Introducing the concept of Personal Cluster Authentication (PCA)
Here’s our approach at Clic.World to add a non-technical security layer.
To understand this, first a bit of background and context around the basic principle behind the Clic.World eco-system.
(To get a better understanding I would also recommend reading the eSACCO ICO Prospectus here - https://esacco.co.ug/index/details/launch/)
In short, Clic.World are busy building an eco-system of social financial clusters based on the traditional savings and credit cooperative model that is found all over Africa and in many other developing economies.
The basis of these clusters is the joint management of their finances by a group of people, based on mutual trust, with the financial rewards shared by the group.
(Side note - the reality of the so called “unbanked” and “financial excluded” sectors of the emerging economic world is that the sector does in fact have very organized social financial structures that have survived many obstacles in the past due to being social in nature. It may not be “traditionally” banked as in developed countries - and while primitive and unsophisticated and open to abuse - it does exist and having survived wars, genocides and natural disasters, are handling more money in most countries than the “traditional” banks by a large margin!)
In these trust based clusters we found for instance that loan default rates are very low, less than 2% is common and this include asset funding and trade financing for merchants.
Clic.World provides a modern fully integrated micro banking platform to enable theses clusters to provide a seamless and transparent financial service to their members and across the wider ecosystem at a low to no cost, while building revenue streams that will turn financial services from a cost to an income.
Its against this background that we are introducing the concept of Personal Cluster Authentication (PCA). We are planning to use it across a number of areas in the eco-system in conjuction with the Stellar based OneClic ID function and will provide a more detailed write-up in the weeks ahead. Using it with the eSACCO Plus Stellar investment wallet is the first use case and we are learning a lot.
Here’s a summary of what PCA is:- (See multi sig matrix at the bottom)
- Personal Cluster Authentication (PCA) is an enhancement over traditional 2FA (2 Factor Authentication) - which have either serious flaws (sms) or are expensive to implement - by using a person’s existing “real life” relationships as authentication for any changes to their digital identity or for specific transaction authorizations.
- To enable PCA a user designate up to 4 of their OneClic ID relationships as authenticators, which will act as Primary Authenticators.
- Where the user has been designated as an authenticator by another user, other than his Primary authenticators, that user will act as Secondary authenticator. The Primary and Secondary authenticators form the Relationship Authentication Cluster (RAC) for the user.
- Authentication actions in the RAC can be set with different levels and authentication thresholds using a combination of Primary and/or Secondary authenticators.
- Authenticators will receive an authentication message; users typically will then call the originator to confirm and then approve by entering their passphrase which will sign the message with their private key, or they can arrange for any other form of verification between themselves to ensure the request is authentic.
- The user will pay a small fee (in CLIC’s) for each authentication to reward authenticators.
We are busy incorporating a second Stellar Investment account into the eSACCO Plus application, in addition to the one used as an operating account as part of the digital wallet. The idea is that you only keep a small amount of Stellar assets in the operating account and the rest of your wealth in the investment account where PCA authentication (Default) is mandatory. For the operating account PCA authentication is optional but it will not have the Clic.World escrow signing facility. We believe that 3rd party escrow service (like we see in OpenBazaar for example) will be more practical for escrow related to trading in the operating account in the future.
The Clic escrow signing facility in the investment account serves two purposes - 1) as an additional security layer and 2) as a facilitator to allow the Stellar assets to be used as security against a loan. (Before Clic.World sign it checks is there’s any outstanding loans against the Stellar assets)
I trust this gives you an idea of where we are going and look forward to more constructive discussions around this topic as we are all pushing to take Stellar from the current largely technical communities to mainstream users.
PCA Security Levels Default Pro Vault
Signing Weights
Master Key 10 9 8
Clic.World Escrow Signer 5 5 5
PCA 1 Signer 1 1 1
PCA 2 Signer 0 1 1
PCA 3 Signer 0 0 1
PCA 4 Signer - - -
Low Threshold 10 9 8
Medium Threshold 16 16 16
High Threshold 15 14 13
Escrow time delay option 0 6 24 (hours)
Looking forward to your comments.....
