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Really understand that you are an individual, you have subjective experience, and how you

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interact online is being intermediated by all these platform players.

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So keep your eye out for this idea of protocols that preserve your agency.

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Understand the innovation of Bitcoin.

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It's not just money.

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It's about inverting the security model.

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It's enabling you to generate your own keys.

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Maybe just play around with that stuff and really understand that you don't have to be

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at the whim of Twitter or Facebook or Google or whatever.

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Tim Buma, welcome.

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Absolutely.

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Well, thank you for taking the time, Tim.

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This is exciting for me because I have incrementally, you know,

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learned more about your work and how far back it goes

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and how far in you have dived over the last maybe year or so.

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And so I'm excited to talk about the two worlds you inhabit.

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federal service in the federal government of Canada, and your Freedom Tech work. And so

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what I would like to begin with is let's sort of lay that groundwork. You're currently,

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if I have this right, a senior policy analyst at the Treasury Board, while at the same time

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building Nostra Safebox, which is a wallet design, so quote unquote, no one entity can shut it down,

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governments included. Walk me through how you think about these two roles, how you inhabit

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these two realms. Are you trying to bridge them or are they fundamentally separate projects in your

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mind? Fundamentally, they're together. I think the idea is that like at the root of the value

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of our societies, we value like the freedom of the individual, mobility. And, you know,

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you know, in Canada, we have the Charter of Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. And so at the end of the day, like our society does believe in freedom of the individual, freedom of thought, freedom of speech and that.

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And sometimes that gets attenuated by like these institutional proclivities that kind of want to serve the government of the day.

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But at the end of the day, I believe that people have those values.

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And, you know, some of the discussion that we had just prior to recording, there's like Canadians just by virtue of our climate here, we have no choice but to be good and kind to each other.

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And like I grew up in a rural setting, dairy farm, immigrants and that, where we had to help each other and that.

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So at the end of the, you know, we have to look out for each other.

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So there's nothing, nothing, what I would say.

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No fundamental tension between the two, as I may have portrayed it.

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No, and it's always, what do they say? There's thesis, antithesis, and then synthesis. A lot of analysis is about trying to understand what's fundamentally different, what's fundamentally the same, and going through that. And it's really about trying to understand things at a very deep level.

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So, you know, as I said, like I was at Treasury Board Secretary at Central Agency, kind of the same as the Office of the Management Budget, like issuing policy, doing oversight of like federal departments and agencies.

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I was there up until about four years, three and a half years ago.

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And then I moved into what's called an interchange position, which I was lent outside of government, if you will, to a not-for-profit organization called the Digital Governance Council that's been working on standards development.

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and also setting up conforming assessment programs.

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So I've been circulating on the outside, so to speak,

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in the interest of Canada, of course,

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but kind of outside the bureaucracy

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to kind of help with institutional nudging

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just beyond like the blood-brain barrier.

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I love it.

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The policy brain barrier.

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I don't know what that looks like.

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Well, and on that note,

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You architected the Pan-Canadian Trust Framework

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for Government Identity Systems,

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which is quite a mouthful.

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Did I get that right?

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Yeah, like I did when I was at Treasury Board,

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starting back in 2004, 2003,

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at that time I had been like a management consultant

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and they liked the work that I did

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that they asked me to join

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on what was called a non-advertised position.

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They really appreciated the work

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that I did. And so I worked on a lot of the fundamental policy work on identity management

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and a lot of the treasury board policy was of my making. And then just by virtue of being a central

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agency, you kind of get put into a bit of a leadership position, whether it's wanted or

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unwanted. So, you know, we worked very closely with the provinces and the territories and

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developing like what we call the pan-Canadian approach. I think it's really important to

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understand that Canada is a very decentralized country. Like we might just look like the

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Great White North on a map. To the simple American mind.

