The Wired's social protocol provides an application-agnostic self-hostable base layer for user identity and data storage.
Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) provide a globally unique namespace for users within The Wired.
DIDs are a generic format for addressing content that can be extended to support
any protocol. For example, did:web
can be used to address content using a traditional web URL, while
did:ipid can be used to address
content over IPFS.
Each DID resolves to a JSON document containing information such as the user's name, cryptographic keys that can be used to verify their identity, servers to contact them at, and anything else they want to store.
A DID host is a server that remotely hosts a DID and provides convenient access
to it. For example, the server may use a method like did:web and host your DID
document at a web domain.
You could then log in to the server with a typical login method - such as a username and password or OAuth connection - then receive session keys which can be used to verify your ownership of the hosted DID to other parties. This allows you to use DIDs with the convienance of traditional app logins.
Running your own DID host server is a great first step towards self-sovereignity within The Wired.
Decentralized Web Nodes (DWNs) are the data layer of The Wired. DWNs build upon DIDs to store user data and provide an API for others to interact with it. These interactions could be a simple read to view data hosted by the user, or more complex writes to add comments or send encrypted messages.
DWNs are built using CRDTs that sync their data with other DWNs. This allows you to, for example, make use of a public cloud-hosted DWN, while at the same time running your own local DWN to keep a backup of your data.
The Wired is decentralized.
There is no central registry of users - a user cannot be "banned" from The Wired. Same with any content within The Wired - files can be hosted and shared by anyone. That's just the internet.
However specific services (websites, worlds, APIs) can and WILL moderate as necessary - but like the Web, users will always have the option of moving to a different service they are not banned from (or running their own).