VAPKI: A Blockchain-Based Identification System with Validation and Authentication

Abstract

The traditional public key infrastructure (PKI) issues certificates by trusted certification authority (CA). But due to the centralized structure of CA, it brings some problems, such as single-point failure, certificate opacity and so on. Another decentralized system web of trust (WOT) has a high access threshold. In addition, WOT cannot ensure the authenticity of users’ authentication because of lack of incentive, and it cannot authenticate the specific user identity. In this paper, we propose a new distributed identification system based on blockchain, called VAPKI. This system is implemented through smart contracts on Ethereum, which is transparent and immutable. Meanwhile, it can authenticate the fine-grained attributes of user identity and strengthen the authenticity of user identity through transparent authentication. In addition, VAPKI can identify the malicious user through the regular validation tasks (RVTs). In addition, it realizes the credit and deposit mechanism, ensuring users to be honest and trustworthy. This mechanism can also force users to authenticate strictly and punish malicious users found in RVTs.