DBIS

In our efforts to support heterogeneous communities with the tools and structures they need, we developed our flagship peer-to-peer community platform las2peer. In our latest research efforts we developed a decentralized service registry and discovery system for las2peer, based on Blockchain technology. This allows to securely trace and verify the origin of a service and its developer, and allows users to browse through available services in the network. For logging in to both las2peer and also for authentication on the Blockchain, we make use of the OpenId Connect standard. Recently, two new standards were released / are about to be released, that take Web authentication to a new level of quality regarding safety and user-friendliness. The Decentralized Identity Foundation focuses on building an open, standards-based decentralized identity management and the WebAuthn standard implements new ways of authenticating without passwords, e.g. via facial scanners or fingerprint sensors.

The goal of this thesis is the development of a secure and user-friendly authentication system for las2peer. Conceptually, it should be build on / support the aforementioned existing features of las2peer, namely the blockchain-based verification system and the OpenId Connect standard. Technically, these two systems should be integrated within a modern Web authentication flow, supporting the WebAuthn standard and integrating Decentralized Identifiers. The resulting implementation should be fully compatible with existing authentication scenarios of las2peer and provide users with an optional extra layer of security.

If you are interested in this thesis, please do not hesitate to send a message to lange@dbis.rwth-aachen.de.