In the Enigma’s own words:

“Enigma is using groundbreaking privacy technologies to build the first platform for scalable, end-to-end decentralized applications.”  

“A peer-to-peer network, enabling different parties to jointly store and run computations on data while keeping the data completely private.”

Key contact points for Enigma:

• Enigma
• @EnigmaMPC
• Enigma Protocol
• Enigma Test-net
• Enigma blog
• Research Papers
  • Decentralizing Privacy: Using Blockchain to Protect Personal Data
  • Enigma: Decentralized Computation Platform with Guaranteed Privacy
• Catalyst – Catalyst is the world’s leading platform for data-driven cryptoasset trading and investment.

Some of the key components that Enigma is offering:

Thanks again for visiting The Stack Cafe^TM and we look forward to hearing from you.

Please help us put out the word on Web^3.0 and the blockchain stack by posting a comment below and signing up for e-mail notifications for future updates (right side-bar).  Let’s help build the new internet | The Decentralized Way^TM.  A decentralized internet | The Way The Future^TM.

The post Enigma is presenting a permission-less peer-to-peer network that provides a smart-contract platform appeared first on The Stack Cafe™.

In the Oasis Labs own words:

Oasis is “building a new computing platform that enables cloud-scale, real-world applications with decentralized trust and privacy protection…”

Key contact points for Oasis Labs (including Keystone and RISC-V):

• Oasis Labs
• @OasisLabs
• Ekiden paper (blockchain platform)
• Keystone
• RISC-V
  • @risc_v

Some of the key components that Oasis Labs is offering:

• Privacy-preserving smart contracts (security and privacy)
• High-performance for real-world complex applications
• Rich programming framework support such as privacy-preserving machine learning within smart contracts on our platform

Oasis Labs new blockchain platform is called Ekiden.  Ekiden is a platform/system that can use any desired underlying blockchain system (permissioned or permissionless) with TEE (trusted execution environment) based execution (See Keystone and RISC-V below for enhanced open source options on TEE based execution and open source) which is anchored cryptographically.  Eikden also appears to be agnostic to consensus layer mechanics (only need blockchain compute nodes) and can scale consensus and compute nodes independently based on the need (performance & security).

As touched on above, Oasis Labs has structured its platform so it is not locked into the use of proprietary hardware (e.g., TEE like Intel SGX).  Apparently, Oasis Labs Ekiden platform is exploring some open source projects to use in its product (the trusted hardware and attestation aspects e.g. trusted execution environment hardware like Intel SGX).  The open source projects mentioned in the Ekiden platform and most likely might be available to use with Ekiden are called Keystone and RISC-V.  

Keystone is an open-source project for building trusted execution environments (TEE) with secure hardware enclaves, based on the RISC-V architecture. Our goal is to build a secure and trustworthy open-source secure hardware enclave, accessible to everyone in industry and academia.

RISC-V is an open instruction set architecture (ISA) based on established reduced instruction set computing (RISC) principles.

In other words, instead of only being able to use Intel SGX (tee architecture), Oasis Labs does state that any comparable TEE with attestation capabilities could be used e.g., Keystone, RISC-V.  By using Open source projects and potential incorporation into Ekiden, Oasis Labs has opened the door to a more robust and resilient architecture for its blockchain stack.

Thanks again for visiting The Stack Cafe^TM and we look forward to hearing from you.

Please help us put out the word on Web^3.0 and the blockchain stack by posting a comment below and signing up for e-mail notifications for future updates (right side-bar).  Let’s help build the new internet | The Decentralized Way^TM.  A decentralized internet | The Way The Future^TM.

The post Oasis Labs is an interesting new project in the blockchain stack.   appeared first on The Stack Cafe™.

FreedomBox, a personal server that appears to be built to securely host all of your data and protects against data mining, surveillance, and cyberattacks.  This looks like a very interesting project and we are going to take a deeper look.  As we explore more about FreedomBox, we hope to provide updates as appropriate.

FreedomBox lays it out this way: “FreedomBox is designed to be your own inexpensive server at home. It runs free software and offers an increasing number of services ranging from a calendar or jabber server to a wiki or VPN. Our web interface allows you to easily install and configure your apps. Be your own host!”

