From dc3e5089bf41109ea18b648b77bc2b02b7848def Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Arjun Hassard Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2023 18:46:33 -0400 Subject: [PATCH 1/4] transparent decentralization vs. unilateral worst case scenarios --- src/content/pages/about/index.md | 5 ++++- src/content/pages/index.md | 22 +++++++++------------- 2 files changed, 13 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-) diff --git a/src/content/pages/about/index.md b/src/content/pages/about/index.md index bbd540fd..c50b526c 100644 --- a/src/content/pages/about/index.md +++ b/src/content/pages/about/index.md @@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ faq: - question: Do legacy KEEP stakers need to set up a PRE node? answer: Yes, everyone who stakes on Threshold will need to run a PRE node. If - you are working with a stakng provider, reach out to them to accomplish + you are working with a staking provider, reach out to them to accomplish this. If you are running your own node, you can refer to the following guide. buttons: @@ -97,6 +97,9 @@ faq: image: /images/document.svg rightIcon: image: /images/external-arrow.svg + - question: What is the difference between Threshold's services and those of competitors? + answer: + Threshold is committed to transparent decentralization. title: About template: about-page seoTitle: About diff --git a/src/content/pages/index.md b/src/content/pages/index.md index 2151eed9..3deca29f 100644 --- a/src/content/pages/index.md +++ b/src/content/pages/index.md @@ -92,28 +92,24 @@ migrationInfo: bgColor: "#141414" rowReverse: false harnessThePower: - title: Harness the power of Threshold - description: Threshold leverages threshold cryptography to protect digital - assets by distributing operations across independent parties, requiring some - threshold number of them (t-of-n) to cooperate. + title: Threshold is committed to ZeroBullshit decentralization + description: Threshold combines threshold cryptography with a cryptoeconomically-coordinated network. All cryptographic operations are disassembled and distributed across independent nodes, such that no commercial entity or individual has any unilateral power. In this way, sovereign assets and private data are not vulnerable to rogue developer teams, opaque backroom deals, regulator intervention or any other single point-of-failure events. Like many Web3 projects, Threshold strives to steadily minimize each application's trust impositions. Unlike others, Threshold is committed to full transparency ('zero bullshit') on the current state of decentralization. buttons: - label: About Threshold url: /about variant: INTERNAL_SOLID subitems: - title: Decentralized - description: Threshold utilizes a network of independent nodes to provide - threshold cryptographic services without a central authority. + description: Threshold has built a robust network of independent nodes to collectively provide + threshold cryptographic services. There are no central authorities, temporary or otherwise. image: /images/decentralized-icon.png - - title: Secure + - title: High Security description: - Splitting cryptographic operations across nodes increases security - and availability and reduces trust assumptions. Threshold is - [audited](/about#audits) by the best firms in the space. + Splitting cryptographic operations across multiple nodes increases redundancy, liveness and overall security. Threshold is also + [audited](/about#audits) by the most reputable firms in the space. image: /images/secure-icon.png - - title: Private - description: Cryptographic protocols eradicate the trust burden forced on - end-users and ensure privacy on the public blockchain. + - title: Transparent + description: No service or network can offer perfect trustlessness. Threshold is committed to explaining the trust assumptions of each component of each app, and how they will evolve over time. image: /images/private-icon.png activeCommunity: title: Threshold is run by an active community. From 7916fed78d911bffacde94dec513e584e3737614 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Arjun Hassard Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2023 20:32:19 -0400 Subject: [PATCH 2/4] update to day-one-decentralized --- src/content/pages/index.md | 8 ++++---- 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) diff --git a/src/content/pages/index.md b/src/content/pages/index.md index 3deca29f..d79bc778 100644 --- a/src/content/pages/index.md +++ b/src/content/pages/index.md @@ -92,10 +92,10 @@ migrationInfo: bgColor: "#141414" rowReverse: false harnessThePower: - title: Threshold is committed to ZeroBullshit decentralization - description: Threshold combines threshold cryptography with a cryptoeconomically-coordinated network. All cryptographic operations are disassembled and distributed across independent nodes, such that no commercial entity or individual has any unilateral power. In this way, sovereign assets and private data are not vulnerable to rogue developer teams, opaque backroom deals, regulator intervention or any other single point-of-failure events. Like many Web3 projects, Threshold strives to steadily minimize each application's trust impositions. Unlike others, Threshold is committed to full transparency ('zero bullshit') on the current state of decentralization. + title: Threshold is a Day-One-Decentralized Network + description: For every application launched on Threshold, all cryptographic operations are disassembled and distributed across independent nodes – from Genesis. By avoiding a 'temporary phase' of unilateral power, sovereign assets and private