So if I am understanding correctly, this could compete with services like s3 and ec2.
People can earn money by attaching their machines to the network (but they have to include a security deposit). Then they will collect fees from users for each request processed as well as a set fee for storage.
The application developer will then use a provided scripting language (I am not sure if they actually write the application using this language or if it is just for ensuring a contract). They will need to continually pay storage fees or their data will be disabled and eventually deleted.
I would like to see examples of the scripting language they reference.
I don't believe centralized/public clouds will disappear anytime soon. However, there simply aren't any privacy-preserving alternatives out there. We're hoping to change that.
Also, your description is accurate. We'll be releasing our code and some dev-friendly documentation for the beta soon. You're welcome to sign up at http://enigma.media.mit.edu.
Sometimes I wonder what kind of operations would actually be useful to do on such data in the real world.
I mean, the way the web currently works is that I trust some server to host my data. I can have this service auth an external consumer site and display data in an iframe, say, which the consumer site can't get at. This is good enough for displaying people their personalized info (name, friends) on various services (eg directions to their house in an iframe, for a user authenticated with my chosen provider).
But to go further, what if I don't want to trust any provider?
Then I could simply encrypt the data and store encrypted data with the provider (or providers for redundancy). The authentication could be replaced with visitors holding a key to decrypt the data (because I gave it to them) and I can switch to using some other key and effectively "unfriend" those who don't get my updated key.
But all this is good enough for displaying data and files I upload. Now, why would I want to do operations on those files "in the cloud" without trusting a provider? I am already trusting my friends with the data, since they can reshare it once it's displayed to them. So why not trust a provider? One of my friends can run the provider.
I guess the only scenario I see it being useful is if all my friends can only have limited access to the data and all manipulations on the data are collaborative, and that's where the homeomorphism comes in. Perhaps no one will be able to see the whole data and it's not really about data at all, but views of some Enigmatic process running on some network (like an autonomous corporation.) is that the use case?
Maybe I misunderstood, but it sounds like the service for distributing the work would have to be trusted (since with enough pieces of information you could decrypt the original data), which if true would remove the whole point of the system.
People can earn money by attaching their machines to the network (but they have to include a security deposit). Then they will collect fees from users for each request processed as well as a set fee for storage.
The application developer will then use a provided scripting language (I am not sure if they actually write the application using this language or if it is just for ensuring a contract). They will need to continually pay storage fees or their data will be disabled and eventually deleted.
I would like to see examples of the scripting language they reference.