Tag Archive for: Web3explained

Exclusive: U.S. Navy Cyber Warfare Engineer interviews VIA’s CEO to dive into blockchain’s role in advancing cybersecurity

October is a time for carving pumpkins, watching football, and celebrating Cybersecurity Awareness Month!

To mark the occasion, the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), known for fielding and rapidly scaling commercial technology across the U.S. military, published a blog post featuring an exclusive interview with VIA, titled “Capitalizing on Commercial Technology to Promote Cybersecurity across the DOD.”

U.S. Navy Cyber Warfare Engineer and Program Manager at DIU, Jonathan Rogers, traveled across the country to VIA’s HQ in Somerville for the Q&A-style interview with VIA’s CEO, Colin Gounden. During the interview, Colin and Jon talk about the ways blockchain, data security, and decentralization are critical to improved cybersecurity. Check out the video below:

Patrick Gould, Director of DIU’s Cyber and Telecoms (C&T) Portfolio, covered details of the interview in the blog post and shared how VIA and DIU’s relationship started:

In an effort to shift away from a network-centric paradigm to one that is more data-centric, DIU, Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Atlantic, and Navy PEO Digital and Naval Information Warfare Systems Command (NIWC) issued a solicitation in Fall 2022 for a fully distributed, trustless data execution model leveraging blockchain and other Web3 technologies. Boston-based company VIA was selected for its software-based solution that includes quantum resistant encryption and zero-knowledge proofs, simultaneously enhancing security posture while enabling faster decision making by giving rapid access to essential data for all mission partners.

For the full blog post that provides more detail on our relationship with the Department of Defense and more specifically, the recent project with DIU, visit the DIU website.

Swiss podcast Insider’s Guide to Energy interviews VIA’s CEO Colin Gounden to talk blockchain and energy

Insider’s Guide to Energy, a Swiss-based podcast that explores topics such as innovation, disruptive technologies, and emerging trends in the energy space, invited VIA’s CEO Colin Gounden on the show to discuss anything and everything that is at the intersection of energy and blockchain. 

The hosts of the podcast, Chris Saas and Johan Oberg, are known for interviewing strong leaders across the globe, with other episodes that included GE Power, Fortum, and Enel North America, to name a few.

Since the interview clocks in at around 48 minutes, we’re breaking it down into bite-sized segments with timestamps to allow you to easily listen to your favorite topics (below).  

Listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube (see video below).

5:00 – 8:38: What are the key components of energy and blockchain?

Do you drive an EV? Listen to Colin make the connection between EVs and energy access, and how closely it relates to VIA’s mission.

11:20 – 14:20: Is data the new oil?

The short answer is: it all has to do with MATH. Hear just how that’s possible in this clip.

14:35 – 16:55: Who are VIA’s customers?

Did you know that the U.S. government is the single largest consumer of energy on the planet? Keeping data private while enabling data analysis is what led VIA to working with the Department of Defense (DOD). Don’t miss hearing about other companies VIA proudly works with.

19:36 -22:40: The price of blockchain

In this segment Colin talks about VIAsecurechain, Polygon, and the value of cryptography.

22:45 – 25:00: Managing a global company 

Learn about VIA’s team located around the globe including offices in Boston, Montreal, and Switzerland.

28:40 – 32:20: The near future of blockchain

Smart contracts. Selling back electricity. This segment is not to be missed!

34:20 – 36:25: The impact of the Inflation Reduction Act

This act is a BIG deal. VIA even published a blog about it – check it out!

37:55 – 39:50: So, what’s next for VIA?

Colin shares insights on how VIA stays current in a fast-moving world. 

45:30 – 46:40: Data regulations in energy and big tech

Colin briefly reflects on government regulations.

The hosts wrap up by inviting Colin to come back for a conversation around data science. Don’t want to miss it? Follow VIA on social (Linkedin and Twitter) and check our news page for the latest updates!

