notes: research/papers/kerione-decentralized-autonomic-data-dad-and-the-three-rs

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research/papers/kerione-decentralized-autonomic-data-dad-and-the-three-rs Decentralized Autonomic Data (DAD) and the three R's of Key Management summary v0.1 — 2026-10-14: drafted by Claude from the PDF; unread by Mark; marked partner on Mark's word 2026-10-21, paraphrase only partner 568 # Decentralized Autonomic Data (DAD) and the three R's of Key Management **Abstract.** A Rebooting the Web of Trust VI (RWOT VI) white paper by Samuel M. Smith with Vishal Gupta (dated April 2018) that proposes decentralized autonomic data (DAD), self-identifying, self-certifying and self-securing data items tied to decentralized identifiers (DIDs), and sets out minimally sufficient methods for the three R's of key management: reproduction, rotation and recovery. Its basic pre-rotation scheme is an early form of the pre-rotation later used in Key Event Receipt Infrastructure (KERI). Written for implementers of identity and streaming-data systems. ## Summary The paper defines DAD as data whose governance may not sit with a single party and which manages itself cryptographically, so that trust in its provenance is diffuse. Key management therefore becomes a first-order property of the data. The motivating use is provenance for streaming data, such as measurements from distributed web or Internet of Things (IoT) applications, and self-sovereign reputation systems, where performance demands call for minimally sufficient mechanisms. The overview explains that a DID is self-certifying because it contains a public key or its fingerprint, and that a DID with its DID document (DDO) is a poor fit for streaming data if every item needs its own pair. The paper instead derives identifiers (derived DIDs, DDIDs) for each DAD from one root DID, so the items carry their own metadata. It gives the DID syntax used (a "dad" method with a Base64 encoded Ed25519 key) and a minimal DAD. The key management section names the three operations. Reproduction covers privacy and confidentiality, hierarchical deterministic key generation, change detection and on-the-fly DDIDs. Rotation introduces basic pre-rotation: the next signing key is declared at inception, and each rotation event propagates a new current key and pre-rotated key. It extends this to listed rotation key structures, multi-signature pre-rotation, collective signatures, DDID pre-rotation and replayability. Recovery discusses cryptographic strength, information-theoretic security, physical security, mnemonics, secret sharing and one-time pads, then proposes a hybrid method: a mnemonic seeds a cryptographic-strength pseudorandom number generator, whose one-time pad encrypts the key-rotation history. Several seed-recovery schemes are sketched. The summary describes the pre-rotation and hybrid recovery methods, including a hierarchically deterministic seed mnemonic, as somewhat novel. Appendices cover DAD signatures in HTTP headers, cryptographic suite representation, canonical data serialization and intelligent defaults. ## Key terms decentralized autonomic data (DAD), derived DID (DDID), DID document (DDO), self-certifying identifier, key reproduction, key rotation, key recovery, pre-rotation, inception event, hybrid key recovery ## Claims and their evidence - A DID is self-certifying because it includes a public key or a fingerprint of one. [informative] - One root DID with derived DIDs can manage many streaming data items without a DDO for each. [informative] - Declaring a pre-rotated next key at inception lets later rotation events propagate key control securely. [informative] - A mnemonic-seeded pseudorandom generator producing a one-time pad gives non-interactive key recovery whose strength depends on seed length. [informative] - The pre-rotation and hybrid recovery methods are somewhat novel. [informative] (the author's own characterization) ## Related A DID for Everything (RWOT VII); the KERI white paper (Key Event Receipt Infrastructure); Quantum Secure DIDs. ## Provenance Drafted by Claude on 2026-10-14 from the PDF (37 pages): the abstract, overview, key management introduction, basic pre-rotation, hybrid recovery and summary, with the section headings for the rest. The keri.one link was broken; the file read is https://github.com/SmithSamuelM/Papers/blob/master/whitepapers/DecentralizedAutonomicData.pdf. Not yet read by Mark.

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