The purpose of this ToIP This ToIP wiki page is to provide a single starting point for anyone who is new to the concept of Trust over IP and who wants to start with a high-level picture of the entire purpose and concept of the ToIP stack and the ToIP Foundation.
Currently the two best resources for starting this journey are:
- Introduction to ToIP white paper — this was the original white paper published for the launch of the ToIP Foundation in May 2020. It remains the single best overall introduction to the ToIP stack and the ToIP Foundation. The second generation version of this white paper is now being developed (#1 in the "Core Four" below).
- The Trust over IP Stack — this is the original Hyperledger Aries RFC that was first published in August 2019 to establish the overall definition of the ToIP stack. Note: even though many of the ideas for the architecture of the ToIP stack originated with Hyperledger Indy, Ursa, and Aries along together with the SSI identity model, the ToIP stack itself is not tied to any specific implementation, and is designed for global interoperability of decentralized digital trust infrastructure just like the TCP/IP stack is designed for global interoperability of data packet exchange regardless of implementation.
The "Core Four" (the Second Generation of the "Introduction to ToIP" Document Suite)
In late 2020, the ToIP Foundation identified four deliverables that would collectively take the place of the two documents above. Our goal is to have these four deliverables into public review in early Q4 2021. A graphic representation of these "Big Four" to the original two documents is shown below:
The four documents are:
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- To volunteer to work on this deliverable: Contact the White Paper Task Force of the Ecosystem Foundry Working Group.
- Recommended skills for working on this deliverable: Anyone who is interested in helping communicate the vision, mission, and work of the ToIP Foundation is welcome to contribute to this deliverable. Messaging, writing, illustrating, or presenting skills are helpful.
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- To volunteer to work on this deliverable: Contact either the Governance Stack WG or the Technology Stack WG, as this is a joint deliverable of both WGs.
- Recommended skills for working on this deliverable: Background in Internet infrastructure and architecture, especially at the protocol layers, and also on Internet, network, and/or blockchain governance and policymaking.
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- To volunteer to work on this deliverable: Contact the Technology Stack WG where this is currently a Working Draft deliverable.
- Recommended skills for working on this deliverable: Background in any technical discipline related to decentralized digital trust infrastructure.
The Introduction to ToIP White Paper
In December 2021, the ToIP Foundation finished a new white paper that provides a complete illustrated introduction to ToIP. We strongly suggest this as the best starting place to become acquainted with the core concepts of ToIP and the mission and work of the ToIP Foundation.
The ToIP Stack
At the very core of ToIP is the ToIP stack—a four-layer model for interoperable decentralized digital trust infrastructure. Below is a static picture of this stack, but the best way to learn about the stack is using this interactive model on the ToIP website.
Design Principles for the ToIP Stack
If you are intrigued by what you have read above, another resource that can help you understand ToIP at a deeper level is the Design Principles for the ToIP Stack. Produced through a series of community writing workshops held over four months in the fall of 2021, this 58-page document explains the 17 design principles guiding the development of the ToIP stack across all ToIP Foundation working groups and task forces.
Historical Documents
The concept of the ToIP stack originated with a group of Internet architects who were deeply involved with decentralized digital identity, sometimes called self-sovereign identity or SSI. These architects were convinced that the core concepts of decentralized digital wallets and credentials could be the basis for finally establishing an interoperable trust layer for the Internet that could address longstanding issues in cybersecurity, privacy, data protection, and digital trust. After developing a core design for the ToIP stack, they published an article called The Trust Over IP Stack in the December 2019 special issue of IEEE Communications Standards Magazine called The Dawn of the Internet Identity Layer and the Role of Decentralized Identity.
That article led to the publication of the overall requirements for ToIP in a Hyperledger document called The Trust Over IP Stack. That became the basis for the launch of the ToIP Foundation in May 2020 and the first version of the white paper called Introduction to ToIP, now superseded by Introduction to ToIP V2.0.
The diagram below is a visual depiction of the evolution of the original founding documents into the second generation of foundational documents now being published by the ToIP Foundation (sometimes referred to as the "core four").
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