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Yeah, but there's like 13 provinces and territories. There's the 14th of federal

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government's jurisdiction. Then we have about 300 treaties with First Nations. So there's a whole

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hodgepodge of jurisdictions, if you will. And like the magic of Canada is that we've managed to

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kind of work all the stuff out peacefully. Like Quebec is pretty, as far as I'm concerned,

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it's pretty much like its own country in a lot of respects. It took a lot of the powers for itself.

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It's literally writing its own constitution now. And that's fine. They view themselves as a kind

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of their own nation.

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They have a close relationship

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with the Francophonie,

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whereas the rest of the commonwealth,

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they have their own legal system,

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civil code,

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like based on the Napoleonic Code

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and common law

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and like Ontario

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and the other provinces and that.

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So there's a lot of,

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a lot of like latitude

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for different governance structures.

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So the work that we had done

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in the federal sphere,

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we had to take great pains

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on making sure

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that we took like almost like an abstract implementation approach saying, you know,

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these are the principles that everybody adheres to.

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We're not telling what technology to use.

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Prescriptive.

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Yeah.

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And we know that we're at the time negotiating on behalf of Her Majesty and Right of Canada

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with Her Majesty and Right of Alberta or BC or whatever.

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So there's a lot of like, they call it machinery, government machinery to deal with that.

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A lot of people just think government's a monolithic creature.

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It's not at all.

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So I have a lot of – yeah.

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So I was going to say I would imagine that, you know, as I mentioned, I lived in Canada for 10 years and that certainly holds true in my expectations of how you might describe it in my understanding.

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And so I think what's interesting about that, it may not be obvious to many outside of Canada, is that that, as you say, then does create a certain positive tension with regard to any prescriptive top-down sort of strictures.

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Absolutely

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Absolutely

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Like we just finished a study

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On comparing

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And analyzing like the European Union

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The regulations for digital identity

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In relation to

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The Canadian approach

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I can give you the link to that approach

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I'm pretty quiet about it

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I was one of the key

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Authors of that report

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Even though my name's not on it

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And we

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You know

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One of the points was, is that, okay, maybe we're not having the greatest relations with the Americans right now, but that doesn't mean we're going to run into the arms of the Europeans and run into the arms of the Chinese.

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We have to figure stuff out for ourselves.

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And then, you know, we did some analysis using model law, like with what's called Unsetral.

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They developed model law for stuff like electronic signatures, electronic trade, identity management.

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And I was involved with those delegations like years and years ago.

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And it's really cool when you get like countries like China and Canada and the U.S. and like debating on the floor about what's good.

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I can only imagine what that might – that's quite a disparate group.

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Totally.

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And what you realize is that there's exceptionally competent individuals across the world.

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And, you know, we just had to come up with a multilateral approach.

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And so the reason I'm saying that, I saw like these model laws that eventually become legislation eventually being forged in the fire of multilateralism.

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And at that time, we worked very closely with the U.S. State Department.

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We would actually compare our positions and kind of come up with common statements that we would actually present as interventions.

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and, you know, sometimes didn't agree with Europeans

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and didn't agree with Chinese.

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Sometimes they had some really good points

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that countered the Europeans and that.

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So all I'm saying, it's a pretty complex tapestry out there.

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And at the end of the day,

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you have to figure out what your values are as an individual,

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what your values are as a society,

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and really, really draw from that.

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And now that's the approach I take is that rather than jump on a political this or that position is kind of really understand what's going on.

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And I've taken that to heart with the work that I've been doing.

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And not only policy work, but a number of years ago, I said, well, let's kind of get back into the engineering.

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Like I'm an engineer by train.

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So one thing I've learned is sometimes you don't discover stuff until you actually actively experiment.

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And that's where Nostra has been exceptionally enlightening because it enabled me to kind of revisit first principles and say, hmm, maybe there's a different way of looking at this.

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And in fact, on that note, so you're building SafeBox on Nostra, Bitcoin, Cashew, and we'll get into that.

