---
id: "papers-decentralized-self-certifying-self-identifying-data"
type: "paper"
type_label: "Papers and paper collections"
title: "Decentralized Self-certifying Self-Identifing Data"
maintainer: "Samuel M. Smith"
authors:
  - "Samuel M. Smith"
date: "2017-10-27"
year: 2017
reading_level: "implementer"
reading_level_label: "Implementer"
reading_level_meaning: "developers working in or against the code"
evidence: "informative"
evidence_meaning: "an author's paper, deck, tutorial or post explaining the suite"
status: "quiet"
status_meaning: "no change in six to eighteen months; still correct"
access: "public"
access_meaning: "anyone with the link"
topics:
  - "history"
  - "theory"
  - "cryptography"
roles:
  - "developer"
  - "security-architect"
  - "researcher"
source_url: "https://github.com/SmithSamuelM/Papers/blob/master/whitepapers/SelfIdentifyingData.md"
source_license: null
source_license_note: null
found_on: "smith-papers"
kerisse_credit: false
abstract_license: "CC BY 4.0"
abstract_license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
abstract_attribution: "KSKB, the KERISuite Knowledge Base (https://kskb.dev/)"
last_checked: "2026-10-15"
kskb_url: "https://kskb.dev/cards/papers-decentralized-self-certifying-self-identifying-data/"
kskb_app_url: "https://kskb.dev/#item/papers-decentralized-self-certifying-self-identifying-data"
kskb_record_url: "https://kskb.dev/data/kskb/resources/papers-decentralized-self-certifying-self-identifying-data"
kskb_markdown_url: "https://kskb.dev/export/cards/papers-decentralized-self-certifying-self-identifying-data.md"
---

# Decentralized Self-certifying Self-Identifing Data

A 2017 white paper on representing data items that carry their own self-certifying decentralized identifier (DID) and signature, covering HTTP signature headers, change detection, intelligent defaults and the four R's of key management, including an early description of key pre-rotation. Predates KERI.

Labels: reading level Implementer; evidence informative (an author's paper, deck, tutorial or post explaining the suite).
Source: https://github.com/SmithSamuelM/Papers/blob/master/whitepapers/SelfIdentifyingData.md (license not recorded).
The abstract is KSKB's own text under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/; credit KSKB, the KERISuite Knowledge Base (https://kskb.dev/).