Cryptid open source identification system uses the blockchain to revolutionize ID

Access control systems are an integral part of the security industry, which is vital across every campus, airport, corporate office, government building, and anywhere else the movement of people or their access to certain items or programs, is limited. Even the driver’s license in your wallet is a product of this industry, and it is likely laden with 45-year old magnetic stripe technology, and can be counterfeited by hundreds of different people around the world for an affordable fee on the dark web.

There are many dozens of access control and ID card-issuing programs for sale to businesses today, and far more proprietary programs that governments and the largest corporations use. No matter if they allow control over devices like door locks and badge scanners, all of them have a central database that holds personal data, and many of them issues ID cards of some kind.

The larger and more secure these databases grow, the more expensive they become. The largest require their own co-located datacenters, complete with armed guards and their own access control systems. This centralized paradigm is forever subject to hacking, downtime, software licensing fees and upgrades, huge energy costs, hardware limitations, networking restrictions, technical support, IT training, and more. Today’s systems, it seems, are far from perfect.

Cryptid is a new open source identity system. It’s a low-cost, extremely flexible ID-issuing and verifying program, that can be useful for organizations of all sizes. Using Factom to place encrypted identity data on a blockchain, this lightweight program allows for a variety of uses and configurations, and even allows for variety in the types of ID card or token used.

Because the identity records, including a small photo and fingerprint file, are no larger than a few hundred kilobytes, Cryptid’s team was able to use Factom to store entire records onto a blockchain, which is timestamped on the bitcoin blockchain too. There is no local nor administrator server that needs to be run for others to access; all data is decentralized and accessible anywhere on the planet.

“We can chain together multiple entries, each being 10kb max in size, and each kb costs a set amount of 1 entry credit per kb, which is like $0.005, or something close to that. We use a fingerprint template (an iso standard), which is actually extremely small, <1kb. We crop images and compress them, losing some quality, but still easily recognized, making them ~5-6kb. The other info comes to around ~600bytes depending on the lengths of your name and such. In all it comes a nice package of ~8-9kb which can be easily stored on Factom for pennies."
— – Cryptid

The original system was recently created for a College Cryptocurrency Network hackathon called the Borderless Block Party, sponsored by BitGo. The primary criterion of the contest was to create something “based around permissionless, open, decentralized ledgers.” The judges, including Bitcoin developers Peter Todd and Vitalik Buterin, Airbitz’s Will Pangman, and venture capitalist Brock Pierce awarded the project a few runner-up prizes.

From a security standpoint, there are many benefits to be gained from using this system over legacy solutions. Chief among these would be the cost savings from decentralization, so there would be no need for a datacenter or even a dedicated server at all, with the blockchain holding all of that information. Identification can be verified anywhere the internet is, no matter the state of the administrator’s server.

“The data is distributed across many computers, which prevents corruption and makes it nearly impossible for your identity data to be tampered with. Conventional identification methods rely on a central authority such as a state government in order to assure your identity, making them vulnerable to hacking and corruption.”
— – Cryptid

Added security is another great selling point. Blockchain systems can take advantage of multi-signature bitcoin addresses, so no single authority will hold the access to anyone’s identity. Being open source means that no one can put a backdoor hack into it. Passwords can be tied to cards too, on top of typical factors like photos and fingerprints, offering an impressive additional layer of protection for users.

"Traditional identification methods only require one factor of authentication which is the card that you have. Cryptid gives you the ability to use all three. The unique identifier is something you have, the password is something you know and your fingerprint is something you are."
— – Cryptid

Flexibility is also a major plus point, because the user-side data doesn’t necessarily have to be saved to a photo ID card. This info can be stored on anything that can keep a few kilobytes of information, anything that can store a QR code, representing just your private key and a password. Even hidden tokens inside jewelry or an app on your smartphone could hold your ID “card” in this way.

The front of a Cryptid card issued on Cryptid.xyz. The backside would have a fingerprint and a QR code displayed. If you want to edit anything on your card it would require making a new one, so disposing of old cards properly is important.

“Since Cryptid ID strings can be stored on anything that can store 32-44 bytes of data,” project developer Steven Masley told Devpost, “that means it can be implemented into current reading systems such as magstripe readers or smart card readers.”

“Additionally, a smartphone can be used for a sort of optical data transfer — most generally, displaying a QR code to be scanned via scanner or webcam.”
— – Steven Masley, Cryptid Developer

Masley and partner Dakota Baber created Cryptid to be used as both a demonstrative web application as well as a stand-alone windows program, making the source code available at Github. A smartphone app exists to verify other peoples’ IDs from Cryptid.xyz already, featured in the video below. All of the software for this is finished now and ready for businesses to start using.

Cryptid wasn’t the first decentralized identity solution on the blockchain. That honor goes to Bitnation for it’s World Citizen ID project from October 2014. While not open source, is also free to use and stores your identity on the blockchain forever. The main difference between the two is that Cryptid was designed for an administrator to issue, so the identity has a specific organization that will authenticate them when using it.

Meanwhile, Bitnation’s ID is meant to create a new, zero-affiliation status for users, one that allows you to prove that you are you, but not by using any sort of third-party, not even Bitnation itself, to authenticate. The only access points that Bitnation’s ID would ever likely allow users to gain access to are all online. Real-world objects like doors to go through are much less likely to use it, although it’s not an impossibility.

“The open nature of Cryptid allows it to be more widely adopted, adapted for security and integrated into unique systems. The use of the blockchain for immutable, effectively unhackable, identity storage is extremely novel and not seen before in the industry.”
— – Masley

While the Bitnation ID could be a serious alternative to state-issued ID one day, Cryptid is ready to be used a corporations and campuses today, potentially saving a huge chunk of the security budget.