Newsletter #27: Web3 and decentralisation • Messaging service Signal plays with fire • PayPal explores stable coin • Facebook rolls out new privacy center • Tarantino sells “Pulp Fiction” scenes as NFTs • Neufund shutting down • Blockchain venture funding 2021, per country
TruBlo NEWSLETTER • Trustable content on future blockchains
January 12, 2022
TruBlo Newsletter #27
Your quick update from the intersection of trust, content and blockchain
TruBlo funded project: ENARXIS – Better management for EV charging stations.
Problem: ENARXIS develops a blockchain reputation system for better use of charging stations for electric vehicles. The current situation is that a charging point might be reserved, but the driver does not show up. Another issue is when a car is fully loaded but not moved away, blocking the station.
Solution: Users showing up in time and leaving when loaded will be rewarded with a good reputation. The company behind the project is EV Loader, and the team is already operating in the field of EV charging points management in Greece.
Here is a new element in our newsletter. In each edition, we aim to summarise the current sentiment for crypto, blockchain and web3 similar to a weather report:
Past week: A heavy storm passing through, resulting in falling value for many currencies.
Currently cold temperature, with unclear outlook whether situation will brighten up. There might even be additional storms coming through, but that is unclear.
Here is an exciting and thoughtful comment published by Moxie Marlinspike, the CEO of messaging service Signal, who just stepped down. He talks about the assumption that web3 will be decentralised, and the question he asks is: Is this really what we need? He created an NFT (non-fungible token), primarily to test the current status. At the end of the post, Marlinspike comes to two interesting conclusions:
We should accept the premise that people will not run their own servers by designing systems that can distribute trust without having to distribute infrastructure. This means architecture that anticipates and accepts the inevitable outcome of relatively centralized client/server relationships, but uses cryptography (rather than infrastructure) to distribute trust. One of the surprising things to me about web3, despite being built on “crypto,” is how little cryptography seems to be involved!
We should try to reduce the burden of building software. At this point, software projects require an enormous amount of human effort. Even relatively simple apps require a group of people to sit in front of a computer for eight hours a day, every day, forever. This wasn’t always the case, and there was a time when 50 people working on a software project wasn’t considered a “small team.” As long as software requires such concerted energy and so much highly specialized human focus, I think it will have the tendency to serve the interests of the people sitting in that room every day rather than what we may consider our broader goals. I think changing our relationship to technology will probably require making software easier to create, but in my lifetime I’ve seen the opposite come to pass. Unfortunately, I think distributed systems have a tendency to exacerbate this trend by making things more complicated and more difficult, not less complicated and less difficult.
The quotes are a bit long, sorry. But shortening them would have resulted in a loss of nuance:
Signal is “playing with fire”: Adding traceless money transfers could invite regulators to stop end-to-end encryption.
Another story is that Signal currently explores the addition of anonymous cryptocurrency payments. Such payments would be almost untraceable, like cash. Casey Newton from Platformer sees this as a risky move, and such an option could be an excuse to regulators worldwide to call for end-to-end encryption. “How Signal is playing with fire” is the headline. Simply adding such services could do more harm than good.
PayPal confirmed that the company is working on a PayPal stablecoin, backed by US-Dollar. The company said it would be working with regulators ahead of a launch. On a recent podcast, a company representative said that the company has “not yet seen a stablecoin out there that is purpose-built for payments.”
The goal for their coin would be to enable payments at scale while maintaining security. One hope for the future would be that fees for money transfers go down.
Cardano Forrest project says it planted one million trees.
The Cardano Foundation is a non-profit that oversees the Cardano network development. One project of the organisation is the Cardano Forrest, a reforestation effort. The project says it has reached a milestone of one million trees. For the plantation, the foundation works with Veritree, which uses blockchain to enable verifiable tracking of each plant. Veritree offers a platform for businesses and planting organisations, providing the technology, trusted storage and data updates.
Such projects are positive. But the central success part is when the planted trees are still there in fifty years. Whether blockchain contributes to such long-term development and tracing such projects, the digital record won’t change if no one looks after the trees.
Meta rolls out new privacy centre, currently only available for US users
Setting privacy rules on Facebook is possible, but not simple. Now, Meta announced a new, updated privacy centre that makes privacy and sharing settings easier to use. The offering is currently only available for users in the US but will be rolled out worldwide in the coming months.
How Meta/Facebook wanted secrecy for data centre project in the Netherlands
BuzzFeed reports that people in the small Dutch town of Zeewolde feel deceived. The town council negotiated for two years about a planned, hyper-scale data centre. Only after the project, code-named “Tulip”, got the green light did the council members, and the citizens realise they were dealing with is Meta/Facebook.
