Community Update #4

Published in

NuCypher

4 min readMay 11, 2018

Hello NuCypher Community, we have a lot to share over the last few weeks, a we’ve made lots of progress! Let’s start with our Developer Updates:

What we’ve accomplished:

The release of pyUmbral! A release post will be coming soon. Some additions include documentation and much more thorough testing (97% code coverage!);
Alice -> Ursula -> Bob re-encryption flow working through REST API. This is a major component of achieving testnet. This was demoed by re-encrypting Finnegan’s Wake from Alice to Bob;
Much more thorough testing of encrypting powers in the NuCypher KMS codebase;
Decoupled Ethereum smart contract deployment and client logic (into ContractAgents and ContractDeployers);
Treasure Maps (used for locating nodes for re-encryption) can now optionally be acquired via REST interface if Bob knows a node (Ursula’s) interface information;
Methods for Alice and Ursula payment models have been implemented. More information about these payment models will be coming soon;
Performance increases for our Ethereum smart contracts.

What’s coming up next:

We’re making a lot of progress towards testnet for the NuCypher KMS. We expect to be there soon;
The official pyUmbral release post(!);
Security improvements to Umbral, including advancements to the challenge protocol which will significantly improve the security and integrity of the NuCypher KMS network;
Continued performance increases to our smart contracts;
Further developments to our payment models.

NuCypher Interview Series: Builders of the Decentralized Web — Ep. 1

We’re excited to release the first episode of the NuCypher Interview Series: Builders of the Decentralized Web. In this series, we talk to the developers, thinkers, and innovators working on the decentralized web’s foundational infrastructure.

Episode #1 features Justin Myles Holmes, a key member of NuCypher’s engineering team, and self-described ‘Chief Chocobo Breeder’. Justin also provides a fresh perspective on what proxy re-encryption and the NuCypher KMS bring to the decentralized world.

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE

NuCypher Interview Series: Builders of the Decentralized Web — Ep. 2

Episode #2 we had the pleasure of sitting down in Seattle with Kieran Prasch, a former programming teacher and now integral NuCypher team-member. Arjun and Keiran dive into Kieran’s educational background, his responsibilities in building JavaScript implementations of NuCypher schemes, and his views on the future of the web’s topological structure.

WATCH THE FULL EPISODE

Special thank you to Arjun Hassard for the thoughtful content.

NuCypher Event Rundown

NuCypher California Tour

This month saw the NuCypher team embark on a mini-tour through a few of the biggest blockchain and crypto meetups in California.

Oakland Blockchain Developers Meetup — February 22

MacLane Wilkison and Joh Pacific presented a hands-on workshop “Introduction to Blockchain Cryptography”.

They presented and gave a tutorial on how to use NuCypher KMS to build decentralized applications and for granting permissions to read encrypted data.

Silicon Valley Ethereum Meetup — February 25

A great double-header event which included an opening talk from Joseph Chow — a consulting Engineer with ConsenSys and author of BTCrelay, the Bitcoin-to-Ethereum bridge.

Following up was Maclane Wilkison and John Pacific speaking about the NuCypher KMS. See the video of the event below! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_M34MAUadQ

Berkeley Bitcoin Meetup — February 26

Big thank you to the Berkeley Bitcoin Meetup for having us a part of their Enterprise Series. Michael Egorov, NuCypher CTO, spoke about our KMS, pyUmbral, economic incentive layers to keep nodes honest, and token economy.

NuCypher & TreeHacks

Arujan Hassard attended TreeHacks conference representing the NuCypher team as a 36-hour hackathon took place focusing on the verticles of security, health, and energy. Arjun was one of seven judges for the security stream.

NuCypher & ETHDenver

Here is the complete rundown of ETHDenver including video from the talks, pictures and what was created at the hackathon using NuCypher. The recording of the panel discussion, “dApp Stacks” with MacLane Wilkison is posted below.

We want to thank the ETHDenver organizers, volunteers, sponsors and hackers for making this one of the top events of the year. Can’t wait to see you all next year!

You can also check out the awesome projects built using NuCypher HERE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM_DDD7YHMI