications, to social media. It has also transitioned the crime and espionage centers from physical cities to the Internet. Kim Cameron, Microsoft’s Chief Identity Architect (2004-2019) predicted this when stating in his landmark publication Law of Identity “The Internet was built without a way to know who and what you are connecting to. This limits what we can do with it and exposes us to growing dangers”.

The centralized control on identity with every merchant, organization and government an individual interacts with has frustrated the public with the requirement to remember hundreds of account/password combinations and the loss of control of sensitive personal data. This has been perpetuated in a societal shift of individuals (with governmental support) demanding more control of their personal information. Despite the warning signs, the Internet has thrived without an architectural construct to bind transactions to verifiable identities.

To revolutionize an established Internet itself, the architectural core of Internet transactions must evolve using new governance blueprints, trust anchors, and secure smartphones overlaying a foundation of decentralized identifiers. The building blocks of this new architecture has been developing over the last nine years and is ready to explode on a global scale.

Speaker Scott Perry, CEO of the Digital Governance Institute and co-Chair for the Governance Working Group for the Trust Over IP Foundation (ToIP), a Linux Foundation sponsored non-profit, will walk through a multi-level technical and governance architecture (“the Trust Over IP Stack”) that outlines greater confidence over the source and content of internet communications is being achieved. He will also walk through existing ecosystems where the exchange of verified digital credentials is transforming industries and societies.

BIOGRAPHY

Scott Perry is the Founder and CEO of the Digital Governance Institute where he provides a variety of governance solutions in the emerging space of governance of digital assets. Scott is a recognized global leader in digital identity, blockchain, and verifiable credential governance and accreditation. He has worked with the world’s most respected SSL certificate issuers, aerospace and defense companies, and government agencies such as the US Senate Sergeant at Arms and Federal Aviation Administration.

He is a Co-Chair of the Trust Over IP Foundation’s Governance Stack Working Group where he has authored and contributed to most of its governance and assurance publications driven to create standards and accountability in decentralized identity and verifiable credential networks.

As a hands-on governance and cybersecurity consultant and auditor, Scott provides deep and impactful advice that you would expect from a leader in the field.