“Facebook’s demand for secrecy around its data centre in the Netherlands is the latest example of Big Tech’s aggressive but covert strategy to squeeze concessions from local governments. The veil of secrecy minimizes public scrutiny and backlash, often until it is too late.”
EU Parliament gets sanctioned by EU data protection officer
The European Data Protection Supervisor sanctioned the European Parliament over a breach of data protection rules. The EU Parliament had launched a COVID-19 test booking website using a 3rd party provider. The set-up was not in compliance with the privacy protection rules. The episode is a reminder that the EU takes data protection seriously.
Livepeer gets funding for decentralised video streaming based on an open video infrastructure.
In the future, Amazon Video and Netflix might have to compete not with one but potentially multiple, decentralised video streaming services using blockchain. One such contender is Livepeer, an Ethereum-based streaming network, which recently received 28 Million US-Dollars in venture funding. Livepeer aims to develop an “open video infrastructure”, meaning content creators could offer their videos independently from a central hub or authority. There is a 10 minute illustrated primer on the homepage that helps to understand the goals of Livepeer better. The company will use the money to develop “smart video” services based on Artificial Intelligence and so-called “peer-to-peer” content delivery.
Deleted scenes from “Pulp Fiction” movie to be auctioned off as NFTs
Director Quentin Tarantino plans to auction off “Pulp Fiction” NFTs, despite being sued by film company Miramax over the rights for these scenes. A unique feature of these NFTs is that they are “secret”, meaning only the buyers will be able to view them. For this purpose, the filmmaker will use a platform by Secret Network, which received $11.5 million in funding in May 2021.
European Media Freedom Act: Commission launches public consultation
The consultation intends to collect views on the most important issues affecting the functioning of the internal media market, including different types of interference in media, as well as economic trends. It covers three main areas pertaining to media markets, the first one focuses on transparency and independence (e.g. scrutiny of media market transactions, transparency of media ownership and audience measurement), the second on conditions for their healthy functioning (e.g. exposure of the public to a plurality of views, media innovation in the EU market) and the third one on fair allocation of state resources (e.g. independence of public service media, transparency and fair distribution of state advertising).
The consultation is open until March 21 2022. Input can be provided via a webpage at the “Have your say portal”
“The Currency is the first NFT collection by the renowned Damien Hirst. Reimagining how NFTs are used.” The offering is a collection of 10,000 NFTs that correspond to 10,000 unique physical artworks stored in a secure vault in the UK.”
The marketplace is in talks to raise $300 million, based on a $13 billion valuation. Currently, Open Sea is criticised because of a recent incident: The platform had frozen certain assets which were stolen. But critics argue that such an action should not be possible for a decentralised platform NFTs. Ben Thompson of Stratechery wrote a more extended analysis. Follow the link.
Legal uncertainty: Why Berlin-based Neufund shuts down
The idea was intriguing: Let everyone invest in any company globally in a trustable way. Despite claiming that this model worked very well using Ethereum, the company is shutting down. In an article on “Coindesk”, Zoe Adamovicz, one of the company’s co-founders, says: We were successful. But we failed to get a green light from regulators.
Over the course of Neufund’s life, we transacted about €20 million ($22.6 million) through our equity platform, facilitated entirely through the public Ethereum blockchain. We registered 11,000 investors from 123 countries – an international and diverse crowd with tickets starting from as low as €100 ($113).
Despite engaging with regulators for years, we didn’t manage to get out of the limbo of legal uncertainty.
In total, a staggering $23.1 billion in venture funding has been raised by blockchain companies in 2021. But where were these companies located? Are there any particular countries where blockchain companies are raising more than others?
A former partner of Andreesen Horowitz plans a $900 million crypto investment fund.
Katie Haun, a partner in the venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz, plans a pair of substantial first funds for her firm. $900 million would be the first time a venture firm starts with such an amount. On the other side, the investments in many startups have reached $50 or 100 million in past years.
Getting ready for TruBlo OC3: On January 27, 2022, at 12:00 CET, TruBlo will start to take applications for Open Call #3. Selected projects can get up to 175K Euro for blockchain ideas towards trustable content. More details.
Updates this week:
TRUST
Internet users widely distrust Facebook, TikTok and Instagram handling their personal data
From a survey of 1,058 US internet users conducted for the Washington Post: 72% distrust Facebook, 63% TikTok, 60% Instagram, 53% WhatsApp, and 53% YouTube; 53% trust Amazon, 48% Google, and 44% Apple.