FreedomBox

• free open source software coupled with a single board computer, virtual machines, Debian…)
  
• is a collaborative effort 
• to help regain control and privacy in the digital world
  
• the vision is to use free software running on cheap hardware to replace services that are not under our control
• today’s cost of CPU power and network bandwidth make hosting your own services affordable
• built on top of Debian GNU/Linux
• the easy to use administration tool
• is a simple system that installs onto your single-board computer
  • plug it into your home network
  • A web interface acts as the central hub
    • offering one-click installs and simple configuration of apps and services
    • it functions as a Wi-Fi access point
      • FreedomBox also comes with numerous apps and services built-in
        • an anonymity network (e.g., believe this is the Tor network)
          
        • encrypted messaging
        • voice calls
        • a privacy-defending VPN
        • an ad-blocker
        • an address book
        • calendering
        • a blogging platform
        • decentralized application for chat

As a private server, FreedomBox securely hosts all of your data and protects against data mining, surveillance, and cyberattacks.

FreedomBox – some highlighted features

FreedomBox video setup

FreedomBox Debian and features, system and applications

We have not tried out the FreedomBox but we are going to give it a go.  Perhaps, it might be a complement to some other platforms of the decentralized world e.g, ethereum, ipfs, blockstack or others… Once we have a FreedomBox up and running, we will try and give some more insight about the same.

Caveat: Blockstack Tor integration – It does appear that Blockstack engineer, Mr. Jude Nelson, has done some coding in connection with integrating Tor and Blockstack.  Perhaps this software might be used in connection with FreedomBox (uses an anonymity network (e.g., believe this is the Tor network)).  The best links for these repositories are here and here.  We hope to follow-up with some more information on how this might work with the FreedomBox, if at all.

FreedomBox was brought to us by many open source contributors.  But, the seed for the idea is brought to us by Eben Moglen.  Mr. Moglen is a Professor of Law, Columbia Law School and Founding Director, Software Freedom Law Center.  He is a crusader of open source, privacy and security concerns for activists, journalists, businesses, and even ordinary people worldwide.  Thanks Mr. Moglen.

Resources for FreedomBox

• Freedom Box
• Debian and Freedom Box
  • FAQ
  • Features
  • Support

Please help us put out the word on Web^{3.0 TM} by posting a comment below and signing up for e-mail notifications for future updates (right side-bar).  We are not affiliated with any of the above. We hope this information is helpful.

Let’s help build the new internet | The Decentralized Way^TM.  A decentralized internet | The Way The Future^TM.  Web^{3.0 TM} makes the internet you use better! ^TM

Thanks again for visiting The Stack Cafe^TM and we look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks again, The Stack Cafe.

The post FreedomBox – the Personal Server that protects your privacy with free open source software appeared first on The Stack Cafe™.

In an earlier post, we wrote about the resources from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and many other organization (e.g., Princeton, Stanford, Ghostery, Mozilla and others) that you may find useful in helping to protect your online privacy when you use the internet.

In the internet of today, online privacy and the control of identity, security and privacy are hard to come by. Some solutions to the online privacy problems are taking shape today.

And, it does not hurt to also use some of the resources shown below to further help you protect your online privacy. Remember, if you do not like the online privacy practices of the company, service or application you are using, you can always stop using it.

We are currently trying out some these tools (look at the top right corner of the screenshots and you can see some of the icons in use – e.g. ghostery…) and have enjoyed using them and the information each provides. The more information we can obtain (and control) on what is going on behind the scenes with the websites we visit and the information each is trying to get from us, the better off we think we are.

One of the tools from EFF – Surveillance Self-Defense – is highlighted below with a screenshot and a brief overview for your review.  We hope you find this information helpful.

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

• Website
• Twitter

EFF – Surveillance Self-Defense: Tools, Tips and To-dos for safer online communications

The guide is to be used to help you protect yourself from online spying.  We have provided some additional screenshots from the SSD guide for your review.  We hope you find this information helpful.

Who is the guide for?

What is this guide meant to do?

Popular guides

Index to SSD – many other tools and articles from encryption, phishing, passwords and many other resources from EFF.  To learn more about protecting yourself while online, go check out some of these resources from EFF.

Please help us put out the word on Web^{3.0 TM} by posting a comment below and signing up for e-mail notifications for future updates (right side-bar).  We are not affiliated with any of the above. We hope this information is helpful.

Let’s help build the new internet | The Decentralized Way^TM.  A decentralized internet | The Way The Future^TM.  Web^{3.0 TM} makes the internet you use better! ^TM

Thanks again for visiting The Stack Cafe^TM and we look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks again, The Stack Cafe.

The post Online Privacy: Website Tools That May Help Protect You While You Use the Internet – Surveillance Self Defense. appeared first on The Stack Cafe™.