We did it!! Oh my God, we did it!!!
As I write this, citizens across Russia are using ZKPs to vote in a surveillance-free referendum and safely challenge the Kremlin
Some reflections on privacy as freedom, incognito voting, and trustless social apps
SO excited to see
@VitalikButerin
discuss how
@Rarimo_protocol
tackles the privacy & verifiability tradeoff
Privacy struggles to scale b/c in most interactions we need to verify something about ourselves
FreedomTool brought anonymous verifiability to voting & is just the start
ETH CC takeaway
There is a cohort of projects building truly (and sometimes subtly) revolutionary tech. Until Brussels, I didn’t fully grasp how strong and active this corner of Web3 is!
Rarimo is unbelievably proud to have unlocked surveillance-free voting (subtle brag!) but
Our team built Freedom Tool in Kyiv during the war
We view it as defense technology
Totalitarianism does not arise in a vacuum, but from the slow erosion of personal freedoms such as the right to freely vote, protest, & organize
Always an honour to feature in
@__zkhack__
! This talk covers how Rarimo works & what we’ve done this year:
- Unlocked passport ZKPs
- Provided dissidents in Russia & Iran with anonymous voting
- Built a ZK social graph to unleash private, mass scale coordination
watch:
Look Mom,
@Rarimo
’s Freedom Tool and I are in the
@BoysClubWorld
newsletter!!
Freedom Tool uses blockchain & ZKs to help people living under regimes safely vote, and protest!
Thank you
@natashaghoskins
and
@medeana
This leap forward for social recovery is massive!
Can’t wait to see how
@zkemail
continues to progress.
Email-based identity verification has the potential to solve so many critical problems not only in Web3 but in everyday life!
The Kremlin was not happy with Vote2024 & the prospect of surveillance-free voting
In their latest attempt to derail the app, they sent bots & state-sponsored reviewers to tank its rating
This message (translation👇) from one of the reviewers is a reminder of why privacy
The
@encodeclub
&
@ETHLDN
hackathon starts this weekend
Swing by from 27th - 29th Oct & catch me talking about
@Rarimo_protocol
's Proof-of-Humanity plug-in on the 28th
The talk is intended to be catnip for anyone who loves ZKs & hate bots!!⛓️🐈⬛
@winnyeth
A lot of projects struggle to distinguish between what the web3 community & everyday users want
The general public is typically uninterested in the underlying tech behind ANY product
Centring comms on blockchain is often like trying to sell iphones by promoting semiconductors
The ‘Attract, Extract’ model, is insidious for obvious reasons
[Attract, Extract is when social platforms shift from attracting users by offering good terms and services, to exploitatively extracting revenue from them (e.g. via invasive data practices) once network effect makes
My ETHCC observation:
1. People started to care about more real world adoptions, some highlights:
-
@proofpassio
ticketing app powered by
@nebrazkp
and
@GalxeIdentity
at proof day
- many applications that changes people's life demonstrated at proof day, such as
Behold our trip to Tskaltubo, the former Soviet spa town. Workers were sent here during state allocated holidays for two weeks of splendour before being retuned to the factories.
Time is a merciless hammer. Happy Sunday!
@TheDevanshMehta
@VitalikButerin
@ray_svitla
Thanks for your write up, glad you enjoyed the event! There seems to be some crossed wires here however, so wanted to correct a couple points
1) A ‘dictionary attack’ is actually when a government runs a check to see which passports are registered and therebye figures out who’s
Allowing users to not only privately store identity credentials, but interactions, networks, reputations etc cracks open a whole new suite of social apps
gassed to be working on it
There is a distinction between what we want to happen & what we think will happen
Growing increasingly interested in how the two intersect to shape political outcomes
and what tools we can build to prevent the influence of the latter from inhibiting the pursuit of the former🤔
On Sat, I’m speaking at Future State in Berlin about
@Rarimo_protocol
’s privacy-first social apps
Will cover surveillance-free voting Freedom Tool, how it’s currently being used in Russia, and its upcoming implementations
Swing bye!
Building a voting system that guarantees eligibility, anonymity & uniqueness all at once was a colossal challenge
@olkurbatov
breaks down how we did it & what’s next for
@Rarimo_protocol
's passport ZKs: an incognito network with multiple use cases🧂
The Imperial passport of Kublai Khan, circa 1240 AD. “I am the emissary of the Khan. If you defy me, you die.”
They really don't make travel documents the way they used to.
