Chapter Four: Managing Your XIDs
Chapters Two and Three demonstrated a constant tension in the use of XIDs: do you want to detach content from your XID or do you want to embed it? On the one hand, you want to collect as much content together as possible to anchor your pseudonymous identity, but on the other hand you want to keep your XID clean and accessible.
This chapter returns to that tension one more time by demonstrating how two different users individually decide to maintain a contract: one with an edge that references the contract and one with a markdown file totally separate from their XID. But then it digs deeper by discussing how XIDs can later be elided or even have content removed from them.
Major Objectives for this Chapter
After working through this chapter, a developer will be able to:
- Sign contracts with a XID.
- Incorporate complex data into a XID with commitments.
- Use commitments to preserve herd privacy.
- Create views of a XID to preserve privacy and accessibility.
- Create editions of a XID to update or redact information.
Supporting objectives include the ability to:
- Know the power of hashing.
- Understand the advantages of creating views versus editions.
- Understand the power of revocation.