
Enigma: Decentralized Computation Platform with Guaranteed Privacy [pdf] - ff_
http://enigma.media.mit.edu/enigma_full.pdf
======
EGreg
Sometimes I wonder what kind of operations would actually be useful to do on
such data in the real world.

I mean, the way the web currently works is that I trust some server to host my
data. I can have this service auth an external consumer site and display data
in an iframe, say, which the consumer site can't get at. This is good enough
for displaying people their personalized info (name, friends) on various
services (eg directions to their house in an iframe, for a user authenticated
with my chosen provider).

But to go further, what if I don't want to trust any provider? Then I could
simply encrypt the data and store encrypted data with the provider (or
providers for redundancy). The authentication could be replaced with visitors
holding a key to decrypt the data (because I gave it to them) and I can switch
to using some other key and effectively "unfriend" those who don't get my
updated key.

But all this is good enough for displaying data and files I upload. Now, why
would I want to do operations on those files "in the cloud" without trusting a
provider? I am already trusting my friends with the data, since they can
reshare it once it's displayed to them. So why not trust a provider? One of my
friends can run the provider.

I guess the only scenario I see it being useful is if all my friends can only
have limited access to the data and all manipulations on the data are
collaborative, and that's where the homeomorphism comes in. Perhaps no one
will be able to see the whole data and it's not really about data at all, but
views of some Enigmatic process running on some network (like an autonomous
corporation.) is that the use case?

~~~
sjbase
Maybe this could be used for something like clinical quality analytics. There
is an industry of data-driven optimization on dimensions like diagnoses,
treatments, outcomes, populations/demographics. A big challenge with this is
that the useful data is HIPAA-regulated.

Something like SETI@home, but for finding better clinical care options instead
of finding aliens.

------
reilly3000
Phenomenal stuff. Can't wait to see this play out IRL.

------
dang
Discussed at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9805385](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9805385),
but perhaps a link to the paper will receive more substantive discussion.

~~~
ff_
Agreed.

Honestly both the article you linked and the website [1] were unsatisfying to
me, so I read the paper to better understand the implications.

BTW thank you for linking the previous discussion, I missed it!

[1]: enigma.media.mit.edu

------
berzniz
Go Oz!

~~~
oznathan
Thanks Tal!

