Inspired by the concept of sharing data between apps on Android devices through Content Providers, this talk explains how this can be achieved on the Web today using decentralized identity and storage (identity hubs).
This talk has been accepted late to replace "Decentralized object storage An open source decentralized object storage" by Ivan Fraixedes. Due to health issues Ivan's talk had to be cancelled. We wish him a speedy recovery.
On mobile devices, users got used to give apps permissions to access their personal data. This can be for example the address book, calendar, pictures or any other file. Re-entering or copying the data in different apps does not make sense. However, on the web, users do it every day. Contact details are re-imported, pictures transferred or videos copied. Some web apps support the integration of 3rd-party services that keep the data at one place. However, apps thereby imply that users have an account with these 3rd-party services. The apps and users depend on the terms and conditions of these services. This dependency can be removed With decentralized identity and storage.
In this talk, two current projects are presented that offer APIs to use personal data across web apps: 3Box storage and Gaia storage. It is explained how apps can make use of this type of storage and how cryptographic keys (belonging to a decentralized identity) protect the users' data.
While these projects are used today (as demonstrated with existing apps) it is exciting to see that the different projects are working towards a standard of these APIs. The current status is presented shortly at the end of the session.
