EOS Hot Sauce #18

In the internet of today, fake users, fake comments and bots are plaguing most social media platforms. It’s making it impossible for real users to distinguish between real conversations and astroturfing sponsored by malicious actors.  On June 1st, Block.one introduced the Voice platform that promised to address this problem by only allowing real people to use the platform. However, the process of how the uniqueness of identity could be proven, at least without using government-issued documents, was still vague.

Last week, Zak Gall from Everything EOS made an interesting discovery when he found a patent recently secured by Block.one, which is labeled “System and methods for creating a secure digital identity.” The patent is quite the intricate read, so we’d like to explain some of the features that have us excited about what’s coming!

Let’s start with a twitter message Dan Larimer himself posted shortly after the news broke: “The idea behind our identity patent is to use proof of co-location, and relationships over time to secure and recover identity with publicly auditable data to verify uniqueness and then to reward people for doing the work.”

“Proof of Co-location” means that 2 unique people prove that they are in the same place at the same time by taking a picture with both of them in it, each with their own mobile phone that is linked to their identity. The uniqueness of the device can be ensured by a key stored on a chip within the phone that can’t be changed or moved. On the iPhone, this feature is known as the “Secure Enclave.” Other manufacturers might have a different name, but the idea is the same. The patent also mentions an app that is used to take the photo, but potentially also other specific features such as a soundscape, biometrics or surrounding networks.

The fact that the “proof of co-location” can only be established with data generated from a specific app would also prevent deep fakes, which are altered pictures or videos used for faking an identity. Another interesting aspect of Dan’s Twitter quote is that he mentions rewards, giving us a hint as to where this is going. What makes us unique are our relationships to our friends and family, and this patent leverages that in order to prove that users are real. Creating a decentralized database of unique relations of people each vouching for each other is highly valuable and this value could be paid back to each participant based on their contribution to growing this database. It’s a very interesting and innovative approach that combines humans and the uniqueness of the devices that we use to interact with the digital world. If you want to learn more about this, check out the videos from Everything EOS and Colin Talks Crypto linked below.

Mobile phones play an important factor, and wallet applications are becoming more and more advanced in secure key storage and authentication of transacting parties. To help developers on that front, Block.one released the “Android Keystore Plugin for the Java EOSIO SDK.” A solution for iOS-based products, leveraging the above mentioned secure enclave, was released earlier this year.

While these solutions are great for end-users, on an enterprise level, key security and management can be even more advanced as introduced by Remme. They built their own ecosystem on an EOSIO based chain and had the honour of being recently feature by Block.one in their #builtonEOSIO series. There are already several pilots that utilize Remme Protocol, one of which is a blockchain-based customer authentication project for a Fortune 500 automotive manufacturer.

On a more personal and less technological note, Brendan Blumer was responding to some frustrated investors on Telegram, assuring that all the pieces they are working on will fall into place, but also showing appreciation for the patience within the community.

We also met a couple of Block.One employees in Block.one’s video series last week.

Block.one identity patent

Everything EOS video

Colin Talks Crypto video

Android Keystore Plugin for the Java EOSIO SKD

Remme #builtonEOSIO feature

Brendan Blumer tweet

Meeting Block.one employees