Web Identity Restart?

Well, how can you restart something that never started? ... Never mind.

I am wondering whether it makes sense to have a W3C workshop on "Internet Identity" again. http://www.w3.org/2011/identity-ws/

My impression in 2011 was that the common ground was not very broad so the group decided to launch the W3C WebCrypto working group because all agreed that crypto is a precondition to web identity. Now, three years later I do not see much progress in web crypto or web identity (for that matter).

In the meantime the FIDO alliance was established which has HW-based authentication but a license model that requires that implementers are a FIDO alliance member. That is the opposite of a web standard.

So I think that the WebCrypto WG will not give us "identity for the web". Signing/verification/encryption/decryption are too low level and too easy to use wrong. This is not the way to web identity.

Maybe it is time to restart the web identity effort in W3C.