Democracy should go beyond periodic elections, and software design should seed self-governance into our everyday lives
Gassed to see
@VitalikButerin
highlight
@Rarimo_protocol
's ZK voting tools during his predictions on the next 10 years
The
@Rarimo_protocol
community built Freedom Tool because digital voting urgently needed privacy
Until Freedom Tool, and passport ZKPs there was no way of verifying voter eligibility that also prevented tracing. For people living in regimes, this was a disaster
@ameensol
Freedom Tool! We (Rarimo) used passport ZKPs to build an anonymous voting solution. It’s currently being used by Russian opposition to challenge Putin
ZK voting implementations, you say...
for anyone curious about this, check out
@Rarimo_protocol
's Freedom Tool. It's currently being used by Russian Opposition to challenge Putin
@TheStalwart
We're still here! And a lot of that idealistic open internet stuff has actually moved forward quite a bit, eg. we have farcaster and lens, quadratic and retroactive funding, zupass, privacy-preserving ways to send ETH, ZK voting implementations...
Big News!
To ensure governments can’t work out which citizens registered to vote, Freedom Tool lets passports repeat register then removes duplicate votes from the count
Before, we used Circom ZKPs. Now with
@RiscZero
Freedom Tool has a trustless set-up
A talk so nice I watched it twice!!
A new generation of social apps that nurture connection without impinging on our privacy are already on the horizon!! Exciting stuff!!
ZK Summit 11 was a blast! Watch
@nico_mnbl
present Arke (joint work with
@alberto_sonnino
@Daeinar
@kobigurk
) a privacy-preserving contact discovery scheme, and much beyond! This talk also serves as a gentle introduction to identity-based cryptography
Congrats
@worldcoin
on the Word ID 2.0 launch
World ID users can now claim
@Rarimo_protocol
's verified human credentials via apps
This work is needed because when the internet was first developed, it was designed to help machines, not humans share info🧵
These results, showing UBI spurs entrepreneurship, better health etc. highlight how worthwhile such experiments are
One of the issues that makes UBI so controversial is the question of how it’s funded, but as
@worldcoin
demonstrates, Web3 offers entirely new models for this
It’s easy to grow complacent about privacy & freedom of speech
but if you’ve lived alongside autocracy, you know these rights form the barrier between freedom & oppression
The Foreign Agents law allows government to monitor & persecute supporters of ‘pseudo-liberal ideology'
To see the first implementation of Freedom Tool take place in Russia where dissidents are so fiercely persecuted and oppressed brings me enormous hope
It is a testament to the power of privacy and Zero-Knowledge to truly impact people’s lives
@omniharmonic
@RobertKennedyJr
@0xHolonym
We (
@Rarimo_protocol
) specialise in privacy-first ID. We built Freedom Tool, an anonymous ID & voting solution.
It's currently being used by Russian opposition to challenge Putin, and by Iranian NGOs to challenge the regime there too.
As well as providing safe voting platforms, however, applications built on Freedom Tool can double as incognito digital town squares
Users who’ve verified their engagement with particular causes can safely organize and connect
The first of my bi-monthly articles on NFTs for
@institutco
gallery is out 🔥🔥🔥
We look at how artistic masterpieces have been valued over time & how NFTs finally allow digital art to compete with other mediums
Written to help you help your mum understand this crazy jpeg hype
“No matter how many ‘right-click, saves’ take place, authenticity is not compromised [and] digital art can participate in markets it has long been excluded from.”
📖“The Value of NFTS: Authenticity over Inimitability” written by
@Kitty__Jenny
👉
One of the happiest side effects of privacy and the cypher punk promise will be that online life is much more fun when you're not being surveilled
how much genuine connection can you foster with another human if you're afraid that everything you say is being recorded?
gm gang, we've been hard at work building the Aztec L2 and I want to give an update!
We're building a full end-to-end testnet and we're close to completing this breakthrough technology
It will be the world's 1st decentralized, privacy-first programmable L2. Kind of a big deal.
Drawbacks to X making likes private
- w/out knowing where likes on a post come from (bots?) trust plummets
- w/out knowing what a person likes, connecting w them is 5x harder
For privacy in social settings to work, there needs to be elements of verifiability & customization
This highlights a second, often overlooked, property that ZK unlocks and brings to online communities: trustlessness
It’s currently exceedingly difficult for digital spaces to filter members effectively without resorting to closed ‘friends-of-friends’ systems
@Rachelwolf00
.
@Rarimo_protocol
. Latest solution, Freedom Tool, uses passport ZKPs for surveillance-free elections. It’s currently being used by Russian Opposition to safely challenge Putin
The EU has proposed the mandatory scanning of all photos and videos sent via messaging apps
They've branded it 'moderation' but make no mistake, this is mass surveillance
The European Council may reach a final negotiating position on the proposed regulation this week.