data are not vulnerable to rogue developer teams, opaque backroom deals, or any other point-of-failure events. Like many Web3 projects, Threshold strives to steadily minimize trust impositions. Unlike others, Threshold provides full transparency on the current state of decentralization. buttons: - - label: About Threshold + - label: Learn More url: /about variant: INTERNAL_SOLID subitems: @@ -109,7 +109,7 @@ harnessThePower: [audited](/about#audits) by the most reputable firms in the space. image: /images/secure-icon.png - title: Transparent - description: No service or network can offer perfect trustlessness. Threshold is committed to explaining the trust assumptions of each component of each app, and how they will evolve over time. + description: No service, product or network can offer perfect 'trustlessness'. Threshold explains the underlying trust assumptions of each component of each app, and how they'll evolve over time. image: /images/private-icon.png activeCommunity: title: Threshold is run by an active community. From 899c396e65ee54aefcb656ef620e63032029497e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Arjun Hassard Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2023 19:59:04 -0400 Subject: [PATCH 3/4] FAQ extension draft --- src/content/pages/about/index.md | 17 ++++++++--------- src/content/pages/index.md | 6 +++--- 2 files changed, 11 insertions(+), 12 deletions(-) diff --git a/src/content/pages/about/index.md b/src/content/pages/about/index.md index c50b526c..a36ab88d 100644 --- a/src/content/pages/about/index.md +++ b/src/content/pages/about/index.md @@ -35,12 +35,13 @@ faq: variant: INTERNAL_SOLID faqs: - question: What is threshold cryptography? - answer: Threshold cryptography is a revolutionary technology that uses - cryptography to unlock greater utility and usability for digital assets - without needing to trust a centralized party. Threshold cryptography - distributes sensitive operations across multiple independent entities – - like nodes in a network – and requires a threshold, or minimum number of - those entities to cooperate for the operation to be successful. + answer: Threshold Cryptography is a class of cryptographic primitive that helps spread operations across a group of service-providers, such that no single entity is being trusted to behave correctly. The concept of a 'threshold' – wherein a minimum number of independent entities must align on the expected behavior – is a straightforward but powerful impediment against unilateral control. Without that control, surveillance, rent-seeking, and other exploitative Web2.0 practices become far harder to impose on end-users. + - question: What is the difference between Threshold's services and those offered by competitors, with respect to trust? + answer: + Although most Web3 and DeFi projects pay lip service to 'decentralization', 'trust-minimization', and 'permissionless', far fewer wait until their networks (and therefore services) are meaningfully decentralized before launching. Not only is their path towards trust-reduction often unclear and unresolved – i.e. necessitating ambitious R&D efforts with no guaranteed resolutions – there is also a tendency to obfuscate this uncertainty. Threshold is committed to (1) achieving meaningful decentralization (defined below) before offering a Mainnet/production version of any service, (2) making the limitations of said version (particularly with respect to trust impositions) transparent and comprehensible, and (3) delaying the service's launch until a low-risk path towards resolving those trust-related limitations has been established and planned out. To that end, Threshold's open-source repositories go beyond polished pull requests, and include plenty of upstream issues discussing the trust burdens placed on adopters amd users, and how we might solve them. Threshold documentation also contains entire sections dedicated to explaining the underlying trust assumptions of a given Threshold application or service. See TACo's Trust Assumptions pages for details of the current and future state of trust. + - question: What is Threshold's definition of 'meaningful decentralization'? + answer: Decentralization is a nebulous and contentious term, and a universally applicable delineation may never be agreed upon. In the context of Threshold's Web3 and DeFi applications – namely, a BTC-ETH bridge, programmable access control, verifiable randomness, and a stablecoin – we offer the following definition. An application may be described as 'meaningfully decentralized' if critical operational power is distributed across observably independent entities. More specifically, this means that no single commercial entity (or conglomerate) has the ability to abscond with user funds, decrypt private user data, spoof randomness, or block/DOS any of the services that Threshold adopters rely upon. Perhaps it would be better to describe this definition as 'Minimum Viable Decentralization', since Threshold delivers cryptographic services that are much more decentralized. For example, the signer set that manages tBTC deposits is always group of 100 nodes, while with TACo access to sensitive data is managed by cohorts of around 30 nodes – in both cases selected from the wider node population (which hovers around 250 and 100 distinct Etheruem addresses respectively). There are two caveats; (1) there are other components of each app that are less decentralized, and (2) a tBTC set or TACo cohort may contain multiple nodes controlled by the same entity. However, while it may not be possible to verify on-chain who controls each node, it is discernible