Mirror Presence: Secure Web Identity Resolution and Call Control for WebRTC

Abstract

Identity resolution is a critical component in any real-time communication system, including WebRTC that relies on Web identities. The difficulty with Web identity resolution is that there is no uniform Web identity scheme and current Web identity schemes decouple Web identities and Web locations. To address this problem for WebRTC without introducing a central authority, we present a secure personal Web identity resolution framework, mirror presence, to dynamically map a user's Web identity to Web locations while the user can move between Web locations. The system is agnostic to Web identity schemes, and it consists of 3 layers of Web protocols and services: 1) bilateral authorization based on OAuth 2.0; 2) Web identity binding based on presence subscription and notification; 3) presence driven call routing and pickup protocols. Each layer of the system can be controlled by users based on security, privacy, and personal preferences. A prototype mirror presence system has been implemented, and experimental results indicated that the approach is feasible and the performance is satisfactory.