Decrypted Unscripted interviews VIA CEO Colin Gounden for recent podcast

Decrypted Unscripted, a podcast that explores the “privacy landscape, from regulatory developments to litigation trends”, invited VIA’s CEO Colin Gounden on the show to discuss the role AI and blockchain have in the energy industry. Hosts David and Deb of Perkins Coie, have had numerous guests on the podcast including leaders from Uber, Stanford University, and the Financial Times, to name a few. 

In the 45-minute interview, Colin talks about a range of topics including VIA’s mission, Zero Knowledge Proofs, and Ted Lasso! Since 45 minutes tops the list for quality on-air time, we’ve taken the liberty to break down the interview and provide timestamps of hot topics covered below.

7:03 – 8:45: What the heck is Blockchain?

After reminiscing on the days when people were skeptical about the internet, host Deb asks Colin, so “What the heck is blockchain?” Hear Colin’s explanation along with some great analogies.

8:46 – 13:45: Tell them how VIA makes it work in energy.

David asks Colin how VIA landed on energy being the industry to transform with VIA’s technology, including highlights from the HBS case studies about VIA.

13:46 – 17:05: Let’s talk about VIA’s mission.

What can VIA do to make communities cleaner, safer, and more equitable? Listen to Colin’s response on how our mission will make an impact.

17:25 – 25:10: Zero Knowledge Proofs, you’ve got to tell us about that.

Colin gives a description of ZKPs, calling it one of the “biggest innovations we’ll see in the next 20 years.”

26:05 – 31:18: How does privacy and transparency work together?

Privacy is a concern for blockchain and transparency is the differentiator. How do these work together? Colin explains and covers how smart contracts are involved.

31:20 – 34:48: How does VIA help disadvantaged communities?

Listen to Colin’s thoughtful response on VIA’s initiatives here.

34:50 – 36:20: Beef up infrastructure security with VIA.

Infrastructure data is important to VIA. Colin talks about the value and importance of GDAC™.

36:25 – 40:45: The Crypto Valley

The future is now, just unevenly distributed. This is Switzerland. Listen to hear about the importance of data privacy for the country.

40:45 – 42:20: What did Colin do during the COVID lockdown?

Ted Lasso. Enough said.

To wrap, Colin suggests reading VIA’s Skylight whitepaper to get a better grasp of what VIA is doing in the Web3 space.

Mastery Monday: Extra! Excerpt! 90 second summary of VIA CEO’s presentation at Chainlink SmartCon 2022

VIA’s CEO Colin Gounden was hand selected to present at this year’s “must attend” Web3 event, SmartCon 2022, held in New York City, NY. Though most of our dedicated Mastery Monday blog readers may not have been in attendance, we’re bringing you a 90 second video of Colin’s talk in this summary blog. 

Check out the video and transcript below!


Transcript of the summary video above:

War in the Ukraine, extreme weather in western Europe and throughout the United States, waning grid infrastructure are three of the Ws that are driving skyrocketing energy prices and causing food prices, transportation prices, and your home energy bill to soar.

At VIA, we’re using Web3 to help solve and address these issues.

Your energy data is a digital asset. It may not necessarily be as pretty or as fun to look at as your screensaver, but it’s probably much more valuable.

At VIA, we’re using Web3 in three specific ways.

One, we’re using NFTs to help give consumers clear and definitive ownership of their energy data.

Two, we’re using smart contracts to be able to compensate consumers for the insights from their data and for taking actions that contribute to mitigating climate change.

And three, we’re using zero-knowledge proofs to validate and verify that consumers took the actions they said they would, whether that’s turning down the thermostat or selling back their rooftop solar.

Reach out on Telegram or Linkedin or on even good ol’ email to join us in our efforts.

The Merge and what it means for clean energy

As we outlined in our most recent blog post, there’s massive pressure across the board to reduce energy costs and prevent power blackouts. For governments, utilities, industry, and many consumers, improving how we consume and manage energy has become a number one priority to maintain grid reliability.

One area that’s about to do its part to relieve this pressure is blockchain. Colloquially called “The Merge,” a long awaited change in the validation (or “consensus”) mechanism on Ethereum will be finalized in September.

