The docs indicate that in the IDs page of the Blockstack browser, I can “create additional, sub identities”. I have a couple of questions:
Do sub-identities provide meaningful isolation for the use-case of separate pseudonyms for privacy? That is, can anyone other than me determine that two sub-identities under my identity are connected to each other and/or my main identity?
How do I create sub-identities? I don’t see any button for that in the IDs page. Is this implemented yet? Am I missing something really obvious?
Yes, they are isolated from one another. In the implementation, each sub-identity is owned by a BIP32 hardened child private key from your seed, so no one can tell that any set of your sub-identities are related without learning your private keys first. See the BIP32 docs for details on how this works.
It’s there – you have to click IDs, then More, then Add another ID.
I have a followup question: is there any relatively straightforward way to get an independent name.id identity that is neither a sub-identity of an existing identity nor in the blockstack.id namespace?
I see in the Add another ID interface there’s an option to pay a little Bitcoin for a sub-identity in the .id top-level namespace.
There’s some outdated advice out there saying that onename.com sells name.id identities, but…
onename.com just directs visitors to Blockstack now.
The Blockstack browser sign-up page (when you’re not signed in to an existing identity) offers only name.blockstack.id, no option to pay and get name.id instead.
@Atheri Onename is an old name for Blockstack — it is no longer a route you can take.
You can add another name.id that is not a sub-identity with the blockstack-cli command line. How easy that is depends on your own experience with the command line.