It’s the rare thing that Americans of all ages and across the political spectrum largely seem to agree on: They don’t trust social media services with their information and they view targeted ads as annoying and invasive.
A zero-day vulnerability of Log4j, a popular Java logging framework, keeps security experts busy. The issue has been described as the most severe vulnerability ever. Many banks and financial corporations need to check their code.
According to a 2020 report, up to 20% of all employees will click on phishing emails. Of those, up to 67.5% might then enter credentials in the phishing site.
“Experts say that companies can protect themselves by investing in a multi-layered approach to defending their internal network. Two of the most effective techniques are filtering and isolation.”
“Web3: A dream of the next version of the internet.”
Benedict Evans is a leading analyst for tech trends. He is the writer of a regular newsletter. In addition, he publishes one big presentation at the end of the year. The title this year: “Three Steps to the future”.
Web3 is a top development. The presentation shows how rebranding the sometimes misleading term “cryptocurrencies” to the more ambitious term “Web3” indicates that blockchain is gradually moving into the current centre of attention. We think it’s an outstanding presentation, much food for thought.
The observation of rebranding, from a different article about Web3:
“At its core web3 is a vapid marketing campaign that attempts to reframe the public’s negative associations of crypto assets into a false narrative about the disruption of legacy tech company hegemony. It is a distraction in the pursuit of selling more coins and continuing the gravy train of evading securities regulation. We see this manifest in the circularity in which the crypto and web3 movement talks about itself. It’s not about solving real consumer problems”.
…the reality is the metaverse will require everyone’s input and participation to truly take form. It should encompass the confluence of different iterative efforts and technological advancements and have no discrete end.
Web 3, on the other hand, is a far more specific paradigm that provides clear solutions to specific shortcomings of the Web 2 internet. It is a reaction to the walled-garden ecosystems that platforms like Facebook and YouTube created, which caused people to have their data extracted, privacy breached and the ability to control the content they create oppressed. Web 3 subverts that model because it directly addresses the issues of ownership and control.
Meta says AI tool helps for faster and better moderation content
Meta uses a new moderation system called “Few-Shot Learner” to identify and filter hate content. The new system needs less training data than the predecessor, applies to 100 languages, and checks text and visuals. According to Meta, the system has reduced the amount of hate content since 2020.
Europe is still in catch-up mode regarding technology innovation and the creation of widely used technology platforms. By now, though, there is a chance that amounts of €50 or €100 million might be invested into an idea, and such funding would have been only available in the US five years ago.
For recent data on where things stand, please look at the Impact Report 2021 from the European Innovation Council (EIC). For context: “The EIC is Europe’s flagship innovation programme to identify, develop and scale up breakthrough technologies and game-changing innovations”.
The report documents the results and impact of the EIC pilot phase up to 2020. During that period, the EIC supported 5500 start-ups and SMEs. These projects and companies have:
Raised a total of EUR 9.6 billion in follow on investments,primarily from Venture Capital and from corporates, national promotional banks, and others.
Reached a valuation of around EUR 50 billion, including 91 “centaurs” (company valuation over €100m) and 2 “unicorns”(company valuation over EUR 1 billion).
Newsrooms: Investments needed for tools and talent
The news industry seems to fall further behind. One indicator is when it comes to available funds for innovation and training.
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, talks about the low level of funds in a recent outlook article: He compares R&D investments of several industries and finds that the percentage of revenue used for innovation is relatively low in the news industry. “The furniture industry seems able to invest in its future, and maybe we can, too?”
We recommend a book for everyone interested in blockchain technology: “Token Economy”, by Shermin Voshmgir. The second edition of the book, published in 2021, is an updated version of the original publication from 2019. The book provides a well written, complete overview of many aspects of decentralised applications and platforms.
The 2022 Digital Asset Outlook Report, commissioned by GSR, looks at the most important cryptocurrency developments in 2021 and looks ahead to the future of the space in the coming years. The 160-page report covers 8 different sectors within the cryptocurrency industry to watch for in 2022.
The download is free after registration with a mail address.
90% of the total supply of Bitcoin has now been mined. There’s only around 2.1 million bitcoin left to mine. LINK
The CEO of investment management firm Richard Bernstein Advisors warns that cryptocurrencies are the biggest financial bubble in history. He advises investors to stay away from “bubble assets,” including cryptocurrencies. LINK
Visa has partnered with 60+ crypto exchanges to enable conversion and day-to-day payments from these accounts. LINK
Germany’s conservative Savings Banks consider offering a crypto wallet. LINK
Bank of Russia bans mutual funds from investing in Bitcoin LINK
The EU’s comprehensive “Market in Crypto-assets (MiCA) framework continues to move through the legislative process in the European Parliament. LINK
The SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) intends to work on a framework for stablecoins and decentralised finance. LINK
Green Mining
Organizations such as the Bitcoin Mining Council are working to increase transparency in the industry through higher reporting standards. Many crypto-native organizations are also joining the Crypto Climate Accord, committing to achieve net-zero emissions from electricity consumption associated with crypto-related operations by 2030.