By most calculations, the new upgrade will use roughly 2000x less energy than the current consensus mechanism. Like most innovations these days (e.g., speech recognition, file compression, self-driving cars), math is at the heart of this improvement.

The key change is in the “proofs.” In a completely decentralized and anonymous network, how can you verify that a transaction between two parties actually happened, when there’s no intermediary? For example, if you and I are trading bitcoin and one of us disagrees on the amount that got transferred, who do we go to as an arbiter? Different mathematical proofs are used to verify which transactions are real. In short, the current proof (proof-of-work) is greedy for energy and the new proof (proof-of-stake) has the same level of validity but is much more energy efficient.

This is good news for everyone. Not only will one of the most popular blockchain mechanisms significantly reduce its carbon footprint, transactions (e.g., minting NFTs, smart contracts) will be significantly cheaper as well. The timing couldn’t be better. As we’ve written about, the use of smart contracts and Zero-Knowledge Proofs have huge potential to support the transition to clean energy.

You’ll have seen a lot of blogs and posts from VIA recently about our work in Zero-Knowledge Proofs. We also use an energy efficient proof-of-stake approach, although our work is focused on creating proofs for energy data. Connections to Ethereum through oracles were in our original 2018 white paper and part of our roadmap. Until The Merge, however, VIA has had a private blockchain dedicated to a few users (e.g., U.S. DOD) for secure, digital asset custodial tracking. With the changes to a cheaper, more energy efficient Ethereum, we plan on leveraging EVMs post-Merge, for our newest applications.

Open Source Monday: zk-SNARKs for Meter Data

For the fourth installment of our “Open Source Monday” blog series, we provide a demonstration of a mathematical proof called zk-SNARK (an emerging Web3 standard) for energy data.


Today’s Open Source Monday blog is the culmination of a number of previous Web3 open source releases and blog posts.

First, frequent blog readers will know that we’re long-time believers in the potential of Web3 and its ability to accelerate the adoption of clean energy. Our blogs below make that clear:

These blog posts are in line with VIA’s mission to make communities cleaner, safer, and more equitable.

Second, we’ve been committed to creating the best tech stack that (1) supports the transition to clean energy and, at the same time, (2) maintains data privacy:

Finally, it’s clear that the “time is now” for the clean energy transition.

So, now that you’re caught up on the importance of Web3 at VIA, let’s get to the good stuff.

Today, we’re demonstrating a zk-SNARK version of our proof for meter data. For those zk-SNARK fans out there, we’ve got a short video for you that shows step-by-step the contracts and code we have created to verify consumer electricity meter data and maintain strict data privacy.

With the integration of this proof, VIA’s Skylight application enables energy consumers to profit from interest in their data, while keeping their identities completely anonymous. We’re excited that Skylight is ready to support consumers and power providers globally. Stay tuned for more exciting commercial announcements in the next month on this topic. In the meantime, you can find more details in our Skylight white paper.

Nasdaq’s streaming show, TradeTalks, interviews VIA’s CEO, Colin Gounden

VIA’s CEO, Colin Gounden, was invited by Jill Malandrino, Global Markets Reporter at Nasdaq, to be interviewed on her show about trends in the global capital markets, TradeTalks, which boasts over 11,000 followers on Twitter. Jill hosts one-on-one interviews with industry leaders to chat about market trends and the crypto space, among other areas.

During the over six minute interview, Jill asked sharp and insightful questions about blockchain, smart contracts, and clean energy. Colin and Jill also discussed the relevance of Web3 and the Department of Defense. 

We don’t say this a lot, so believe us when we say, this is a must-see interview. Visit the Nasdaq website for a recording of the talk here.

Authority Magazine Declares “The Future is Now” in Interview with VIA’s CEO Colin Gounden

Staying true to the mission of Authority Magazine, a publication “​​devoted to sharing in-depth, and interesting interviews, featuring people who are authorities in Business, Pop Culture, Wellness, Social Impact, and Tech,” Fotis Georgiadis selected VIA’s CEO Colin Gounden for an in-depth interview.

