Guer and Web3 Security in 2021: An Update
A quick look at the end of 2020, and what's ahead in 2021!
January 2021 Update
Welcome to 2021, and what a year it's been already! January saw a lot of exciting progress, decisions, and feedback come our way, so we wanted to be sure we had some solid perspective to report before jumping back on the newsletter train.
But first, a little housekeeping:
We're going to try to keep to a newsletter schedule...One newsletter a week, alternating between a project update and a thought piece.
The updates will focus on Technical Updates (e.g. new code ready, new testing, new concepts, on the road to publishing this protocol), and Project Updates (e.g. Partnerships, general strategy, business overview, etc).
The thought pieces will be deeper dives into what we're thinking, how we're thinking, and why we're building the way that we are. Some could be more technical (why baremetal security is critical to Web3) or more ideological (why it's so important to not take identity sovereignty away from the infrastructure).
We're just two guys tackling on a good amount of work, so bear with us if we're off of our schedule a bit here and there.
Project Update
The end of 2020 for Guer also meant the conclusion of Kernel/Protocol Labs' APOLLO Program for us. In addition to honing in our quick pitch over Zoom, we had a lot of fantastic conversations with peers and mentors. We kicked off 2021 with a few themes that were largely informed by those discussions and community feedback:
Our general messaging - Data Custody, and the importance of redefining how we control our data on Web3 - was always (unsurprisingly) embraced.
Especially when speaking with developers, the disconnect for us was down to brass tacks..."I get it, but how do I use it?"
To this end, we needed to better map out the user and developer experiences. We know the destination is "Data Custody as a Protocol", but how do both builders and users get there?
We concluded that the first step - the foundation of the whole concept - was built on better, decentralized security.
Web3-native security is one protocol for securing web traffic, with decentralized authority, cryptographic identity, and better security.
This one protocol has always been at the core of what we were building; now it's underpinning our messaging too.
We've reworked our website, released a security-focused White Paper, and updated our pitch deck to reflect this deeper focus on security first. We're excited to launch the new site in the next few days and keep collecting feedback!
Technical Update
From a technical standpoint, we're also focused on getting security front-and-center, through the paces, and into developers' hands! A few things that you'll be seeing soon from us on the technical side:
Usable, injectable security protocol demo, built directly into our website. Give it a spin with only three steps!
Similar, but user-focused experience directly built into our website, which allows anyone with a Web3 wallet to register their address with the protocol, securely upload data, and manage permissions to that data
With these two "Hello World" on-ramp experiences done, the next step is to plug them into an ecosystem for testing. In the next few weeks, we'll be launching a public "stateless" website. For us, this website will allow
A blank template to be hosted on a decentralized service like Fleek
Allow a user to to populate that template via an ETH address or ENS Domain
The actual site content i.e. images, text, colors, fonts, as well as back-end databases like inventory, are stored decentralized using GunsDB, IPFS, and other decentralized storage
The site visitor or user can then choose to import, or provide access to, their own data, such as profile, or purchase history
At the conclusion of the session, the site, and the storefront return to a neutral state.
We hope that with these onboarding experiences and stateless sandbox, we can begin to demonstrate to builders how easy it is to transition to Web3, as well as introduce end-users to true data custody.
We're really looking forward to 2021.
There's a clear path for our protocol, and we're excited to start sharing our demos with the broader community. Web3 is coming to life, and we're glad to be building alongside communities like SKALE Labs and Protocol Labs.
Thanks for following along, and keep an eye out for weekly updates!
- James & Steven
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