2023 Q2 Hyperledger AnonCreds

Created by Stephen Curran.

Implementation Repositories

Specifications

Web and Wiki Pages

Project Health

The project is healthy with a lot of work going on in the code base (anoncreds-rs) to complete the transition of the Rust implementation from an Indy repository to an AnonCreds repository. In doing that, the implementation has been made ledger-agnostic, and the AnonCreds Specification adjusted to align with the implementation. Happily, the changes were relatively small and helped to clarify the specification.

Questions/Issues for the TSC

None.

Releases

Overall Activity in the Past Quarter

The AnonCreds project has made significant progress on three fronts this quarter:

  • The anoncreds-rs implementation evolved significantly has it was added as dependencies in Aries Framework JavaScript and later, into Aries Cloud Agent Python, replacing the previous Indy libraries. The work was focused more on the wrappers for JavaScript and Python to enable using the component in the Aries frameworks, and CI/CD updates. Adjustments to certain library calls were made to enable ledger-agnosticism, particularly around the handling of revocation registries. Several groups have already demonstrated the use of the library with other than Hyperledger Indy-hosted objects, including ones hosting objects on Cheqd, Cardano, and using did:web.
  • As adjustments to the implementation were made, alignment was made with the AnonCreds v1.0 specification. The adjustments were minor and were done such that existing, issued AnonCreds credentials would still be useable.
  • Work began in the AnonCreds v2.0 specification (see below for details)

An AnonCreds v2.0 Working Group has begun meeting bi-weekly to discuss the “next generation” of AnonCreds. So far we have discussed the AnonCreds data objects, including what would be published by the issuer to the Ledger, credentials, and presentations, plus a potential revocation scheme (ALLOSAUR, ALLOSAUR Summary) that could be used. The design that Mike Lodder has defined enables the use of several cryptographic suites to sign the credentials. The working group is now discussing the details of how to transition the proposals into the v2.0 Specification.

The AnonCreds Quarterly Activity Dashboard shows the activity on the repo, with 238 commits by 18 contributors in the quarter. The majority of the recent work has been in the wrappers (JavaScript and Python) in order to reference the component in the Aries Framework JavaScript and Aries Cloud Agent Python Aries Frameworks.

Current Plans

Work continues on getting a final v0.1.0 release completed with the details in the wrappers stabilized. With the end-of-life of the Hyperledger Ursa project, a new AnonCreds repository is needed to host the CL-Signatures code used in anoncreds-rs, and producing artifacts from that new repository. In theory, that should be a straightforward transfer of code from the existing Ursa repository.

On the specifications side, completing the v1.0 specification has slowed, as the final work to be completed is the documentation of the cryptographic math used in the processing. For that work, the project has proposed a Hyperledger Mentorship be awarded, as documented in the AnonCreds Mentorship proposal. As well, work will soon begin on filling in the details of the AnonCreds v2.0 Specification as a formal document.

Maintainer Diversity

Project Maintainers are from three different organizations: Animo Solutions, BC Gov, and SICPA.

Contributor Diversity

Contributions in the quarter have come from at least 8 different organizations, including Animo Solutions, Roots ID, Indicio and BC Gov.

Additional Information