The interview, shared on Medium, covers Colin’s personal experiences in his career, including the most interesting story and what movement he would inspire, and most importantly, the cutting edge technological breakthroughs at VIA:

The biggest technological breakthrough our team at VIA is currently working on is Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs). I think that when we look back 20 years from now, ZKPs will be seen as one of the biggest innovations of our time.

Colin also takes a deep-dive into the incredible work going on at VIA related to Web3 and gives his 60-second VC pitch:

VIA’s been in Web 3 (blockchain and smart contracts) for more than 5 years. We’re just hitting the inflection point for really big adoption (single digit millions to double digit millions). We’ll make investors look brilliant for backing our growth to get to that $Bn+ valuation mark and, at the same time, doing it with a terrific sustainability mission.

For the full interview, visit Authority Magazine’s post on Medium.

InsideHook Highlights VIA CEO Colin Gounden’s Insights About Web3

Kirk Miller of InsideHook took a deep dive into Web3 in his latest article, “The Answers to All Your Not-So-Stupid Questions About Web 3.0”. Through expert interviews, the article delivers insights including how Web3 will change our day-to-day to the kinds of companies that will thrive in this new environment.

VIA’s CEO Colin Gounden, gave his thoughts on the power of Web3:

“In 2004, James Surowiecki published a book called The Wisdom of Crowds — the basic premise is that many non-experts are smarter than a few experts,” says Colin Gounden, CEO of VIA, a blockchain-based Web3 platform for privacy-protected data analysis. “Surowiecki had collected incredible and well-researched examples ranging from guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar at a county fair to locating a lost U.S. Navy submarine. Businesses that are willing to leverage Web3 to harness the wisdom of crowds rather than rely on the expertise of a few are going to benefit the most from Web3.”

For the full article, visit the InsideHook website.

Open Source Monday: Zero-Knowledge Proofs

For the third installment of our “Open Source Monday” blog series, we provide a demonstration and example code of how Zero-Knowledge Proofs can be applied to clean energy applications.


Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) will be very familiar to blockchain experts and cryptocurrency enthusiasts. As we described last week, there are also non-financial applications for ZKPs in the clean energy sector. 

Imagine that you are an electric vehicle charging station company. You collect data from charging stations that have a huge amount of individual information. You collect and centralize that data for billing and maintenance. Some of the data could even be considered personally identifiable information. That is, time, location, vehicle type, etc. could be pieced together to identify an individual even without having a specific name of a person. 

In summary, your data is valuable. Others ask for it. The local utility wants access to help plan grid upgrades. The local government wants to use it to plan public transportation. Community groups want access to learn the impact on the environment. Do you hand over your data to them? A better approach would be to enable them to ask questions of your data in an anonymized way without you physically transferring the data. Fewer copies means less risk.

As an energy planner (e.g., utility, government, community group) how do I know the data is real if I never see it? This is where ZKPs come in. ZKPs can prove that the data is as expected without having to reveal the actual data itself. 

The video below shows an example of some of the steps to accomplish this. 

What you’ll see is:

  1. Two different “customer” datasets are provided to form a single dataset. Continuing the analogy above, this is like the EV charging station company storing two different customers’ data in the company’s database.
  2. That data is off-chain. A central Oracle creates a non-interactive proof.
  3. The Oracle also converts the proof into an image.
    The data is an array and each value in the array
    is represented by a proof in the form of a grayscale pixel.
  4. A new ZKP verification ERC721 compatible smart contract is created and an NFT of the image is minted.
  5. Using Truffle, a smart contract can be called to execute the validation of data without revealing the identity of the individual.

For our implementation, we take advantage of some recent advances in ZKPs. In particular, many ZKPs rely on some interaction with a prover and a verifier. They ask each other a series of questions to validate the data. Here, we apply an approach inspired by zk-SNARKs. The “N” in SNARK is for Non-Interactive. The genius behind this approach is that all the proof can be provided in a single message to the verifier, eliminating the traditional back and forth. There is a LOT of math behind this which is out of scope for our example. You can learn more about the math and how it works thanks to Zcash. For simplicity in this example (see GitHub), we use a simple hash implementation rather than a full zk-SNARK.