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it is inherently without central authority. And so I think where you were headed, Tim, if I may,

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is what has working inside the government taught you about why centralized architecture,

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as accommodating as the process you have described is, why does that create problems

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that can't be fixed with better policy in your mind? If you'd agree with that.

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So there's a couple of questions there. So centralized bureaucracy is a fairly recent phenomenon. It's only been around for 200 to 300 years, a bit longer, really the rise of the modern state.

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Like really it was Napoleon that really invented our notion of the modern state where he standardized like uniforms, language, gun training and that and was able to mobilize like at scale, if you will, and good or bad.

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Right, right.

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Really, the notion of the modern state came out of what Napoleon kind of operationalized.

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And that worked fine with the industrial era.

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It worked fine with the paper and telegraph era.

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And it worked fine with the colonization and that.

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It was easy to project power.

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And it worked well with the U.S. like post-WW2 with like it was kinetic projection of power with the Blue Water Navy and that and all that stuff worked well.

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And in those cases, a lot of times you do need the centralized or a high degree of centralized bureaucracy to make that happen.

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You need to standardize like how jets take off from an aircraft carrier.

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You have to standardize, like, you know, what the naval training is and what it is.

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But then, you know, with the internet, like, I don't need to go into this, but then you start getting some asymmetric technologies where the projection of power is under, like, a completely different dynamic.

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And that's kind of where we're in the cybersecurity realm now.

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So now we start thinking, well, maybe these approaches, they worked for a while and they still work.

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But in the new environment, maybe we need to explore some different approaches.

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And I think probably you've seen, we'll probably get into the detail a little bit later.

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Like I've been exploring like some like key theories like Shannon's information theory.

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And then I came across Mark Burgess' promise theory.

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And then the other kind of reading tarot I went on with Douglas Hoffman with conscious agency or conscious realism.

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and just kind of looking at all that stuff and just saying,

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okay, maybe I can actually come up with a new approach here.

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What I'm finding with a lot of architecture stuff and you read these fancy reports

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from the big five consultancies and you kind of look at them and you just say,

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well, there's no there or there.

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There's nothing behind it.

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As is often the case, right?

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They're not being paid to give answers.

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they're being paid to protract the program.

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Yeah, yeah.

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So, you know, I've been in that game.

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I used to write those kind of reports.

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Sure, sure.

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I know exactly what it is.

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I kind of know what the strategies are.

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I always look at them as paid discovery

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in a sales process,

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but that's another discussion.

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Well, let me, and I do, absolutely,

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you touched on it.

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I mean, we're going to dive right next

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into architecture and trust.

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I think that's crucial.

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You touched on something

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I want to draw it a bit. So the interchange program that you referenced does give you

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perspective from both sides, though you had it before. It certainly puts you in a place to

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straddle that fence. Similarly, what does each architecture reveal about the limitations of the

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other? What can government systems do that permissionless protocols can't? We've talked

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about the opposite. So, you know, you touched on this with a certain necessity of centralization.

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So what might Freedom Tech and builders in that realm learn from your experience in government systems?

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Yeah, like I don't see it's a dichotomy between centralization and decentralization.

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It's actually taking advantage of the technologies and understanding how they would create what I would say new institutional capabilities.

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It really hit me last year when my wife and I, we went out for a trip out west and we're in BC and we went to this like ghost town called Three Gap Valley.

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It was a railway town and like close by was kind of you have the golden spike in the US and we had the last spike in Canada.

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And you look at this and just say, you realize that it was technology that built the country.

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Like the reason like Alberta and B.C. are part of part of confederation was because the deal was made that the steel ribbon across the country would tie tie tie the country together.

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Otherwise, like B.C. would have been part of the Pacific Northwest.

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Like, and I take you to mean, as I have understood it over the years, back when I was in the data center game, rail lines were crucial because that's where you laid fiber.

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But I think, to your point, the standardization of railways, that could not have occurred otherwise, if I take your point.

