We present Cogito, a mobile app that helps you remain in control of your
identity. It supports a friendly way to identify yourself to websites, perform
blockchain transactions and encryption. But most importantly, it guarantees that
your identity is really owned by you. We believe this to be a good starting
point for true privacy online.
Identity may seem like a boring topic. Haven't we solved the problem of how to
identify ourselves to websites a hundred different ways? Isn't this a solved
problem?
We argue that in order to guarantee true privacy it is essential to introduce
new ways to identify ourselves.
We present Cogito, a mobile app that helps you remain in control of your
identity. Use it to create multiple facets of your identity to separate for
instance your working life from your personal life.
Traditionally, identities are bestowed on you by others. Your passport is issued
to you by your government. Your bank account is given to you by a bank. Website
credentials are given to you by the owner of the website.
These identities are ultimately not under your control. You get them on loan
from the institutes that issue them, and they are free to retract them as they
deem necessary. This is no basis for true control over your data. This is no
basis for privacy.
With Cogito we've taken a cue from blockchains and PGP and use cryptographic
identities. This involves generating a public-private key pair in which the
public part is used as your identity (similar to a passport number or bank
account number). The private key you keep to yourself because you can use it to
prove that you are the owner of the identity.
These self-sovereign identities are created and maintained by their owners. They
can not be taken away from them and are therefore completely under their
control. We believe that this is a prerequisite for true privacy.
With Cogito we aim to make these self-sovereign identities very easy to use.
Using a Cogito identity on a website is therefore as simple as scanning a QR
code. Signing a blockchain transaction or decrypting data is as simple as
pressing the 'accept' button.
In our FOSDEM session, we will demonstrate not only how Cogito works, but also
what developers can do with Cogito. We will discuss the architecture, show the
demo app and the tutorial. We invite those who are interested to help develop
Cogito further.
