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Anoncreds on Ethereum Proof of Concept

Simple project demonstrating how a smart contract could be used as a VDR for anoncreds data (schemas, credential definitions, revocation registry definitions and revocation status list entries).

The anoncreds-smart-contracts-js directory contains a cookie cutter hardhat project for developing and deploying the AnoncredsRegistry smart contract. Refer to the hardhat generated README for general usage of the hardhat project.

Whilst the eth-anoncreds-rust-demo directory contains a rust demo binary, which uses ethers to connect with a AnoncredsRegistry smart contract instance and use it as a VDR in standard anoncreds issuer/holder & verifier/prover flows.

Implementation

To accomplish VDR functionality for immutably storing anoncreds assets, the AnoncredsRegistry smart contract has two main features:

  • Storage and retrieval of arbitrary strings (resources), which are uniquely identified by a given path and authenticated author
  • Storage and (somewhat optimised) retrieval of Revocation Status Lists for revocation registries.

Arbitrary String Resources

Relatively simple in implementation, the smart contract stores resource data in the following map on the ledger:

mapping(address => mapping(string => string)) immutableResourceByPathByAuthorAddress;

I.e. meaning "Arbitrary strings are stored against String paths in a map, and these maps are stored against particular authenticated authors (ethereum address)"

Smart contract setter and getters are then provided for this map:

function create_immutable_resource(string memory path, string memory content)

function get_immutable_resource(address author, string memory path) public view returns (string memory)

DID Resource Identifiers

We then create "DID Resource Identifiers" which can be constructed and deconstructed on the client side to represent pointers to these immutable artifacts. An arbitrary DID method of did:based: has been chosen for demostration purposes.

For example:

did:based:0xf39fd6e51aad88f6f4ce6ab8827279cfffb92266/schema/c9f56e91-8408-40b9-b214-c3ebcb2f71d9

This is a resource identifier which refers to an immutable resource in this smart contract, where the author is the ethereum address associated with this DID (0xf39fd6e51aad88f6f4ce6ab8827279cfffb92266), and the resource path is everything appended to the path (schema/c9f56e91-8408-40b9-b214-c3ebcb2f71d9).

The above example is an identifier being used to store an anoncreds schema as a JSON string resource, however it can be used for any string data.

Revocation Status Lists

Problem

Anoncreds artifacts such as Schemas, Cred Defs and Revocation Registry Defs can be trivially stored as resources found via DID Resource Identifiers, however Revocation Status Lists are an artifact that need special handling for indexing optimisation reasons.

This is particularly due to the nature of how these artifacts are fetched by anoncred agents. Schemas, Cred Defs and Rev Reg Defs are all typically fetched by agents via an already known ID (in our case we are using DID Resource Identifiers as the IDs). These are known as they are passed around in data when engaging in protocols (issue-credential, present-proof).

However, revocation status list entries are typically retrieved in a more dynamic fashion. For instance, when a Holder receives a proof request which requests a NRP (non revocation proof) for the time interval of 15-20, it is their duty to scan the ledger (and/or local cache) to find a moment in time between 15-20* where the revocation status list shows that their credential is not revoked, this status list would then be used by the holder to create a NRP with anoncreds libraries.

*note: if there is no entry because this range, then the holder will use the closest entry made before the time 15.

In general, we want to optimise the revocation status lists such that; given a revocation registry ID, the revocation status list entries within a particular timestamp range can be found as quickly as possible.

Approach

As such, we should try optimise these ledger look ups in our smart contract such that the consumer does not have to scan the entire list of revocation status list data every time. The semi-optimised approach taken in this demo is as follows:

The smart contract stores 2 maps of data on the ledger:

struct RevocationStatusList {
    string revocationList;
    string currentAccumulator;
}

mapping(address => mapping(string => RevocationStatusList[])) revStatusListsByRevRegIdByIssuer;

mapping(address => mapping(string => uint32[])) revStatusUpdateTimestampsByRevRegIdByIssuer;

The first map, revStatusListsByRevRegIdByIssuer, stores the actual RevocationStatusList entries uniquely against the ID of the revocation registry AND the authenticated issuer. The list of RevocationStatusLists per revocation registry ID is ordered in chronological order. RevocationStatusList items are relatively large due to the data it holds*.

*There is room for optimisation here, particularly serializing to string is sub-optimal for the data it stores.

The second map, revStatusUpdateTimestampsByRevRegIdByIssuer, acts as metadata for quicker lookups into the first map based on the desired timestamp. This map stores a list of epoch timestamp (u32) entries per revocation registry ID. The timestamp entries in these lists are 1-to-1 with the first map, i.e. index [i] in the timestamp list will have a value which is the timestamp associated with the index [i] entry in the RevocationStatusList[] list from the revStatusListsByRevRegIdByIssuer map.

let timestamp = revStatusUpdateTimestampsByRevRegIdByIssuer["issuer1"]["revreg1"][i]

let statusList = revStatusListsByRevRegIdByIssuer["issuer1"]["revreg1"][i]

// here, `timestamp` is the epoch timestamp for which the `statusList` entry was made on the ledger

Given the relatively smaller size of lists within revStatusUpdateTimestampsByRevRegIdByIssuer, the idea is that consumers can retrieve the full list of timestamps for a given rev_reg_id, then they can locally scan thru that list of timestamps to find the index of a timestamp which is near a desired timestamp they had in mind (e.g. a non-revoked interval for a proof request). Then this index can be used to get the RevocationStatusList stored on the ledger at this index for the given rev_reg_id.

This optimisation is especially neccessary, as fetching the full list of RevocationStatusList[]s from the revStatusListsByRevRegIdByIssuer may be too large of a transaction for some ethereum ledgers/RPCs to handle.

An example of how this approach is used can be seen here.

Disclaimer

The 'optimisation' approach taken by this demo is far from perfect. It is just a slight optimisation done to draw attention to the idea that revocation status lists need optimisation considerations, particularly for timestamp lookups.

Demo

The demo within the Rust crate walks thru the following:

  • Creating anoncred artifacts (schema, cred def, revocation registry def) and writing them to the registry
  • Receiving and storing a credential which uses these anoncreds artifacts (i.e. demonstrating how they are read from the registry)
  • Creating and verifying proof presentations of credentials which use these anoncreds artifacts
  • Make revocation registry entries to revoke and un-revoke credentials
  • Creating and verifying proof presentations with NRPs, including scanning the registry to find appropriate revocation status list entries to use for NRPs.

Run

To setup and run the demo:

  1. create your .env file in the root of this project. Using .env.example as an example.
  2. within anoncreds-smart-contracts-js: npm install
  3. within anoncreds-smart-contracts-js: use hardhat to run a local ledger in a seperate terminal: npx hardhat node
  4. within anoncreds-smart-contracts-js: use hardhat to deploy the AnoncredsRegistry contract to the local ledger: npx hardhat run --network localhost scripts/deploy.ts
  5. copy the deployed address into the REGISTRY_WETH_ADDRESS const of the anoncreds_eth_registry.rs file
  6. within eth-anoncreds-rust-demo: run the demo!: cargo run