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Yeah, and other things, too, like standardization of time, like another Canadian innovation that people don't realize is time zones.

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Like, you got a country that…

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Ah, we get to blame you for that.

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And then time zones.

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And then the technology that had to come along with as well.

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And what really hit me in going to this ghost town, the coolest place to hang out was the watch shop.

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That's where the conductors and all the train officials would go like at least once a week to get their watches synchronized and synchronized and making sure that they were up to snuff.

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and then you had the telegraph shop where they would get the time signals in

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so that they synchronize and then you had the mail, the mail depot.

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Right.

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And then it's like, oh, this is really cool.

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Those are the cool, you know, if I was in like 1883,

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that's probably where I'd be hanging out in those places.

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The world before NTP.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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So like all that, all that.

224
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So the point was, is that it's not about centralization and decentralization.

225
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It's about coordination.

226
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Like you have these single track railways.

227
00:18:02,000 --> 00:18:09,360
And so you had to be pretty good with time because you don't have two trains, two trains like hitting each other.

228
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And then if you ever have a chance to go see like Rogers Pass, which the pass is the highest point over the Rockies, like the first generation of trains had to do this loop-de-loop because they couldn't do the grade.

229
00:18:23,680 --> 00:18:26,380
And then finally they tunneled and they got through.

230
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So, okay, what's the point I'm making is that you see this amazing engineering that was happening like 150 years ago, and it actually affected the fabric of the country and the institutions that we have.

231
00:18:40,920 --> 00:18:47,180
and so that's a that's same approach that i'm taking as well is that there's there's some new

232
00:18:47,180 --> 00:18:53,980
capabilities like um you know stuff that's been around for like 40 50 years like um asymmetric

233
00:18:53,980 --> 00:19:00,680
cryptography right geography hash functions etc so we're in this new digital realm and it's really

234
00:19:00,680 --> 00:19:06,480
trying to understand that very deeply at a fundamental level and kind of take away all that

235
00:19:06,480 --> 00:19:13,620
hollabaloo of like, you know, the tech bro language, stuff I don't even still understand.

236
00:19:14,420 --> 00:19:17,200
And really started to get down the fundamentals and just.

237
00:19:17,480 --> 00:19:17,860
The primitives.

238
00:19:19,060 --> 00:19:19,580
Absolutely.

239
00:19:19,980 --> 00:19:26,660
The primitives and just saying, well, yeah, this in the mix and you can have it, you can

240
00:19:26,660 --> 00:19:32,520
build a totally different type of structure like society.

241
00:19:32,520 --> 00:19:36,240
I mean, what I take from what you've said, Tim, which really strikes me is, and there

242
00:19:36,240 --> 00:19:42,160
are things that we may know, but then when you hear it said a certain way, is that it is easy to

243
00:19:42,160 --> 00:19:50,880
point to technology, big tech government and their use of big tech as such a tremendous negative,

244
00:19:51,240 --> 00:19:58,480
to put it bluntly. But what I hear you say is that given enough time, so much of our culture,

245
00:19:58,700 --> 00:20:04,500
our society is downstream of standards and technology, which applies those standards.

246
00:20:04,500 --> 00:20:11,520
clearly we have to steward them in the right way. But I take your point, which is that it is not so

247
00:20:11,520 --> 00:20:18,340
binary. Let's look at what has come and could only come from standardization protocols and

248
00:20:18,340 --> 00:20:22,620
the application of them. But let's be patient. Did I get that roughly correct?

249
00:20:22,620 --> 00:20:27,920
Yeah. And it's always like, it's like people like to bang on government saying,

250
00:20:28,040 --> 00:20:32,060
oh, they're so behind the curve and that. But I've identified there's really sort of

251
00:20:32,060 --> 00:20:34,600
to wave functions, if you will.

252
00:20:34,600 --> 00:20:38,980
A lot of times governments do the basic research.

253
00:20:39,180 --> 00:20:42,720
They invest in, like, totally, like, defense research.