Adding timestamps to digital content is the core idea of WordProof. We asked questions to the founder and CEO to better understand the motivation and the goals of the company.
TruBlo: Welcome and thanks for taking the time for this interview. Before we go further – what is your background?
Sebastiaan van der Lans: “I work full-time in open source software since 2006. I founded one of the first WordPress agencies in the Netherlands. That agency today is really an open-source company, a team of 25 is working there. We did a lot of stuff for publishers, we built an open-source plug-in to be GDPR-compliant, which runs on over 200,000 websites today.”
“Open-source technology is able of doing so much more than ‘just’ publishing.”
When did you start working with blockchain and the concept of timestamps?
Sebastiaan van der Lans: Since 2013 I learned about Bitcoin, in 2014 I programmed my first smart contract. In 2018 I thought, OK, open-source technology is able of doing so much more than ‘just’ publishing. We need to build a better world through technology. I believe that to save the world, we need to fix the internet. And the key is: We can really bring trust to the internet through blockchain technology. The internet was built to connect computers to computers. But computers are just technology. What if we can make computers enable better human-to-human communication, similar to how we have communication in the real world? So trust must become part of the DNA of the internet. What is trust? Trust is the sum, in our eyes, of transparency and accountability. With blockchain timestamps, you can achieve exactly that, in an open source way, for the first time in history.
So, in 2018 I decided to work full-time on what we then called WordProof. We made a proof of concept and launched the idea at the largest WordPress conference in the world. That was Wordcamp Europe 2019.
What was the reaction there? Did people understand the concept?
Sebastiaan van der Lans: “It was a standing ovation. It was really cool. You can watch the keynote, it is available as a video. “
For the TruBlo website, we are using WordPress as well. It is great to have a CMS enabling to publish on the internet. But this leads to one issue for many creative people, like writers, photographers. You can upload any photo, and then it is up to the creator to pursue his rights. Why is there no way of getting paid for valuable work?
Sebastiaan van der Lans: “Timestamps offer an open source way to prove that you were the first one to publish certain information. There is a video we made for our academy, showing how this can help you to protect your content.”
Ok, yes, that is helpful. Though, why is it so difficult to find a good compensation model for creative people (photographers, video makers, writers) who help to create all the content for the web?
Sebastiaan van der Lans: “I understand what you say there. A good example is the GDPR plug-in we made, as an agency. We had the great wish to do something for the open-source community. I always start my conversations like this: Who loves GDPR? Everybody starts to laugh then usually. Because nobody loves GDPR. But I find GDPR wonderful. It is true: The execution was not beautiful, but the intention is great. We want to have a better internet for the citizens of Europe. So we thought: OK, nobody wants to pay to become GDPR-compliant. Let’s make it for free. Let’s make it an open-source plug-in, as opposed to a paid plug-in. We did that and by now had over two million downloads and more than 200K active installations. As an agency, we had bigger problems when we launched this. What was the problem? We were not able to find good enough developers. As there is such big competition on the market. I invested around 100,000 Euros from our company money to create a good, free GDPR plug-in. As a result, it was really for us to get great developers, as people love to work on open-source projects. And in addition, sales became easier. Because in every sales conversation the question was: How do you work with GDPR? We said: We have a plug-in running on 200,000 websites. It makes sales easier. So the direct business model of open source is totally terrible, but the indirect benefits are huge. There is a business case for open source as well.”
“… logical next step is a trusted web where all information that matters is transparent. It’s just a successor of today’s web.”
Why is there a need for a future, trusted web?
Sebastiaan van der Lans: “First there was the unregulated internet. Then there was GDPR, as it was a logical next step to protect the data of the citizens. And a logical next step after that is a trusted web where all information that matters is transparent. It’s just a successor of today’s web. A trusted web-based on timestamps is a logical next step after GDPR, this is how this is what we are showing to policymakers, not only in Europe but around the world.”
How can timestamps enable more trust in content?