One other addition that we made here is that since the proof is a simple message, we can codify it as an image. We can then mint the image as an NFT. The big advantage of this approach is that proofs are visible to everyone and searchable by anyone on a platform like OpenSea or Coinbase without revealing any individual data. This removes a transaction headache for the data owner. They don’t need a new system or special hosting, etc. to handle inquiries about their data. 

And, the last addition, is that we have an example Polygon smart contract that enables an individual to validate their own dataset. What the validation code enables is that the EV charging company and / or energy planners who incentivize data owners to validate data get greater assurance that the data is real. This is a great use case of data privacy enabled through crypto.

The basic principles here can be applied to many sectors where there is centralized off-chain data, strict data privacy needs, and a need to prove the data is valid. Next week, you’ll see an expansion of this proof to leverage more of the zk-SNARK stack.

Mastery Monday: Why You Should Care About Zero-Knowledge Proofs

This is the second installment of our blog series, “Mastery Monday with VIA” where we share with you some of the inside details of our technology and math in 5 minutes or less. So, are you ready to become a master?


Math impacts everything we do. You never really see the math, but you experience it.

AI is the math that helps us control our TVs with our voice and drive our Teslas. We watch Netflix and listen to Spotify, courtesy of compression algorithms that send more and more data through increasingly crowded bandwidth.

One of the invisible math innovations that is changing the world is Zero-Knowledge Proofs or ZKPs. 

If you’re not familiar with ZKPs, these videos from UCLA Professor Amit Sahai and Up and Atom do an excellent job of explaining the concept easily. We particularly like how Prof. Sahai gets a 5 year old and a 13 year old to repeat back his definition of a ZKP, after he explains it. It’s a testament to great teaching.

So, why should you care about ZKPs?

The short answer is that if you care about privacy and fairness, then you care about ZKPs. It’s the math for you.

For example, ZKPs are used every day by millions of people in bitcoin and other cryptocurrency trading. It’s how two parties who don’t know each other can verify that the right amount of funds were transferred from one to another without the need of an intermediary like a bank. There are other, non-financial uses of ZKPs, as well. 

Given VIA’s mission to enable cleaner, safer, and more equitable communities, let’s use an example from the clean energy sector. VIA blog readers will know that our software platform enables energy data to be analyzed in such a way that an analyst will never see the source data (read more about that here).

This has obvious data privacy benefits to the data owner. Data owners don’t have to physically transfer their data to anyone or let an analyst see it in any way.

But, what about the analysts? How do they know that the data is legit? 

Well, one way is that an analyst could just trust the data owner. That works well if you both know the data owner and believe that they are reputable. For example, if you know the data owner is your public utility, and trust them, then as an analyst, you may say, “the data must be OK.”

What if the data owner isn’t someone you trust? They don’t necessarily have to be “untrustworthy.” You just don’t know them. So, the new energy retailer in your neighborhood, or the EV charging station start-up, or the microgrid operator may be perfectly legitimate. But, how do you know? How can you make sure they are playing fair?

This is where ZKPs come in. You don’t have to know. You don’t have to trust them. With ZKPs, you can mathematically verify that the data stored by the utility corresponds to the data offered to the analyst. Also, ZKPs, given a verifier, enable us to validate that the values of the data provided by the utility are indeed what the verifier is expecting. 

To take the example even further, think about consumer data. Energy is decentralizing rapidly to the individual level (e.g., rooftop solar and EVs). Your energy data is literally personally identifiable information so data privacy is paramount. At the same, you can’t possibly know and trust every other individual consumer as a data owner. ZKPs can address this.