254
00:20:42,960 --> 00:20:45,700
Like, you have ARPA or DARPA, what it's called.

255
00:20:45,840 --> 00:20:46,440
Yes, DARPA.

256
00:20:46,760 --> 00:20:47,460
Yeah, they're both.

257
00:20:47,700 --> 00:20:50,300
Canada, we have, like, the National Research Council.

258
00:20:51,440 --> 00:20:56,300
And, like, they do basic research, like, pretty wild stuff.

259
00:20:56,300 --> 00:21:26,468
And like the idea of like the idea of the smartphone for example like it literally came out of Canada because like a lot of the original research National Research Council they figured you know some of the later the digital protocols like that we doing for like for voice in like the mid to late 90s like you know the folks from what was called research in motion at the time Motion you read my mind which

260
00:21:26,468 --> 00:21:30,448
those who know RIM may not know that that's what it stands for and it goes exactly to your point.

261
00:21:30,808 --> 00:21:35,948
Yeah like Michael Lazaridis and Jim Bolesillie but Jim Bolesillie was more the business guy

262
00:21:35,948 --> 00:21:42,788
but they they kind of figured out well like there's this unused bandwidth here

263
00:21:42,788 --> 00:21:44,628
and nobody's really using it.

264
00:21:44,748 --> 00:21:47,068
So let's like try to figure out

265
00:21:47,068 --> 00:21:50,368
how we can jack it into doing email.

266
00:21:50,848 --> 00:21:51,348
Right, right.

267
00:21:51,568 --> 00:21:52,588
Let's do an arbitrage

268
00:21:52,588 --> 00:21:54,908
on some underutilized resources.

269
00:21:55,448 --> 00:21:57,548
And the other thing people don't realize

270
00:21:57,548 --> 00:22:01,108
is that Canada is probably

271
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the number one center or Ottawa

272
00:22:04,848 --> 00:22:05,968
is one of the neat,

273
00:22:06,468 --> 00:22:08,508
for like cryptographic expertise.

274
00:22:08,768 --> 00:22:09,568
So for example,

275
00:22:10,828 --> 00:22:11,948
like the University of Waterloo,

276
00:22:11,948 --> 00:22:16,148
which I'm an alumni of, like mechanical engineering, like my contemporary.

277
00:22:16,408 --> 00:22:23,188
I didn't know him at the time, but Alfred Menezes was the one that started studying

278
00:22:23,188 --> 00:22:26,568
like all the elliptic curve cryptography and trying to figure that out.

279
00:22:26,668 --> 00:22:29,308
So literally we were contemporaries like at university.

280
00:22:29,528 --> 00:22:31,248
I don't want to name drop, but.

281
00:22:31,908 --> 00:22:32,808
No, do it.

282
00:22:34,008 --> 00:22:35,388
Thank you for ECC.

283
00:22:36,148 --> 00:22:37,008
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

284
00:22:37,008 --> 00:22:48,148
So and then like companies in town here, like like my I'll say a family member works for one like they're OGs.

285
00:22:48,248 --> 00:22:49,168
They know. Yes.

286
00:22:49,388 --> 00:22:52,148
We're a little Diffie and Digital Equipment Corp.

287
00:22:52,168 --> 00:22:54,108
The list is long. Yeah.

288
00:22:54,568 --> 00:23:00,448
Yeah. Yeah. And in the application of that, I mean, let's let's then jump into architecture and trust.

289
00:23:00,448 --> 00:23:08,608
And so SafeBox stores e-cash tokens as encrypted events on Nostra relays.

290
00:23:08,748 --> 00:23:12,908
That is, I think, technically precise, but abstract, to put it mildly for most people.

291
00:23:13,488 --> 00:23:21,368
Help me understand concretely, Tim, what can I do with SafeBox that I can't do with a traditional wallet or government ID?