Sebastiaan van der Lans: “There are lots of use cases regarding the protection of content. But that is not the only thing. For example, one of my favourite use cases is to use timestamps for search engines. If you have a small website and a large website, both publishing news at the same time – then often Google things that the large site was first, simply because they crawl the large sites more often. So, as a result, the large site ranks higher for the same news. In Google News, for example, 60 to 70 per cent of all information and all traffic goes to the first one who publishes something. But the small publisher does not get the chance to rank high in the Google Index. So what we work on together with people at Yoast is lots of standardisation to ensure that a search engine can verify who was the first to have published specific information. As a result, being a small publisher matters again. Because you can proof that you were first in an open source way. That is mind-blowing to me.”
How did you then get started with WordProof then?
Sebastiaan van der Lans: “I made the prototype of WordProof myself. I am not a great developer, but I am a good enough developer. I am good at ideation. I thought: I need to make a prototype to show that it is possible what I want. And by the end of 2018 I found out: Ok, it is possible to make a smart contract and combine it with time-stamping. We then started to build a team. For the first half of 2019, we presented at the largest WordPress conference. This is how Wordproof as a company kickstarted. By the end of 2019, we onboarded a news title of the biggest Dutch publisher, the Pers Group. A few months back we added NRC, which is the biggest how-brow media company in the Netherlands. That’s how it got started since 2018.”
“Today, 2 out of 3 large publishers in the Netherlands are using WordProof”
So, from early on you found some customers for the solution in your country?
Sebastiaan van der Lans: Yes. I think the home market is super important. This is why we invested quite some time to educate potential clients about our solution. Today, 2 out of 3 large publishers in the Netherlands are using WordProof: NRC and DPG Media.
How did you get funding for your idea?
Sebastiaan van der Lans: We did a few things. One of them is as an agency. When I created the prototype we decided: OK, we will invest as an agency one full year of my time to develop this idea. In addition, that is good advice for everyone wanting to get started on an idea: Some blockchains offer money for proposal work. So, we got 20,000 US-Dollar from a “Work on proposal” fund in the Blockchain space.
Can you talk about that specific funding option a bit more? And what the next funding step then?
Sebastiaan van der Lans: Yes, in a lot of Blockchain communities there are ways to get *some* funding, a few thousand Euros, a few hundred – simply to get you started. It’s my firm belief that as a founder you always need to be able to program at least the prototype. Otherwise, you are totally dependent on other people and that’s not going to work. Then we found a kind of angel investor.
So it’s not just a technology thing, it is not just a media thing, it is not just a politics thing or economy thing. It’s a total sum of all. So I onboarded someone who is the total opposite of me. Frank is his name, and he helped us with an initial investment. It’s great to have him on board, he is a former politician, so we have political thinking in the company.
“175 applications 23 finalists, 40 countries. And we got the highest possible rank there: 29,5 out of 30 points.”
Then we participated in a competition by the European Commission, organised by NGI – the “blockchains for social good”-competition. This was super-cool: 175 applications 23 finalists, 40 countries. And we got the highest possible rank there: 29,5 out of 30 points. We joined the competition with the idea – OK, we were not sure, if we would win. But at least we had our plans on paper after that competition. We did not work with an outside team or an agency on that. We decided to write entirely by ourselves. With our team we invested 500 to 600 hours to write a proposal from A-Z, not leaving any stone unturned. That paid off. Firstly because this helped to structure our thoughts and get the whole company on paper. Secondly, because we won the prize. And finally, the recognition was superb. The funny thing was: There was no category for what we were doing. There were categories for ideas in the areas of logistics, banking, and so on – there were five categories, but they designed a new category for us, after our application which they called “quality content”. Content as a category was initially not planned when they designed the competition. That is the shift we see now, from Horizon 2020 to Horizon Europe. It is a lot more towards content. H2020 was about data and privacy, and now it is shifting towards trust.”
Why did the idea for WordProof not come out of Silicon Valley, but out of Europe?
Sebastiaan van der Lans: Because we as Europeans care about a better internet. This is why in 2012 we came up with the idea of GDPR, to protect the rights of our citizens, to make the internet a better place. We as Europeans deeply care about that.
How big is the team you are working with right now?
Sebastiaan van der Lans: “Our team has about eight full-time people now. And, while I don’t know for sure, in a year from now the team size could easily be doubled.”
What are you offering to small and large users?
Sebastiaan van der Lans: “I think the ability to proof your integrity should not be a luxury, it is a human right. There will always be a free plan and also a paid plan. Today almost 1000 sites are using WordProof. Some publishers do over 10,000 articles a month, they use our paid service to make sure that we organise all the stuff in the background for them. The verification of a timestamp is always, from A to Z, a fully open-source process. So there is no trust in WordProof needed. So, we have two organizations: WordProof, the time-stamps company and The Trusted Web Foundation, where I am a chairman. We provide a huge amount of educational information about timestamps through The Trusted Web foundation.”