Leaked document suggests users of E2EE messaging services could opt-out of "upload moderation" by not being able to send images or URLs.
Great piece from
@jonrussell
&
@garyliu
Captures how
@Rarimo_protocol
's tech, particularly RariMe, is transcending voting
We are laying the foundations for multiple forms of censorship-free communication!
With so many amazing projects scaling ZK tech, there is so much more to come
A new generation of privacy-first social apps is on the horizon. Freedom Tool & Russia2024 is just the start
Thank you so much to all the teams & people who supported & contributed to Freedom Tool!
@British_Airways
Still pursuing a refund for 2 cancelled BA flights this summer. Customer service comically atrocious. No response, email boxes 'too full' etc
BA has a legal obligation to reimburse me (& other customers),yet it appears to be impossible to pursue our refunds. My ref no: 23754381
Reviewing technical documents while listening to back-to-back Julia Fox interviews.
The seeds for all kinds of gloriously deranged ZK social apps are being planted.
This has a pernicious effect on all digital subcultures and social movements. Civil activism is no exception
Holding a dissident view but being unable to find or connect with people who share your sentiments seriously impedes action
ZKs and private but verifiable
thank you for all the congratulations (and the one very undeserved gift) but i did NOT get married last weekend, I was a bridesmaid at my sisters wedding 🤣
(but please do feel free to continue sending gifts anyway)
Introducing the ZK Market Map! We’ve charted 250+ crypto projects advancing zero knowledge (ZK) tech.
This detailed map is an extension of our Crypto Market Map meant to showcase the differences between projects within ZK subsectors.
Why did we make this and why does ZK matter?
But the importance and value of privacy is not just restricted to the more obvious use cases like voting
To flourish, humans need to be able to communicate, play, explore ideas, organize, the whole shebang, without fearing surveillance from the state or falling prey to the
Privacy is not an abstract concept, & software design is not removed from the real world
Technology is man's most powerful tool for both liberation & oppression
Applied correctly, the cypherpunk vision can bring survival, peace, & freedom
Back in Paris for
@ParisBlockWeek
& speaking about all things
@Rarimo
tomorrow with
@xrpl_commons
!!
As always, on the lookout for side events / frens with interest in ZKs, privacy, & decentralised identities & social applications!
Send recs / DM to guzzle pastries & scheme🥐🇫🇷
@shumochu
@rleshner
@Rarimo_protocol
We (Rarimo) used passport ZKPs to build a tamper-proof anonymous voting solution called Freedom Tool
It's already being used by opposition & protesters in Russia & Iran
In these places, the anonymity aspect was particularly important - but the tamper-proof properties of
@VitalikButerin
@TheStalwart
for anyone who curious about the ZK voting implementations, check out
@Rarimo_protocol
's Freedom Tool. It's currently being used by Russian Opposition to safely challenge Putin
Web3 is really just a covert club for cat people
Web2 is fully the realm of dog people
It all makes a lot of sense. Cats are cool, slinky, and do their own thing. Dogs can be kinda cute but they harbour a worrying penchant for blind obedience.
Have recently become obsessed with
@williamapan
's art
I love that the echoes of his generative work are so visible in this hand-painted piece
#generativeart
#nftart
@Geeny616
Hugely bias here, but I think the potential for ZK to unlock nuanced filters particularly in identity and social settings is massively underrated
An American ‘friend’ has just stated that he doesn’t care which tea I give him because ultimately they are ‘all just dried leaves.’ Shaking. Throwing up. Calling for a plague upon his house.
@0xJim
It's true, and it’s always struck me as a great shame that the invite-only model is pretty much the only way to ensure spaces maintain high-quality discourse
Bit of a detour from the original point of this tweet, but makes me all the more excited by the experiments using ZKs for
Trust Infrastructure Day
@hyle_org
@aztecnetwork
@kitty__jenny
on Private Verifiable Social Graphs:
🔹Why the internet will fragment into custom spaces
🔸How social graphs shape this future: utopia or dystopia
🔹Rarimo's dissident dark forest
Wed 11:30
Catch me speaking on behalf of
@DLS_society
on
@meta_viu
's Twitter Space for Metaverse pioneers
Thanks for having me guys - this chat really captured the creativity and welcoming spirit of the web3 community
Freedom Tool allows people living in regimes to vote & protest without risking surveillance
The cypherpunk promise to defend privacy is often treated with suspicion, but without privacy, democracy crumbles
I've never been prouder of
@Rarimo_protocol
This morning we launched RariMe so that users can start proving their citizenship, age, & humanity to ANY dApp in Web3 without revealing their identity