292
00:23:22,948 --> 00:23:28,608
Yeah, so the idea, the big aha moment I had was last September.

293
00:23:28,608 --> 00:23:30,988
some of you might know

294
00:23:30,988 --> 00:23:32,668
I was invited to be part of the

295
00:23:32,668 --> 00:23:33,928
Sovereign Engineering cohort

296
00:23:33,928 --> 00:23:36,268
so I hung out with

297
00:23:36,268 --> 00:23:38,308
back

298
00:23:38,308 --> 00:23:40,448
June of last year

299
00:23:40,448 --> 00:23:42,548
I was part of the second cohort so I get to

300
00:23:42,548 --> 00:23:44,528
hang out with folks like Gigi

301
00:23:44,528 --> 00:23:45,228
and Pablo

302
00:23:45,228 --> 00:23:47,288
and those

303
00:23:47,288 --> 00:23:49,388
dudes

304
00:23:49,388 --> 00:23:52,388
in Madeira, Portugal which is a nice bonus

305
00:23:52,388 --> 00:23:54,528
yeah and like I

306
00:23:54,528 --> 00:23:54,968
I

307
00:23:54,968 --> 00:23:57,688
totally like

308
00:23:57,688 --> 00:24:04,068
when the Eat a Cashew project came online,

309
00:24:04,168 --> 00:24:05,888
I think it was summer of 2022,

310
00:24:06,548 --> 00:24:09,228
I got completely fascinated with it.

311
00:24:09,868 --> 00:24:13,128
You know, it was Callie that was really leading the charge on that.

312
00:24:14,268 --> 00:24:17,148
And so, again, like I'm a first principles kind of guy.

313
00:24:17,448 --> 00:24:20,328
I went through and like hacked through all the math

314
00:24:20,328 --> 00:24:22,548
and made sure I absolutely understood from first principles

315
00:24:22,548 --> 00:24:24,848
what was going on with blinded signatures and that.

316
00:24:24,848 --> 00:24:38,568
And then, yeah, I started to hack the cache movement because I wanted, I started to, I'm on my third major iteration of my architecture now.

317
00:24:39,328 --> 00:24:42,848
Like the first idea was, you know.

318
00:24:43,028 --> 00:24:45,268
If I may, Tim, let me have you start if you would, please.

319
00:24:45,268 --> 00:24:54,508
Let's start with the why, how, and what for a non-technical user.

320
00:24:54,848 --> 00:25:01,888
So what is the – and you've written – and I ask this question because I've seen your answers in some of the copy you've written, which I think is terrific.

321
00:25:02,988 --> 00:25:06,608
I am, you know, a typical individual.

322
00:25:07,008 --> 00:25:08,408
I don't care about the details.

323
00:25:08,788 --> 00:25:17,408
But what I am looking at, I am facing, I think, in short order, is a choice between a government-issued digital ID and something else.

324
00:25:17,588 --> 00:25:22,388
Help us understand why SafeBox matters, how and what is different about it.

325
00:25:22,388 --> 00:25:40,808
Yeah, so the government-issued ID is just a very small part of a larger ecosystem. It could be anything issued by anyone, okay? I had a very formative event when I was traveling in Europe after university. I had my wallet ripped off.

326
00:25:40,808 --> 00:25:48,208
and you know i think i was in like finland tampara finland or whatever you know i you know i had a

327
00:25:48,208 --> 00:25:56,928
call home and had my parents cancel the credit cards and you know and um that feeling of being

328
00:25:56,928 --> 00:26:03,848
ripped off just never never never left me even when we travel to this day with my uh my wife and

329
00:26:03,848 --> 00:26:09,708
i we we have this security protocol to make sure our passports are completely on our person and you

330
00:26:09,708 --> 00:26:15,048
Our phones are secured and that when we're kind of going into travel mode.

331
00:26:16,288 --> 00:26:22,268
And so always in my mind was that I wanted to create a capability that if I absolutely lost everything,

332
00:26:23,268 --> 00:26:26,648
I could go to a computer in a police station or a public library.