So, is there a ZKP for energy data that energy analysts can use? Stay tuned for next week’s post …

 

Tech on Reg Interviews VIA CEO Colin Gounden for Podcast on Decentralizing the Energy Industry

Dara Tarkowski, host of Tech on Reg, invited VIA’s CEO Colin Gounden as a guest on Episode 48 of the podcast. During the episode, “Decentralizing The Energy Industry” Colin talks about how Web3 is the next internet frontier, signaling a decentralized approach to the web, underpinned by blockchain technology. Colin explores where we are heading with Web3, what it means for data privacy, and how it’s taking shape in different industries.

One of our favorite quotes from Dara Tarkowski during the podcast was how VIA and clean energy relate:

“What VIA is doing is really combining up-and-coming technologies that have become so newsworthy that average consumers are starting to talk about this technology in a way that technologies have done for sometime with the desperate need for clean energy that has been so topical and the topic of every political race around the world. And VIA is right at the intersection.”

To listen to the full podcast, visit the Tech on Reg website

Open Source Monday: Homomorphic Encryption Meets NFT

For the second installment of our “Open Source Monday” blog series, we are offering up a smart contract-based homomorphic encryption example. Check it out below!


Since you’re reading today’s blog, we’re betting you’ll have seen the fun math video we shared last week explaining how homomorphic encryption (HE) works. And, if you’re a long-time VIA follower, you will recall that we first released our own HE library back in 2020*.

Moving from math to code, here is an example of how to use the library using a smart contract. The great thing about this particular example is that you can use a standard ERC-1155 token. 

In summary, here’s what you’ll see:

  1. Two NFTs (bird images) that have one encrypted number each in their metadata.
    a. The NFTs are hosted on IPFS and searchable on OpenSea.
    b. The metadata also includes the public key and a sequence of coordinates on an elliptical curve.
    c. VIA uses NIST-compliant, 2048-bit RSA equivalent, elliptic curve cryptography (ECC).
  2. Polygon is used to create a standard ERC-1155 contract and mint all NFTs. The sum of the encrypted number NFT is represented as a third image (an egg).
  3. For this example, a Polygon scanner was used to enter the encrypted numbers and then sum them with VIA’s HE library. NOTE: In a live setting we would use an Oracle to execute the computation programmatically. 
  4. The encrypted sum gets placed in the metadata of a new NFT and minted. 
  5. The sum can be decrypted by the private key owner as verified by an Oracle.

OpenSea has the NFTs with encrypted data. For everyone’s reference, here are the unencrypted NFTs.

Of course, NFTs don’t have to be the source of the addition. This illustration, however, should resonate with Web3 game designers and NFT minters alike. For example, you could offer treasury chest NFTs based on breeding and only provide the reward, decrypted value, to the owner of the NFT.

You can also substitute another HE library, other than VIA’s, if you prefer. The VIA library has a number of advantages that we described in our original 2020 post.

Some of the key advantages of VIA’s HE library include:

  • NIST-compliant ECC
  • No limit on digits for addition
  • Fixed point calculations
  • Benchmarked as significantly faster than many other HE libraries

Reach out if you’d like to learn more about the VIA library.

Weigh in!

We’re considering hosting an Oracle to enable this functionality in general for anyone on a public blockchain. Would this be of interest to you? If so, Support this post (via LinkedIn) and RT (via Twitter).

*As one update to the 2020 HE post, VIA was issued patents on its homomorphic encryption approach in 2021 and additional patents in February 2022.

Mastery Monday: Homomorphic Encryption

This is the first installment of our blog series, “Mastery Monday with VIA” where we share with you some of the inside details of our technology and math in 5 minutes or less. So, are you ready to become a master?


So, what is homomorphic encryption (HE)? 

HE is a way to compute something without knowing what the numbers are (i.e., keeping them encrypted). For example, adding two numbers or multiplying two numbers and learning the exact result while keeping each of the two input numbers secret.

Why does it matter? 

Unencrypted data is unsafe. With cybersecurity increasing, the last remaining case where data routinely remains unencrypted is during computations. Encryption is already commonly used when data is stored and when it’s sent from one place to another. 

When would you use it? 

