I’m Dick Hardt[1]. Over the last twenty years, I’ve led the design of identity standards (OAuth 2.0, JWT) and systems that you and billions of others use every day.[2]
You know that these systems don’t always work in your favor. Each is bespoke and most, if not all, of your identity is locked up in these silos. I called this out in my Identity 2.0 OSCON talk in 2005 where I popularized a user-centric identity vision.[3]
Unfortunately, we have failed to realize the vision of user-centric identity: of giving you control of your identity. We have far too many passwords. Identity theft is rampant. Online interactions are either tedious or risky. In short, internet identity is a disaster today.
Most proposals today to give you control of your identity require you, your applications, and the issuers of claims about you (such as your bank or government), to adopt a new technology - a three-sided cold start problem.
I founded Hellō to take a different approach -- an abstraction layer that lets you use the technology and identity you already have -- that’s operated by a not-for-profit co-operative.
The Hellō journey did not start with building a product -- it started with exploring how to resolve the risks of a central service, and finding organizations aligned on the vision. Once three industry-leading organizations joined as founding corporate members of the co-operative, we built and tested our PoC, our MVP, and then our developer console.
Hellō is available for you to use today. We have a demo at https://greenfielddemo.com. Several apps use Hellō today, and many are exploring adoption. If you are building a new app, you can tick off most of your identity tasks in a few hours if you use Hellō. Details at https://hello.dev
We’d love feedback on your experience.
In contrast to other identity service offerings, Hellō does not help the developer manage and store user data -- Hellō helps the user manage their data and share it with the developer.
The Hellō business model is to charge (in the future) an interchange fee of a few pennies for each new verified claim the user releases to the application. There is no MAU fee. No fee for authentication. No fee for users. No fee for issuers.
The blockchain aspect is not supposed to get you excited. :)
As a co-operative we don't have equity to sell for financing. Tokens enable us to separate ROI from governance, and many investors are willing to invest in tokens.
As a developer or user, the blockchain aspect is hopefully irrelevant.
I’m Dick Hardt[1]. Over the last twenty years, I’ve led the design of identity standards (OAuth 2.0, JWT) and systems that you and billions of others use every day.[2]
You know that these systems don’t always work in your favor. Each is bespoke and most, if not all, of your identity is locked up in these silos. I called this out in my Identity 2.0 OSCON talk in 2005 where I popularized a user-centric identity vision.[3]
Unfortunately, we have failed to realize the vision of user-centric identity: of giving you control of your identity. We have far too many passwords. Identity theft is rampant. Online interactions are either tedious or risky. In short, internet identity is a disaster today.
Most proposals today to give you control of your identity require you, your applications, and the issuers of claims about you (such as your bank or government), to adopt a new technology - a three-sided cold start problem.
I founded Hellō to take a different approach -- an abstraction layer that lets you use the technology and identity you already have -- that’s operated by a not-for-profit co-operative.
The Hellō journey did not start with building a product -- it started with exploring how to resolve the risks of a central service, and finding organizations aligned on the vision. Once three industry-leading organizations joined as founding corporate members of the co-operative, we built and tested our PoC, our MVP, and then our developer console.
Hellō is available for you to use today. We have a demo at https://greenfielddemo.com. Several apps use Hellō today, and many are exploring adoption. If you are building a new app, you can tick off most of your identity tasks in a few hours if you use Hellō. Details at https://hello.dev
We’d love feedback on your experience.
In contrast to other identity service offerings, Hellō does not help the developer manage and store user data -- Hellō helps the user manage their data and share it with the developer. The Hellō business model is to charge (in the future) an interchange fee of a few pennies for each new verified claim the user releases to the application. There is no MAU fee. No fee for authentication. No fee for users. No fee for issuers.
We expect you have more questions.
https://www.hello.coop/pages/approach.html describes:
- Our approach
- How the cooperative works
- How we’ll fund Hellō with smart contracts
- Our guiding tenets
- How we protect people’s privacy
- Our architecture
Thanks for reading and trying! Please share your questions, impressions, criticisms, and requests!
Want a more personal interaction? I am hosting an AMA on Twitter Space later today (Wed Oct 12) from 4-5PM PT.
https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1LyxBqvnmAyJN
You can also email me dick.hardt@hello.coop
[1] https://www.linkedin.com/in/dickhardt/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Hardt https://twitter.com/DickHardt
[2] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6749, https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6750, https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-oauth-v2-1/
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrpajcAgR1E