333
00:26:26,648 --> 00:26:36,168
And if I had memorized like an access key or had written down like a recovery phrase

334
00:26:36,168 --> 00:26:45,368
or maybe have like an NFC tag that was kind of sewn in the seam of my shirt tail, I could recover.

335
00:26:46,848 --> 00:26:55,668
And so the idea I was really working on was, I think it's called the Kershaw principle,

336
00:26:55,668 --> 00:27:03,248
where I wanted to create an architecture where everything relied on the security of that private key

337
00:27:03,248 --> 00:27:09,388
and everything else was like superfluous to the security.

338
00:27:10,228 --> 00:27:11,188
As with Bitcoin.

339
00:27:12,288 --> 00:27:12,748
Yeah, yeah.

340
00:27:12,868 --> 00:27:19,088
Well, that's a key thing is like Bitcoin always described its big innovation.

341
00:27:19,088 --> 00:27:24,508
One of its key innovations was that it completely inverted the security model

342
00:27:24,508 --> 00:27:30,788
that everybody self-generates their own key and like the ledger is totally public.

343
00:27:31,408 --> 00:27:32,068
There is no issuer.

344
00:27:32,068 --> 00:27:32,268
Yeah.

345
00:27:33,248 --> 00:27:50,468
Yeah, or the issuer is part of the consensus algorithm and that. But it's like this publicly available register that's replicated. And if you have access to that, you can find out your balance in that. And then you have all these other cryptographic techniques.

346
00:27:50,468 --> 00:27:52,808
So I went, well.

347
00:27:53,028 --> 00:27:53,568
It's self-sovereign.

348
00:27:54,188 --> 00:27:54,568
Please continue.

349
00:27:55,248 --> 00:27:55,448
Yeah.

350
00:27:55,648 --> 00:28:06,168
So I'm saying, well, let's start applying that sort of philosophy to, with some newer protocols like Noster and Cashew and that.

351
00:28:06,268 --> 00:28:18,328
So just imagine if you could actually, yeah, you could have it on your phone, like the application that I've built, like I have a web-based application.

352
00:28:18,328 --> 00:28:23,108
But it actually works with, I've got it working with GetAlbi as well in that.

353
00:28:23,368 --> 00:28:29,448
So the idea is, imagine if I could have a wallet capability that transcends my phone platform.

354
00:28:30,068 --> 00:28:37,868
Like the thing that I'm seeing now is, whether it's by design or just by convenience,

355
00:28:38,148 --> 00:28:42,448
is that, you know, Google and Apple are going heavy into the digital wallet.

356
00:28:42,588 --> 00:28:44,508
So they'll basically take that market over.

357
00:28:44,508 --> 00:28:50,588
Like, why are you going to have an extra app when you can just have it in your Google wallet, your Apple wallet?

358
00:28:51,548 --> 00:28:57,688
And governments are perfectly fine because they can lean on them for the app store.

359
00:28:58,608 --> 00:29:01,928
You know, the platforms, I don't care what you say, they're compromised.

360
00:29:02,488 --> 00:29:03,848
They've got distribution in UX.

361
00:29:04,008 --> 00:29:04,828
That's my contention.

362
00:29:04,948 --> 00:29:07,728
That's what I assert is the best distribution in UX wins.

363
00:29:08,688 --> 00:29:08,908
Yeah.

364
00:29:09,068 --> 00:29:11,148
And the citizens are just going to go, yeah, whatever.

365
00:29:11,728 --> 00:29:12,908
And that's that.

366
00:29:12,908 --> 00:29:22,348
So the thing is, is that, you know, I'm trying to figure out what a new architecture would be where I've kind of separated.

367
00:29:22,608 --> 00:29:25,388
You have the key, the private key and a corresponding public key.

368
00:29:25,868 --> 00:29:29,808
You have the code, which is open source and it's out there.