through informal evidence – including Etherscan observation, 'voluntary self-doxxing' via community participation, and third-party oversight into correlations and concentrations of machines. Overall, the bar for 'meaningfully decentralized' is arguably rather low, and yet Threshold remains one of the few networks that clears this bar. + - question: Do legacy KEEP stakers need to set up a PRE node? answer: Yes, everyone who stakes on Threshold will need to run a PRE node. If @@ -97,9 +98,7 @@ faq: image: /images/document.svg rightIcon: image: /images/external-arrow.svg - - question: What is the difference between Threshold's services and those of competitors? - answer: - Threshold is committed to transparent decentralization. + title: About template: about-page seoTitle: About diff --git a/src/content/pages/index.md b/src/content/pages/index.md index d79bc778..224f3bfa 100644 --- a/src/content/pages/index.md +++ b/src/content/pages/index.md @@ -92,8 +92,8 @@ migrationInfo: bgColor: "#141414" rowReverse: false harnessThePower: - title: Threshold is a Day-One-Decentralized Network - description: For every application launched on Threshold, all cryptographic operations are disassembled and distributed across independent nodes – from Genesis. By avoiding a 'temporary phase' of unilateral power, sovereign assets and private data are not vulnerable to rogue developer teams, opaque backroom deals, or any other point-of-failure events. Like many Web3 projects, Threshold strives to steadily minimize trust impositions. Unlike others, Threshold provides full transparency on the current state of decentralization. + title: A Day-One-Decentralized Network + description: In each Threshold app, all cryptographic operations are disassembled and distributed across independent nodes, from the start. There's no 'temporary phase' of unilateral power, so sovereign assets and private data aren't vulnerable to rogue developer teams, opaque backroom deals, or SPOF events. Like most Web3 projects, Threshold steadily minimizes trust impositions over time. Unlike others, Threshold provides total transparency on the current state of decentralization. buttons: - label: Learn More url: /about @@ -109,7 +109,7 @@ harnessThePower: [audited](/about#audits) by the most reputable firms in the space. image: /images/secure-icon.png - title: Transparent - description: No service, product or network can offer perfect 'trustlessness'. Threshold explains the underlying trust assumptions of each component of each app, and how they'll evolve over time. + description: No service, product or network can offer perfect 'trustlessness'. Threshold explains the trust assumptions of each component of each app, and how they'll evolve over time. image: /images/private-icon.png activeCommunity: title: Threshold is run by an active community. From 72703868da7353a296b9aeae6639e7d28f8d0076 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Arjun Hassard Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2023 20:13:01 -0400 Subject: [PATCH 4/4] corrections --- src/content/pages/about/index.md | 13 ++++++++++--- 1 file changed, 10 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/src/content/pages/about/index.md b/src/content/pages/about/index.md index a36ab88d..fe534b1c 100644 --- a/src/content/pages/about/index.md +++ b/src/content/pages/about/index.md @@ -35,12 +35,19 @@ faq: variant: INTERNAL_SOLID faqs: - question: What is threshold cryptography? - answer: Threshold Cryptography is a class of cryptographic primitive that helps spread operations across a group of service-providers, such that no single entity is being trusted to behave correctly. The concept of a 'threshold' – wherein a minimum number of independent entities must align on the expected behavior – is a straightforward but powerful impediment against unilateral control. Without that control, surveillance, rent-seeking, and other exploitative Web2.0 practices become far harder to impose on end-users. + answer: Threshold Cryptography is a class of cryptographic primitive that helps spread operations across a group of service-providers, such that no single entity is being trusted to behave correctly. The concept of a 'threshold' – wherein a minimum number of independent entities must align on the expected behavior – is a straightforward but powerful impediment against unilateral control. Without that control; surveillance, rent-seeking, and other exploitative Web2.0 practices become far harder to impose on end-users. - question: What is the difference between Threshold's services and those offered by competitors, with respect to trust? answer: - Although most Web3 and DeFi projects pay lip service to 'decentralization', 'trust-minimization', and 'permissionless', far fewer wait until their networks (and therefore services) are meaningfully decentralized before launching. Not only is their path towards trust-reduction often unclear and unresolved – i.e. necessitating ambitious R&D efforts with no guaranteed resolutions – there is also a tendency to obfuscate this uncertainty. Threshold is committed to (1) achieving meaningful decentralization (defined below) before offering a Mainnet/production version of any service, (2) making the limitations of said version (particularly with respect to trust impositions) transparent and comprehensible, and (3) delaying the service's launch until a low-risk path towards resolving those trust-related limitations has been established and planned out. To that end, Threshold's open-source repositories go beyond polished pull requests, and include plenty of upstream issues discussing the trust burdens placed