Anytime you use math. Which is everywhere. A simple example is a census. I want to know how many people live in a town without knowing how many people live on any single street, in a particular building, or in their own home. AI is all math. So, voice and face recognition while the data is private is a more complicated example.

How does it work?

Check out this less than 4 minute video below! 

Please note: this video was filmed in VIA’s new office space, hence considerable echo. We recommend using the closed captions.

Want to learn more?

VIA holds several issued patents in homomorphic encryption. 

Other details related to VIA’s approach to HE are available from VIA’s earlier blog from 2020.

Next week, we’ll be sharing some code and a use for HE.

 


Below is a transcript of the “Homomorphic Encryption Explained” video.

Everybody, everywhere is asking about homomorphic encryption.

Said no one ever.

It’s not actually a thing that anyone ever asks about, but it’s super important, nonetheless.

And the reason is because keeping our data safe is super important.

So, the idea that we keep data safe when it’s at rest – that happens. Where the data is not safe is when you actually try to do some math on numbers.

For example, you have some data or information [Becky] and you have some data or information [Sam] and you want to do a comparison.

So, both of you have kitten collectible porcelain statues. And now we want to know which one of you has more without either of you revealing your own number because your porcelain kitten collection data is intensely personal.

[Becky] How did you know? 

[Sam] True.

As a person who’s doing, you know, high academic research, I’m really interested in the total sum of kitty collectors in this world and how many porcelain kitties there are in the world. That’s my thing! I’m super interested in it.

Don’t judge me.

Okay, so here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to now add up the number of porcelain kitties in your collection [Becky] and the number of porcelain kitties in your collection [Sam]. And Becky, you’re not going to tell Sam how many. And Sam, you’re not going to tell Becky. And neither of you are going to tell me. And, even so, as a world-class researcher, I am going to be able to tell how many there are in the world without knowing either of those things.

And that’s one definition of homomorphic encryption, which is the ability to add up or multiply or divide or subtract or be able do some math without ever actually revealing any individual number.

So, the way that we are going to do that is we’re going to pretend this is my homomorphic encryption specialist device.

It’s actually my calculator on my phone here.

And as an example, what I’m going to do first is type in a number that is only visible to me, the researcher. And to you, the audience, only. So just let’s keep it between us. 

And now, I’m going to pass this to Becky. Add to whatever number I sent you. I want you to type it in and add the number of porcelain kitties that are in your collection.

Now you’re going to pass that to Sam.

Sam, I want you to add how many are in your collection.

Ok, now you’re going to pass it back to me.

And just to be clear, Becky, do you know how many porcelain kitties Sam has?

[Becky] No idea.

[Sam] Do you know how many porcelain kitties Becky has? (shakes head)

And, I don’t know how many they have either individually but I do know that together we have 24 is my guess. But is that true? That’s what I have in my calculator. Let’s see.

Becky, how many were in your collection actually? 

[Becky] 8.

And how many were in your collection?

[Sam] 16.

So 8 and 16, I’m pretty sure is 24. So we got the number! Even though neither of you knew each other’s numbers and I didn’t know what your numbers were.

And, there’s a lot of things you can do together to continue to obfuscate and hide the original numbers.

And we’ll talk later about some use cases.

We have an upcoming piece just on a use case of homomorphic encryption and NFTs in gaming. So, we’ll look forward to sharing some code and why that may be useful next time.

But, here was a little bit of a theory of homomorphic encryption particularly applied to addition.

Thanks for watching!

Colin Gounden Joins Wharton’s Sarah Hammer for Conversation about AI, Blockchain, and Clean Energy

VIA’s CEO Colin Gounden joined The Wharton School’s Sarah Hammer for a conversation about how the use of blockchain, crypto, and AI connects to clean energy. Speaking specifically about technology in the crypto space, Colin commented:

“In general, we see the technology and tech stack evolving so fast in the crypto space that it’s where innovation is happening. Anytime that you want to provide a technology solution, you want to go to where the innovation is happening fastest.”

For more great questions and insights from Colin and Sarah’s chat, check out the full recording here.