I recall PHK's humble proposal for replacing cookies. Instead of the server sending cookies to the browser, the browser sends an ED25519 key, a "Browser Identity", to the server. Anything that the server wishes to personalize for that identity can be encrypted with the identity's key. At the same time, the browser user is free to choose whichever identity they like, including a fresh/nonce identity.
Right. The server knows a user by their identity key, not necessarily by the device that the key is on. Since keys are lightweight, synchronizing them across devices is akin to managing metadata.
Further, servers are free to keep private information on identities, with the understanding that identities are so flimsy that any single identity profile is not worth data-mining. This won't prevent tracking from truly big players, like Google, AWS, or Cloudflare, but it greatly cuts down on their ability.
This reminds me of moot's concept of prismatic identity.
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I recall PHK's humble proposal for replacing cookies. Instead of the server sending cookies to the browser, the browser sends an ED25519 key, a "Browser Identity", to the server. Anything that the server wishes to personalize for that identity can be encrypted with the identity's key. At the same time, the browser user is free to choose whichever identity they like, including a fresh/nonce identity.
Never trust anything from the client.
[1] https://research.kudelskisecurity.com/2017/10/04/defeating-e...
https://varnish-cache.org/docs/trunk/phk/http20.html
Oh, the intent is to share the key across devices, right?
Right. The server knows a user by their identity key, not necessarily by the device that the key is on. Since keys are lightweight, synchronizing them across devices is akin to managing metadata.
Further, servers are free to keep private information on identities, with the understanding that identities are so flimsy that any single identity profile is not worth data-mining. This won't prevent tracking from truly big players, like Google, AWS, or Cloudflare, but it greatly cuts down on their ability.
This reminds me of moot's concept of prismatic identity.