“Any information can be published on the internet, but before information can go viral, it must have a certain level of accountability, which is a step in the right direction for solving misinformation and fake news.”
What was the biggest barrier to overcome for more trustable content?
Sebastiaan van der Lans: It is a hard question and an easy question at the same time. For example, The biggest benefit is for the end-user. But the one who needs to integrate the time-stamp and who needs to pay for it is the publisher. So, it is hard to align all stakeholders. That’s why we work together with search engines and social media platforms. This is very important. First, we educate search engines and social media companies that they should attribute value to timestamps. The more transparency you show, the higher you rank. The more accountability you take as a sender of information the higher they rank you. Any information can be published on the internet, but before information can go viral, it must have a certain level of accountability, which is a step in the right direction for solving misinformation and fake news. Our opinion is that there should always be freedom of speech, but not automatically and necessarily freedom of reach. There is a lot at stake there, there is a lot of education to be done for publishers, policymakers and search engines and social media. But that is why we founded The Trusted Web Foundation. There is a whole page about a variety of topics on the website of The Trusted Web.”
When do you expect media organisations to start using this technology?
Sebastiaan van der Lans: “There are three or even four use cases where timestamps make sense for media companies. Structured data helps search engines. Timestamps are published as structured data. For example: To reduce search engine fraud by false dates (by simply updating the content to a more recent date). Levelling the playing field through timestamps: The example would be when a small and a big publisher publish similar content. With the timestamp, the smaller site can show when the content was published to the search engine. There are three or four major issues that could be solved by time-stamps.”
“As of early 2021 we are at a number of about three million time-stamps for articles. Over the coming months, this will go up to 10 million and later 100 million.”
How has the usage of timestamps evolved since WordProof started?
Sebastiaan van der Lans: “As of early 2021 we are at a number of about three million time-stamps for articles. Over the coming months, this will go up to 10 million and later 100 million. From that moment search engines can not ignore this data as an element of ranking. We are to announce that a first engine will support this format. It is a small engine, but it is an important step. “
Do you think this is an opportunity for the EU? Do you get enough support for your idea, do you find open doors?
Sebastiaan van der Lans: “We are part of a lot of round tables by the European Commission initiatives. Standardisation is key. The ISO workgroups we are part of. There are several “future of media initiatives” we are part of. Together with the publisher organisation WAN-IFRA, we are members there. I was a keynote speaker there two weeks ago. We are actively involved in media and blockchain roundtables, too.”
Why did no one think of time-stamps so far?
Sebastiaan van der Lans: “The technology of blockchain is rapidly evolving. Blockchain was invented 30 years ago, in 1991 for proofing the integrity of information. So it took quite some time. But blockchains were slow, blockchains were expensive. And the problems were not worth thinking of on the internet. So the technology was not ready, and we were not fully aware of how broken the internet is. During the last decade, we learned how broken it is, especially with COVID-19 we saw it in action. Misinformation literally costs lives. So the timing was right, both from a technology perspective and from a social perspective. Technology was not ready, society was not ready. So the time is right now. “
“WordProof is not a copyright tool”
Are you aware of similar approaches in other regions of the world?
Sebastiaan van der Lans: There are a lot of initiatives to do notarization of documents, to do copyright protection, to do search engine optimisation. WordProof is not a copyright tool, we are not just an SEO tool, we not just an integrity tool. It is a combination of all. Some building blocks. For example, there is a social network, a new one, which is called Voice.com. This new social network is really focused: Everyone there is verified. So it is only about humans. That is very interesting, but the extent of the community is limited. What we aim to do with WordProof is to make trust part of the DNA of the whole internet. And I love how for example NGI and the EU projects are all working on the trust use case. For example, search engine rankings are a result of trust. To what amount do I trust that website and put it higher in the ranks? There is not an initiative working on exactly the same. But there are a lot more organisations with an aligned mission and I like to see all of those.”
Many European companies and institutions are interested in blockchain. But in the current state of the market, where can you start? What is a promising area? Where should you better wait a little longer?
Together with BlockStart and Startup Lithuania. A key question is: How can projects and interest groups better connect capable developer and interested organisations?
The event will be a panel discussion to do just that: Bring together blockchain experts and SME adopters, to exchange on what works and what needs improvement.
This event will be held online, and live streamed in Facebook and YouTube, on 28 April at 3pm CEST (Brussels Time).
