In April I entered (and won!) the NuCypher+CoinList hackathon. I didn’t actually know much about the NuCypher tech before I got started but once I had built my DApp it was clear this is really interesting stuff and it’s stuck with me ever since as something interesting to build on.
Proxy Re-encryption
The NuCypher solution will eventually provide a decentralised privacy infrastructure but during the hackathon I was mainly making use of a subset of the tech, Proxy Re-encryption.
Proxy re-encryption is a set of encryption algorithms that allow you to transform encrypted data. Specifically… it allows you to re-encrypt data — so you have data that’s encrypted under one set of keys, you can re-encrypt the data without de-encrypting it first, so that now it’s encrypted under a second, different set of keys —NuCypher co-founder MacLane Wilkison
So What?
To understand why this is pretty awesome imagine I have some encrypted data I want to share with Bob, what are the options to do this?
Crazy way – I just give me private encryption key to Bob (who I’m sharing the data with) who can use it to decrypt the data. But now Bob has my key and who knows where this ends up.
Inefficient way – I decrypt the encrypted data then rencrypt it using Bobs public key. This is more secure for sure but I have to do a lot more work. What if I have to do this many times? What if the encrypted data is stored and accessed over a network? Hows the information all being shared? Intensive!
How about the Proxy Re-encryption way:
With Proxy Re-encryption I encrypt the data once.
The encrypted data can be stored anywhere — Amazon, Dropbox, IPFS, etc. I only need to upload it once and provide access to the Proxy service (eventually this will be a NuCypher decentralised service)
The Proxy can rencrypt the data for anyone else I choose (provided I have their public key) efficiently and without ever having access to the decrypted data.
Bob decrypts the data using his own key and resources.
If the data I’m sharing is a stream, i.e. a Twitter feed, then I can enable/revoke decryption access whenever I want — i.e. I can stop someone seeing the data.
NuCypher will eventually provide a decentralised privacy infrastructure which will replace a centralized proxy with a decentralized network. A really good overview of the NuCypher solution is here.
Combine all this with decentralised smart contract as a source of access — very cool!
My DApp — thisfeedisalwaysforsale
My DApp was innspired by Simon de la Rouvieres This Artwork Is Always On Sale where he implements a Harberger Tax on the ownership of a digital artwork. In my app, instead of an artwork, access to a feed of data is always for sale. NuCypher is used to encrypt the data and only the current Patron can decrypt (using NuCypher) to get access. Anyone can buy this access from the current Patron for the sale price set when they took ownership. Whilst they hold ownership they pay a 5% fee to the feed owner. In the demo app the data is a Twitter like feed but the concept could be extended to have more than one Patron and could also be used for other kinds of feed data such as sensor data, camera/video feeds, music, etc.
I was super happy to get a mention in Token Economy as Stefanos favourite entry!
