Hyperledger Aries: Empowering Developers to Build Secure Decentralized Identity Systems

Hyperledger Aries: Empowering Developers to Build Secure Decentralized Identity Systems
6 min read

Hyperledger Aries is the latest addition to the Hyperledger family. It is a shared system of tools that allows the exchange of blockchain-based data, enables interoperable interaction across several blockchains and other DLTs, and supports node-to-node communication in various instances.

If we talk about DLT, identity is one of its most potential use cases. A widespread reusable, interoperable tool kit will help projects and solutions focused on establishing, sending, and maintaining valid digital credentials.

What is Decentralized Identity?

A new Web3 concept, Decentralized identity is for identity management whose foundation is trust architecture. A decentralized identity is a self-owned, autonomous identity that allows for the interchange of reliable data. Users with a decentralized identity can control their own Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and supply just the information necessary for verification.

Decentralized identity management facilitates an identity trust framework in which individuals, organizations, and things interact transparently and safely. It entails a method of authentication and authorization administration that allows people to develop, maintain, and monitor their (PII) without the assistance of a centralized third party. In addition to PII, data from digital gadgets, such as login information, passwords, search history, purchasing history, and others, contribute to the construction of a decentralized digital identity.

Self-sovereign identity (SSI) is key to the concept of decentralized identification. SII users have digital wallets in which numerous credentials are saved and accessible through dependable applications, rather than a collection of identities spanning various platforms or a single identity handled by a third party. 

The notion of self-sovereign identification relates to the usage of distributed databases to handle PII. The three pillars of SSI are defined by experts as blockchain, verifiable credentials (VCs), and decentralized identifiers (DIDs).

To get started with this technology, Hyperledger Aries and Polygon ID are the two production-ready identification mechanisms. However, in this blog, we will provide all you need to know about Hyperledger Aries.

What is Hyperledger Aries?

An open-source project under Hyperledger Umbrella, Aries is a toolset for developing decentralized identification applications. It consists of protocols, libraries, and specifications for developing and deploying DIDs, provable credentials, and other decentralized identity systems. 

Enabling safe, interoperable, and maintaining confidentiality data sharing between organizations, individuals, devices, and use cases, is the primary objective of Hyperledger Aries. It does this by using the Aries protocol, a decentralized communication protocol that allows several participants to establish a safe and private communication channel and exchange provable credentials.

Hyperledger Aries may be used as a building block for a variety of decentralized identification use cases, including self-sovereign identity, decentralized banking, supply chain management, healthcare, and others. It is intended to be modular, adaptable, and customizable, letting hyperledger developers choose and combine the components that best meet their needs.

Veramo, Serto, Ceramic Network, identification Index (IDX), Ion, and Sovrin Network are some more blockchain identification options. At Kaleido, we will continue to research these new communities and support the best identification technologies.

Origin of Hyperledger Aries

Hyperledger Aries is linked to both Hyperledger Indy and Hyperledger Ursa. Indy offers a resolver implementation and Ursa leverages cryptographic capabilities. Ursa's cryptography support will be used by Aries to provide both safe secret management and hardware security module functionality.

One of the key objectives of this project is to alter the Hyperledger Indy client layers so that they are compatible with other identity initiatives For some time, Hyperledger Indy has been incubating protocol work for peer interactions among identity owners, but as the development community has grown, it has been clear that the scope of that work extends beyond Indy's support for other systems and networks.

Aries framework

Hyperledger Developers that seek to tackle business problems rather than actively contribute to Aries can start with an Aries agent framework. Agent-based applications are built by incorporating application-specific code that commands the Aries agent and Some Aries multipurpose interface models are ready to use right now.

Aries Cloud Agent - Python (ACA-Py) has production deployments and is suited for all non-mobile agent applications. ACA-Py and a controller work in tandem, communicating over an HTTP interface. Your controller may be built in any language, and the Indy-SDK is included in ACA-Py.

Aries Framework -.NET has production deployments and can be used to construct mobile (through Xamarin) and server-side agents. An aries-framework-dotnet app's controller can be developed in any language that supports embedding the framework as a library in the controller. The Indy-SDK is included in the framework.

Python's Aries Static Agent is a customizable agent that does not need persistent storage.

There are numerous additional frameworks under active development at the moment, including:

  • Aries-sdk-ruby
  • Aries-framework-javascript
  • Aries Framework - Go is a pure Golang framework with a similar design as ACA-Py, as well as an HTTP interface for its companion controller. The Indy SDK is not presently included in the framework, and work on providing a Golang-based verified credentials solution is underway.

Conclusion

Because decentralized identification is a new technology, the tools used to incorporate self-sovereign identity into apps are also maturing. As a result, it is critical to select both an identity solution and an underlying platform that will allow you to build for the future. 

Hyperledger Aries' ultimate purpose is to provide a dynamic collection of capabilities for storing and exchanging data linked to blockchain-based identification. These capabilities will range from safe, secret data storage, such as private keys, to globally accessible data that can be read and accessed by anybody.

If you want to learn Hyperledger and dive in-depth, then you have landed at the right place. Blockchain Council offers some of the best certification programs including the Hyperledger developer program. All the certification programs are designed according to the industry demands and new courses are introduced with updates. Also, these courses are budget-friendly. Check out Blockchain Council’s website for the available Hyperledger certification programs.

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