Mirko Lorenz, Expert at H2020 blockchain project NGI TruBlo
Mauro Manente, CTO at Latitudo40, one of the 18 SME adopters that piloted blockchain solutions during BlockStart’s 1st Pilot stage.
The event will be moderated by Vytautas Černiauskas, Expert at CIVITTA, BlockStart consortium partner.
Interested in joining us? This panel discussion is free-of-charge, but registration is mandatory. Upon your registration, you will receive an email a few days before the event, with a kind reminder and the link to join our speakers on 28 April.
The NGI Forum 2021 is the flagship event for the initiative, and in 2021 it will happen on May 18-19. Participation is free.
Why you should care? The NGI (Next Generation Internet) initiative is something special. NGI brings together people who want a different internet. One, where the single user has certain rights, does not have to fear data theft or worse. NGI is driven by an understanding that you can not overload a large, important system, because it will break.
What will be shown? The event will include a mix of specialists talks, open discussions and interactive workshops. Further, the NGI Forum is a showcase. Here entrepreneurs, researchers and others present their work and their approaches. The goal is to deliver technologies and services that respect European rights and values, leading to tangible benefits for both private and public organizations, as well as citizens.
Who should join? If you are an innovator, in an organisation large or small, in an established company or at a start-up or still studying – in any case it is interesting to join and interact with the NGI community.
How to attend? The 2021 NGI Forum will be an online event. Be part of it, save the date and join here:
Will TruBlo be present? Yes, TruBlo will co-organize a workshop. The details of when it happens will be published on this website and through the TruBlo newsletter.
Join the NGI community. The NGI Community is a knowledge-sharing platform, to connect informally with fellow innovators, entrepreneurs and professionals. Join here, it’s free.
Our brain can process visual images in as little as 13 milliseconds. A glance is all it takes. Based on the intake, our brain starts to process the information. This outstanding ability is part of the problem: Our way of processing images means that manipulated visuals have a big impact. We see something, we notice it. It is easy to do damage, but difficult to correct the impression we got.
A need for better verifiable visual content
And this, particularly, is why there is such a strong need to have better tools to verify visual content. The rise of manipulated content has many reasons. Two are most important: Firstly, there are tools enabling almost undetectable visual manipulation. Many of these tools have been developed for photo and video artists, from advertising to film making in Hollywood. But these advanced technologies can be used to create misinformation, too.
Secondly, the standards for uploading visual content are still low. Everyone with a mobile phone can take a screenshot, upload it to a social media platform and claim whatever they like. False rumours combined with emotion can have similar effects as propaganda. Many content management platforms allow the uploading of photos or videos without demanding data as to the copyright of the material or other information. This missing info makes it even harder for fact-checkers to determine the correctness of the material.
A smart approach towards verifiable visuals
This is where Serelay, a startup from the UK, comes in: The company offers a way to enable the creation of verifiable photos that is effective and can be used right away. The approach does not affect the user’s privacy. All you have to do is to download the Serelay app. Located in Oxford, the company has created a full circle solution to enable verifiable information. The process works with both photos and videos.
Data points added to a photo at the moment of capture
But how does this work? Serelay has pioneered a process described as “trusted media capture”. The software records between 300 and 500 data points to an image at the moment when it is captured. These data points are then linked to the media item. This added information is compressed, to be less than 15kb per capture. This is important, given the number of pictures taken. With 15kb there is minimal mobile bandwidth needed. The battery of a mobile device is not considerably drained.
While the technology is complex, using it is very simple. As a user download and install the Serelay apps and then start taking photos with highly extended verification options.
And another, important aspect: While the additional data can be used to verify the photo, there is no information stored about the user. Serelay provides higher transparency for the media item, but without exposing the photo creator in unwanted ways.
Enabling verification in under 30 seconds
Taking photos is one side of the coin, being able to verify such material is the other: Serelay says that any photo or video captured can be queried for authenticity in under 30 seconds, by running it through software. The analysis can spot whether even one pixel or video frame has changed.
The Serelay software enables to add and later check multiple data points of a photo for verification. This includes 3D detection (to ensure the photo is not just a screenshot), the location and the time the image was taken. Source: Serelay.
Example: Where was the photo taken?
The Serelay software can determine, too, whether the photo was taken outside (“in a valid 3D event”). This can help to determine that the image is not just a screenshot taken on a laptop. The software further validates time and location, using real-time third-party datasets. An algorithm developed by Serelay will further check for anomalies. The verification software can be accessed through a user interface. For media organisations and others having to verify many such visuals, there is an option to automate the process through APIs. The Serelay documentation can be found here.
