mirror of https://github.com/acid-info/vac.dev.git
60 lines
2.5 KiB
Markdown
60 lines
2.5 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Research areas
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---
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# Overview
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Vac has several research areas it is interested in and has or is developing expertise in.
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Here’s an overview of some of these areas along with motivation and what type of topics are included.
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Note that a lot of areas are overlapping in terms of specific projects.
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## Incentivization
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In an open p2p network, nodes have to be incentivized for services provided to the network.
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Additionally, these should be privacy-preserving and as trust-minimized as possible.
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This research area includes (but is not limited to):
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RLN, service credentials, peer reputation, and protocol revenue.
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## Applied ZK
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Applied ZK opens up the door to many new constructs, especially related to privacy.
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This research area includes the development of primitives like RLN, Unirep and similar novel constructs,
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but also research and development related to zero-knowledge technology, such as ZK frameworks like Circom and Halo2, ZK-VM, WASM in the browser, and efficient zk proof systems running on resource-restricted devices.
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Done in close collaboration with other teams in the space.
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## Privacy/Anonymity
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Specifically metadata privacy.
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This includes anonymity studies and providing a modular suite of protocols with clear trade-offs and threat models.
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[Privacy/Anonymity Roadmap](https://github.com/vacp2p/research/issues/107)
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## Scalability
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Making the network scalable in terms of number of nodes, message rate, discovering of nodes, caching of historical messages etc.
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Largely focused on Waku right now, but things like scalable group chats also relevant here.
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## Data synchronization
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End-to-end data application synchronization protocols, [FT Store](https://rfc.vac.dev/spec/21/), interfacing with long-term storage, message bus guarantees,
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possibly [CRDTs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict-free_replicated_data_type) etc.
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Guiding principle is to provide additional guarantees for users of Waku (etc) in terms of user experience.
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## P2P/Networking
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R&D related to P2P protocols and networking, including usage of WebRTC,
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Discovery for resource-restricted devices,
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and new p2p protocols with different trade-offs.
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[Ambient Peer Discovery Roadmap](https://github.com/vacp2p/research/issues/116)
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## Censorship resistance
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Censorship resistance at all layers of the stack, including obfuscated transports and running in hostile environments.
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## Identity/Trust
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Identity and key management required for non-trivial secure messaging.
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This includes multi device management, group management, trust, and reputation.
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Especially in a private and secure fashion.
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