
Oasis Labs: privacy-first high-performance cloud computing on blockchain - ryscheng
https://www.oasislabs.com/blog/
======
berberous
This article has more details: [https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/09/distributed-
ledgeroasis-la...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/09/distributed-ledgeroasis-
labs/)

Some highlights from the article are below. Seems like a smart team tackling
interesting problems, but as with most projects in this space, raising crazy
amounts of money way too early.

1\. Raised $45 million (!) in pre-sale financing.

2\. 'Song says that her project has solved the scaling problem by separating
execution from consensus.

“For each smart contract execution, we randomly select a subset of the
computation nodes to form a computation committee, using a proof of stake
mechanism. The computation committee executes the smart contract transaction,”
Song wrote in an email exchange with TechCrunch. “The consensus committee then
verifies the correctness of the computation results from the computation
committee. We use different mathematical and cryptographic methods to enable
efficient verification of the correctness of the computation results. Once the
verification succeeds, the state transition is committed to the distributed
ledger by the consensus committee.”

By having the computation committee working in parallel with the consensus
committee only needing to verify the correctness of the computation creates an
easier path to scalability.'

~~~
trhway
>we randomly select a subset of the computation nodes to form a computation
committee, using a proof of stake mechanism.

who is that "we" who "selects" and what is the source of randomness (i.e.
distributed verifiable randomness)? For example, in Satoshi PoW that PoW
itself is such a verifiable source of randomness which thus does the
"selection".

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Ar-Curunir
The research is from Dawn Song's lab, and she's a established research that
has _founded_ entire subfields of computer security.

The blockchain space is often full of scams, but you can usually trust stuff
backed by academic papers from established folks.

~~~
jesseb
I have no stake in this whatsoever, I just have some questions that maybe you
(or somebody else) can answer, as I'm finding myself agreeing with the parent
post.

\- What does blockchain have to do with HPC? What advantages does this give me
versus current solutions?

\- If I was concerned of the privacy of my data, why would I put it on an
unproven, public, immutable ledger? We all know what can happen when even
minor bugs rear their heads in these types of applications.

\- Where does machine learning come into the equation?

\- Why would I want to use this rather than AWS/GCE/etc.?

I guess really what I'm asking is, what problem is this solving? Just curious
:)

~~~
Ar-Curunir
The problem is combining multiple people's data for use in ML, and also
establishing provenance of different data sets; existing solutions would
reveal privacy completely in these use cases.

------
josh2600
I think this is exciting. I'm curious whether Oasis is still using SGX in
their design (the Ekiden paper seems to be super SGX focused but I'm unclear
as to whether they have moved away from this).

Dawn is super smart so it's hard to bet against her.

Edit: Oh maybe they're using some ZK stuff now: "Our platform achieves
scalability and integrity with its novel architecture and protocol design,
without relying on any trusted hardware or central party. "

~~~
cbsmith
Didn't even notice Dawn was running this. Well okay then.

~~~
josh2600
Dawn is serious. I am super intrigued as to what she might be running to
achieve her stated goals (I'd be super curious if she's got a new ZK algo up
her sleeve :D).

~~~
cbsmith
Even crazier would be some effective employment of homomorphic crypto, but
that's when you start believing in unicorns, right?

------
lifo
How is this different from Enigma, [https://enigma.co](https://enigma.co),
which originated at MIT a few years back and did an ICO last year? Enigma
already has TEE (they have Intel partnership for that) and sMPC is coming up.

------
josh2600
[https://www.crowdcast.io/e/hacksummit-2018/12](https://www.crowdcast.io/e/hacksummit-2018/12)
<< I think they're doing SGX, but it's hard to tell.

------
vorpalhex
> With its unique combination of capabilities, our platform aims to enable
> true innovations and new applications that could not be built before. It is
> designed to help users leverage and reclaim control of their data, and
> enable frictionless collaboration between mutually distrusting parties for
> greater societal good–all without relying on any central party.

Vague claims to solve the probably-unsolvable - Check.

> Privacy-preserving smart contracts

Heavy Buzzwords - Check

> privacy-preserving machine learning within smart contracts on our platform

Vague mention of ML - Check

My skepticism is at max here. This is awfully light on any kind of even vague
detail and is super dense on meaningless buzzwords. They link out to their own
previous research - which isn't by itself bad but isn't exactly trust
enhancing either. Their staff seems to be all colleagues from previous
research work.

~~~
dmix
But, but they have "deep roots in academia and extensive experience in
entrepreneurship" and are here to bring us to a "new computing paradigm".

Where do I sign up?

------
marenkay
I really wonder what their actual product is.

In the end cloud computing on the blockchain would make cloud computing overly
complex with little to no visible benefit. Compute resources in reality are
simple as hell, privacy is always first if that is your policy. But privacy
comes from process and tech is just a tiny tool for it.

Frankly, this so far presents not a single hint of a usable product and reads
like some people trying to cash out with questionable buzz.

Remember: scientific papers are usually a polar opposite to actual
implementations.

Think Kubernetes as presented vs. actually running it.

------
tCfD
Any blockchain scaling problem can be solved by creating a blockchain
centralization problem.

------
nawgszy
No comment on the software itself, but man, that is one buzz-word filled
title.

~~~
CyberDildonics
Seeing anything that just says 'blockchain' instead of 'a blockchain' or 'the
blockchain' instantly sets off red flags to me.

I'm not sure how it got started, but it some sort of nonsensical pattern that
developed.

------
funfunfunction
Another day, another Decentralized AI Privacy Blockchain project raising a ton
of money from people who don't truly understand the intricacies of the
problems trying to be solved. What's new?

I hate to be so cynical and this teams background does seem solid but I feel
the same way when I see this as when the Prince of Nigeria personally reaches
out to me for a loan. With all the other failed crypto projects these
announcements feel like spam at this point..

~~~
dang
The site guidelines ask you not to post shallow dismissals to Hacker News, so
could you please not? This comment doesn't clear that bar.

If you're right, then the thing to do is drop the snark and explain some of
the "intricacies of the problems trying to be solved" instead of just vaguely
alluding to them. Then we could learn something.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
funfunfunction
My apologies for the hyperbole. My comment was less about this particular
project and more about the shaky ground that the entire cryptocurrency
industry is currently standing on, seemingly in part due to announcements like
this that claim to have solved the scalability problem of decentralization
without providing much hard evidence. If there were specific technical claims,
I would discuss them, but in this case there are not.

I think it's confusing to the public, who ultimately need to be confident in
cryptocurrency as a whole if they're going to use it, when they find them
asking, "wasn't this problem already solved by x?" every couple of months.