Interview with the Founder
We talked to Roy Azoulay, founder and executive director of Serelay
Roy Azoulay, Serelay
Q: What is your background?
Roy Azoulay: “I come from a physics and computer science background, I spent the start of my career as a software engineer and team leader. I then completed an MBA at the University of Oxford and following this ended up setting up and running a successful startup incubator for the university.”
Q: Can you describe what Serelay offers?
“Serelay believes that photos and videos should be captured in a way that is inherently verifiable. Serelay captured photos and videos can be queried for the authenticity of content, time and location, quickly conclusively and at scale.”
Q: How did you get to this point in development with Serelay? How did it evolve?
“We developed our initial concept with funding from Google through it’s Digital News Initiative Fund and with support from the European Space Agency. Then, after almost a year of testing and tightening so that the technology could comply with the toughest data protection regulations and the highest journalistic standards in the world, we deployed our solution with one of the world’s most reputable news media organisations, the newspaper The Guardian in the UK. This was a landmark collaboration. In our original design, Serelay compliant photos needed to be captured either by a Serelay camera app, or our SDK embedded in a third-party app with camera functionality. We have recently launched a new architecture called ‘React’ which enables the creation of Serelay-compliant photos, using a mobile device’s stock camera app.”
Q: How important is the use of blockchain?
“We do not use blockchain at the moment as we are happy to collaborate with partners in the space. While we can certainly see the value of recording origin metadata on an immutable ledger, a blockchain implementation also introduces complexity – for example, we currently give users the option to delete all of their photos’ metadata from our database in just a few clicks, in a different scenario – we may retroactively revoke the veracity credentials of a certain phone model or operating system version where a security vulnerability is uncovered. These matters require a carefully designed blockchain implementation, possibly with different implementation architectures for different use cases. We see ourselves as a technology partner for such implementations, it is unlikely we will do one in-house.”
Q: What are the next steps to establish this technology for wider use? Are you already working with media or other organisations?
“I mentioned our work with The Guardian. We will also unveil a collaboration with a global software giant in March 2021.”
Q: What is your take on the future of trustable content?
“I believe it is in the metadata. A common language to communicate content authenticity and the capability to immutably embed it in a media file can have far-reaching effects. The Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) led by Adobe is doing just that.” (Editors note: See info about the CAI below.)
Q: What is the next step for Serelay?
“Our next step will be to add immutable origin metadata, compliant with the emerging CAI standard, to our existing product line.”
What are the options to use Serelay?
“Serelay offers two free apps which add verification data to photos taken with mobile phones, for Android and Apple phones. They differ in terms of integration.”
Thank You for the interview.
Download options:
Serelay Idem enables capturing verifiable photos and videos, through Serelay’s own camera app. To install the app there is no registration needed, to ensure that the privacy of the user is kept. For verification, the app will rely on nearby Wifi signals and other data points. Download: https://www.serelay.com/our-products/idem/
Serelay React does the same, but can directly use the stock camera of the device. Users install the app once and every photo/video they snap on their stock camera is ‘synched’ by React for content, time and location verifiability. How it works is described on the Download page.
Available SDKs enable a further extension of the functionalities to third party apps. Using the Idem SDK companies can add in-app Trusted Media Capture™. The React SDK enables even deeper integration to any photo or video taken with the camera on the device, so there is no need for the user to firstly open the Serelay photo app.
Info: What is the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI)?
The initiative was started in 2019 by Adobe, The New York Times Company and Twitter.
By now, several additional companies have joined the group. The goal is to create an accepted standard of how to enable trustable content. The initiative identified detection, education and better ways for attribution as key goals towards better handling of content.
Quote from the website: “The Content Authenticity Initiative is building a system to provide provenance and history for digital media, giving creators a tool to claim authorship and empowering consumers to evaluate whether what they are seeing is trustworthy.” Link
Correction note: An earlier version of the article described Roy Azoulay as “founder and CEO”. This has been corrected, he is the “founder and executive director” of the company.
The initiative was started in 2019 by Adobe, The New York Times Company and Twitter.
By now, several additional companies have joined the group. The goal is to create an accepted standard of how to enable trustable content. The initiative identified detection, education and better ways for attribution as key goals towards better handling of content.
Quote from the website: “The Content Authenticity Initiative is building a system to provide provenance and history for digital media, giving creators a tool to claim authorship and empowering consumers to evaluate whether what they are seeing is trustworthy.” Link
Correction note: An earlier version of the article described Roy Azoulay as “founder and CEO”. This has been corrected, he is the “founder and executive director” of the company.
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