Our Interview with Laurent Parenteau, VP of Engineering at Open Garden
Thursday, June 7th, 2018
Written by Open Garden staff.
We sat down with Open Garden’s VP of Engineering, Laurent Parenteau, to talk about the network, his vision for the company, and life on a deserted island.
Question: Can you tell us a little bit about Open Garden’s vision and mission?
Laurent: Internet access is broken, and our mission at Open Garden is to fix this. With millions of people sharing Internet access through the Open Garden protocol, the last remaining barrier to the original vision for Internet connectivity will be removed.
Question: What initially intrigued you about Open Garden and made you want to come work here?
Laurent: I have always been involved with and interested in network protocols and communications, starting with the Hayes command set many years ago, up to newer protocols like HTTP/2. When I learned about the mesh protocols developed for FireChat, I immediately wanted to work on that project. The potential of building a device-to-device network, transforming millions of devices from simple consumers into providers as well was mind blowing to me. Way bigger than just a messaging app. This kind of Internet revolution struck a chord with my old punk rock spirit, too… can’t ignore that motivation.
Question: Can you tell us a bit about your role as VP of Engineering?
Laurent: Really, my role is to make sure we deliver on that vision. We face a lot of challenges. I’m mostly concerned about building a great, solid, secure and reliable offering, because Internet access needs to be great, solid, secure and reliable. We’re looking at multiple ways to make this accessible to as many people as possible, so lots of technologies and platforms are involved. We already have a working product, the Open Garden app for Android, but this is just the beginning.
This is a huge team effort, so I also need to make sure we have a great engineering team, all sharing and believing in the same vision. On that topic, we’re hiring!
Question: Can you give us a more technical rundown of what Open Garden is trying to accomplish?
Laurent: The world is analog, but I often like to split things in two. So on the technical front we are working on two things at once. First, the Open Garden protocol. This is the network protocol stack that we are building, to allow this interoperability across all endpoints. Discovery, billing, reputation, QoS, security, encryption, privacy, and multipathing are all parts of the Open Garden protocol.
The other part encompasses the platforms. A protocol specification isn’t useful until it’s actually been implemented. We currently have the Open Garden Android application that implements part of the Open Garden protocol, and a similar iOS application coming soon. But that’s just the start, as we see the protocol being implemented on other platforms as well — like off the shelf WiFi routers and range extenders, PCs and laptops, IoT devices, etc. Basically anything that has or needs access to the Internet. And we don’t want to keep all the fun to ourselves. We’ll provide the protocol, but integration across all the platforms will involve other players that share our vision, too!
Question: What kind of security, encryption, and privacy are you referring to?
Laurent: People are more and more aware of all the information that gets transmitted on the Internet, who has access to that, and the direct implications of that on their daily lives. Moving to use HTTPS for everything a couple of years ago was a first step in the right direction. Renewed interest in Tor, in more secure messaging platforms, and so forth are all results of that. Open Garden believes in that as well and we are building the protocol with that in mind. Using cryptocurrency for payment on the network also allows for greater privacy. We’re including state-of-the-art encryption between every endpoint on the network, while keeping non-participating traffic outside. Another aspect of the protocol is a completely decentralized VPN with multipathing, so no single exit node gets access to all of the traffic from a single device, which also helps prevent governments and ISPs from controlling, interfering with and limiting access to the Internet.
Question: How does discovery work? How does someone connect to an Open Garden protocol-based network?
Laurent: We want to allow every type of device, so we use a wide range of technologies and protocols. Basically anything that allows two devices to discover each other will work including Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy, WiFi, WiFi Direct, etc. Any new radio technologies that come to life can easily be integrated as well, since the protocol is extensible for exactly that reason. There are also options in our protocol for allowing devices that don’t yet support the Open Garden protocol, to still be able to connect and access the Internet. Obviously, they don’t get all the benefits, but the world can’t be changed in a single day, so this allows for a migration period.
And it is important to note that discovering Open Garden providers and connecting to them doesn’t require Internet access in the first place. All of that can happen while completely offline.
Question: Can you explain the team’s choice of Stellar? Why use it instead of Ethereum, for example?
Laurent: Ethereum is obviously the first contender that everyone considers when they start looking into blockchain platforms. For many projects this is actually a very good choice. But not for us. At least not for now.