on adopters amd users, and how we might solve them. Threshold documentation also contains entire sections dedicated to explaining the underlying trust assumptions of a given Threshold application or service. See TACo's Trust Assumptions pages for details of the current and future state of trust. + Although most Web3 and DeFi projects pay lip service to 'decentralization', 'trust-minimization', and 'permissionless', far fewer wait until their networks (and therefore services) are meaningfully decentralized before launching. Not only is their path towards trust-reduction often unclear and unresolved – i.e. necessitating ambitious R&D efforts with no guaranteed resolutions – there is also a tendency to obfuscate this uncertainty. Threshold is committed to (1) achieving meaningful decentralization (defined below) before offering a Mainnet/production version of any service, (2) making the limitations of said version (particularly with respect to trust impositions) transparent and comprehensible, and (3) delaying the service's launch until a low-risk path towards resolving those trust-related limitations has been established and planned out. To that end, Threshold's open-source repositories go beyond polished pull requests, and include plenty of upstream issues discussing the trust burdens placed on adopters amd users, and how we might solve them. Threshold documentation also contains entire sections dedicated to explaining the underlying trust assumptions of a given Threshold application or service. + buttons: + - label: TACo's Trust Assumptions + leftIcon: + image: /images/document.svg + rightIcon: + image: /images/external-arrow.svg + url: https://docs.threshold.network/app-development/threshold-access-control-tac/trust-assumptions - question: What is Threshold's definition of 'meaningful decentralization'? - answer: Decentralization is a nebulous and contentious term, and a universally applicable delineation may never be agreed upon. In the context of Threshold's Web3 and DeFi applications – namely, a BTC-ETH bridge, programmable access control, verifiable randomness, and a stablecoin – we offer the following definition. An application may be described as 'meaningfully decentralized' if critical operational power is distributed across observably independent entities. More specifically, this means that no single commercial entity (or conglomerate) has the ability to abscond with user funds, decrypt private user data, spoof randomness, or block/DOS any of the services that Threshold adopters rely upon. Perhaps it would be better to describe this definition as 'Minimum Viable Decentralization', since Threshold delivers cryptographic services that are much more decentralized. For example, the signer set that manages tBTC deposits is always group of 100 nodes, while with TACo access to sensitive data is managed by cohorts of around 30 nodes – in both cases selected from the wider node population (which hovers around 250 and 100 distinct Etheruem addresses respectively). There are two caveats; (1) there are other components of each app that are less decentralized, and (2) a tBTC set or TACo cohort may contain multiple nodes controlled by the same entity. However, while it may not be possible to verify on-chain who controls each node, it is discernible through informal evidence – including Etherscan observation, 'voluntary self-doxxing' via community participation, and third-party oversight into correlations and concentrations of machines. Overall, the bar for 'meaningfully decentralized' is arguably rather low, and yet Threshold remains one of the few networks that clears this bar. + answer: Decentralization is a nebulous and contentious term, and a universally applicable delineation may never be agreed upon. In the context of Threshold's Web3 and DeFi applications – namely, a BTC-ETH bridge, programmable access control, verifiable randomness, and a stablecoin – we offer the following definition. An application may be described as 'meaningfully decentralized' if critical operational power is distributed across observably independent entities. More specifically, this means that no single commercial entity (or conglomerate) has the ability to abscond with user funds, decrypt private user data, spoof randomness, or block/DOS any of the services that Threshold adopters rely upon. We could also describe this qualifying delineation as a 'Minimum Viable Decentralization', and indeed Threshold's cryptographic services go much further. For example, the signer set that manages tBTC deposits is always a group of 100 nodes, while for TACo, access to sensitive data is managed by cohorts of around 30 nodes. In both cases these groups are sampled from the wider node population, which hovers around 250 and 75 distinct Ethereum addresses, respectively. There are two caveats; i. other components of certain Threshold apps are less decentralized (but still sit far above the Minimum Viable Decentralization delineation), and ii. a tBTC set or TACo cohort may contain multiple nodes controlled by the same entity. With respect to ii., while it may not be possible to verify on-chain who precisely controls each node, intra-node independence is discernible through informal evidence – including Etherscan observation, 'voluntary self-doxxing' via DAO/community participation, and third-party oversight into correlations and concentrations of machines. Overall, even if the bar to qualify as 'meaningfully decentralized' could be higher, it is unfortunate that many networks and Web3 projects fail to clear even this low bar. - question: Do legacy KEEP stakers need to set up a PRE node? answer: