Source Known Identifiers: A Three-Tier Identity System for Distributed Applications
A new three-tier identity system embeds timestamps, topology, and verification into compact 8-byte keys.
Researcher Duran Serkan Kılıç has proposed Source Known Identifiers (SKIDs), a novel three-tier identity system designed to solve six persistent challenges in distributed applications. Based on a literature survey finding no existing scheme addresses all requirements, SKIDs provide storage efficiency (8-byte primary keys), chronological sortability, origin metadata embedding, zero-lookup verifiability, confidentiality for external consumers, and multi-century addressability within a unified framework.
The system's first tier, the 64-bit Source Known ID (SKID), embeds a timestamp with 250-millisecond precision, application topology, and a sequence counter, serving as an optimized database key. The second tier extends this to a 128-bit Source Known Entity ID (SKEID) with a BLAKE3 keyed MAC for zero-lookup verification of origin and integrity. The third tier, Secure SKEID, applies AES-256 encryption while maintaining UUID compatibility, allowing identifiers to function across different trust boundaries while preserving their core properties.
This architecture enables deterministic bidirectional transformations between all three tiers, meaning applications can seamlessly convert between compact database keys, verifiable UUIDs, and encrypted external identifiers. The system's design preserves chronological ordering even in string representations, addressing practical concerns for database indexing and distributed system coordination that existing identifier schemes like standard UUIDs fail to solve comprehensively.
- Solves six identifier challenges: storage efficiency (8 bytes), sortability, metadata, verification, confidentiality, and longevity
- Three-tier design: 64-bit SKID for databases, 128-bit SKEID with BLAKE3 MAC for verification, AES-256 encrypted Secure SKEID for external use
- Maintains UUID compatibility while embedding timestamps, topology, and sequence data for zero-lookup origin verification
Why It Matters
Provides a unified identifier system for distributed databases and microservices, eliminating trade-offs between performance, security, and verifiability.