To ensure the safe — but also predictable — billing and payment aspects of our protocol, the top concerns are: fast and predictable transaction confirmation times, really low transaction fees, and the ability to support a high number of transactions per second.
There are a lot of great developers working on getting Ethereum there, and I’m sure this will happen eventually. But that isn’t the current state of the platform. With Stellar, transactions usually get confirmed within 4 seconds, it has already been tested with more than 40k transactions per second and with Lightning coming up that will just skyrocket. The transaction fee is pretty much negligible, too. So Stellar it is.
That said, we’re not naive and are keeping our options open. When a better platforms comes along (can’t stop progress!), our protocol is designed to support moving to something else, so it won’t get stuck in the past.
Question: What are some of the other challenges of trying to accomplish the vision?
Laurent: One big challenge is making sure this can stand against adversarial interest. Obviously there are some entities that would like to limit or control people’s Internet access even more, perhaps even bring it to a “walled garden” state. Some other people just like to hack around. So, to ensure that the Open Garden protocol can really allow our vision to come to life, it needs to be able to live in an adversarial environment.
Another big challenge is that currently, cryptocurrencies are still mostly living in their own world. Bridging that with the fiat currency world isn’t quite solved yet. For some people with specialized interest in the space, yes, but for the general public, not yet. To fulfill our vision, the Open Garden protocol really needs to use a decentralized payment platform, so we have to solve that problem, while making it as simple as any other Internet transaction today — even for people that have never heard about Bitcoin. Fortunately, we do have a bright and creative team here, so we are solving this :)
Question: Can you tell us what a typical day at Open Garden looks like?
Laurent: Are there typical days in startups? I never knew that! But removing all the unexpected (but fun and exciting!) moments of the day… I usually like to start early and keep myself up to date with what’s happening in the software / network / crypto world. Then I can do some quick follow ups and checks with some engineers, before our 9:30 AM standup. Between that and lunch, it’s usually again some follow ups and checks, to ensure nobody is blocked, answer some questions, discuss solutions for new problems and system architecture, etc. After lunch I usually have 1:1 discussions with some engineers, to talk about anything really, while ensuring we’re all still aligned on the vision and gathering any feedback they might have. I also discuss our roadmap with Paul and the management team, and do the technical investigation and preparation needed in advance of our next sprint.
Since it’s hard for me to stop thinking about all of this, once the kids are in bed, I usually find myself either researching or discussing longer term features. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Question: If you were stuck on a deserted island and could bring only one of your Open Garden friends, who would you bring and can you tell us why?
Laurent: Given any choice, I’d obviously pick my girlfriend, but unfortunately she doesn’t work at Open Garden (would that be a good reason to hire her?). But more seriously, that’s a hard one, because everyone on the team is really great. I could easily give a non-answer, like every good politician. Otherwise, I would go with our CEO, Paul.
On a deserted island, with only one other person, I think trust and honesty are critically important. They’re important qualities in the real world, too, but if you can only sleep while another person is there, and killing you means he’s doubled his food supply, you really need to trust each other. I wouldn’t have any problem with trusting Paul, and I’m sure that would be mutual.
Honesty is a big part of the culture we are building here at Open Garden. We wouldn’t be able to tackle such big challenges and build our vision if we weren’t honest with each other about what can work, what the bad ideas are, etc. But honesty can’t be woven into the fabric of the company if it isn’t exemplified by top management in the first place, and Paul delivers that every day.
Question: If Open Garden had a spirit animal, what would it be?
Laurent: A homing pigeon, for the obvious link with communication but also because they symbolize life, liberty and resilience.
Thank you so much for your time, Laurent!
Laurent: Thanks for the interview. I’m happy to discuss Open Garden anytime!
Open Garden is building a robust, completely decentralized network that benefits regular people. It’s all about enabling people and communities to reclaim ownership of the Internet. We don’t think about growing the Open Garden network as Uber thinks about building its driver network. The network doesn’t belong to our company, it belongs to the people and communities that built it. We’re enabling each one of us to reclaim the Internet, reclaim our privacy, and establish higher-quality connections at a much lower cost. We’re building the Internet of Us!
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