Building Software for a Zero Trust World

Zero Trust Information

Zero Trust Networking is security with Internet assumptions; there is tremendous value if we apply the same approach to information.

ĐApps: What Web 3.0 Looks Like

As we move into the future, we find increasing need for a zero-trust interaction system. Even pre-Snowden, we had realised that entrusting our information to arbitrary entities on the internet was fraught with danger. However, post-Snowden the argument plainly falls in the hand of those who believe that large organisations and governments routinely attempt to stretch and overstep their authority. Thus we realise that entrusting our information to organisations in general is a fundamentally broken model. The chance of an organisation not meddling with our data is merely the effort required minus their expected gains. Given they tend to have an income model that requires they know as much about people as possible the realist will realise that the potential for convert misuse is difficult to overestimate.

Decentralized Identity Verification using Zero-Knowledge Proofs: A Privacy-Preserving Authentication Framework

In the contemporary online interaction, digital iden- tity is central, but most systems follow a centralized provider like Google or Facebook. Although convenient, these models pose ma- jor risks to data breach, surveillance, and single point of failure. The proposed paper proposes a privacy-sensitive decentralized identity verification system that uses Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) to allow users to make it through claims (e.g., age, citizen- ship, or enrollment) without any personal data being provided, thereby solving the challenges outlined in the paper. Our architecture integrates verifiable credentials, zero-knowledge-SNARKs and an issuer trust registry that is maintained on blockchain smart contracts to guarantee trustless verification and eliminate dependence on centralized authorities. Its system gives its users full control over credentials, allows reuse across applications, and does not expose data.A proof-of-concept implementation has shown the approach to be feasible with Circom and SnarkJS to generate proof, Solidity smart contracts to verify them, and a user interface implemented in React. Results of the evaluations showed that determination of the verification latency is low, the overhead to generate proofs is moderate, and no privacy leakage occurs. It can be used in potential applications such as education, e-governance, healthcare, finance, and online voting.

Properties of the Tech We Really Need - Draft

There are some crucial areas where computer technology needs major improvement to genuinely benefit users. Unfortunately, most are not feasible to pursue using current generation software technologies. No mere collection of apps would suffice. An architectural solution is needed to move forward. This has been the goal of my research into infocentric data and software architecture, a superset of "decentralized" and cryptography-oriented designs.

Primary | Data Command and Control

Primary - the Zero Trust Control Plane, offers unparalleled security and control for web access. Protect corporate data and secure your workforce without compromising speed and usability.

LinkedTrust — Deep Tech. Human Trust.

Verified trust systems, civic tech platforms, and AI-powered tools. Real projects, real impact.

Encrypted Spaces — Research preview

An architecture for collaborative applications where data is encrypted and operations are cryptographically verifiable.

Open North – Building trust in data, for the common good

Open North is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing the common good. Working alongside governments and civic-minded organizations of all sizes, we provide data expertise to enhance decision-making, drive innovation, optimize public and civic services, and address society's most pressing challenges. Our work focuses on building the capacity of organizations to make better decisions about managing their data so that it is useful, actionable, secure, and trustworthy throughout its entire lifecycle.

Can You Trust Your Computer? - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation

Who should your computer take its orders from? Most people think their computers should obey them, not obey someone else. With a plan they call “trusted computing,” large media corporations (including the movie companies and record companies), together with computer companies such as Microsoft and Intel, are planning to make your computer obey them instead of you. (Microsoft's version of this scheme is called Palladium.) Proprietary programs have included malicious features before, but this plan would make it universal.

Privacy by design: a formal framework for the analysis of architectural choices

The privacy by design approach has already been applied in different areas. We believe that the next challenge in this area today is to go beyond individual cases and to provide methodologies to explore the design space in a systematic way. As a first step in this direction, we focus in this paper on the data minimization principle and consider different options using decentralized architectures in which actors do not necessarily trust each other. We propose a framework to express the parameters to be taken into account (the service to be performed, the actors involved, their respective requirements, etc.) and an inference system to derive properties such as the possibility for an actor to detect potential errors (or frauds) in the computation of a variable. This inference system can be used in the design phase to check if an architecture meets the requirements of the parties or to point out conflicting requirements.

Reflections on trusting trust

To what extent should one trust a statement that a program is free of Trojan horses? Perhaps it is more important to trust the people who wrote the software.

openPDS/SafeAnswers - The privacy-preserving Personal Data Store

Protecting the Privacy of Metadata through SafeAnswers

Welcome to the Web of Trust

Empowering individuals to co-create decentralized systems for lasting mutual benefit.

We Can Just Build Things

Build the tools your community needs — production-grade, privacy-respecting freedom tech, made with an AI agent and grounded in a verified, values-aligned catalog (Nostr, AT Protocol, and beyond).