369
00:29:29,908 --> 00:29:32,128
And if you do it right, you don't put your keys in your code.

370
00:29:33,228 --> 00:29:36,068
And then the other piece is the data.

371
00:29:36,068 --> 00:29:44,768
and you know my first iteration I was using like a like a Postgres database to store the wallet data

372
00:29:44,768 --> 00:29:48,208
and the cash you tokens and that but it really bothered me because like you know it's like

373
00:29:48,208 --> 00:29:56,468
authority leans on me I'd have to give all that stuff up and then looking at the Nostra protocol

374
00:29:56,468 --> 00:30:06,208
like NIP-01 specifically, I realized like Fiat Jeff actually sort of unintentionally

375
00:30:06,208 --> 00:30:12,728
solved some like really gnarly problems that had been around for like decades.

376
00:30:13,648 --> 00:30:18,768
And the two problems that he solved was, number one, every record has its own ID,

377
00:30:18,768 --> 00:30:20,368
you know

378
00:30:20,368 --> 00:30:23,848
by virtue of

379
00:30:23,848 --> 00:30:24,228
like

380
00:30:24,228 --> 00:30:27,648
you basically do a hash of the public

381
00:30:27,648 --> 00:30:29,568
key that's going to sign it and the

382
00:30:29,568 --> 00:30:31,348
data and that so every

383
00:30:31,348 --> 00:30:33,228
record has its own

384
00:30:33,228 --> 00:30:35,568
like identity in

385
00:30:35,568 --> 00:30:36,888
the existence of the universe

386
00:30:36,888 --> 00:30:38,268
and then

387
00:30:38,268 --> 00:30:41,668
and then he kind of solved

388
00:30:41,668 --> 00:30:43,588
the whole semantic issue with the

389
00:30:43,588 --> 00:30:45,688
event kinds meaning I can

390
00:30:45,688 --> 00:30:47,508
carve out my semantic space and

391
00:30:47,508 --> 00:30:53,868
define it however I want. And he solved two issues with one fell swoop, a philosophical

392
00:30:53,868 --> 00:30:59,408
issue. So what does that do? So all of a sudden, I have an independence from a database.

393
00:31:00,588 --> 00:31:07,988
So, and the relays, all the relays do is they just accept events and that. And I've already

394
00:31:07,988 --> 00:31:13,268
like experimented with where I was having a denial of service attack on one of my servers.

395
00:31:13,268 --> 00:31:19,688
So I just basically replicated all the data on the back channel with, I think it's with Stirfry.

396
00:31:19,908 --> 00:31:21,948
They have like a protocol that replicates the data.

397
00:31:22,048 --> 00:31:27,348
And then I pointed my app to the new relays and everything just kept on working.

398
00:31:28,308 --> 00:31:40,488
So if I play that back, Tim, again, for those who may not be so technically inclined, you've identified identity, authentication, I'll gloss over some details, as one key primitive or pillar.

399
00:31:41,488 --> 00:31:46,168
The application of the code is a second and the actual data or records is a third.

400
00:31:46,368 --> 00:31:53,088
And so you have methodically been going through the process of abstracting those away from

401
00:31:53,088 --> 00:31:55,908
something brittle, rigid, centralized.

402
00:31:56,508 --> 00:32:01,708
And so what we have is self-sovereign identity or auth or recovery.

403
00:32:02,108 --> 00:32:09,408
We have resilient data storage, again, decentralized, and we have open source code.

404
00:32:09,408 --> 00:32:10,828
Is that a fair sort of replay?

405
00:32:11,888 --> 00:32:31,268
Yeah, and even like one step further, when I was looking at the Cashew protocol and understanding how blind signatures work and how the redemption, I realized and kind of looking at it through the lens of promise theory, you have this idea of what I call bound promises, like signed events versus bearer promises.

406
00:32:31,268 --> 00:32:34,348
and bound promises are associated with an identity,

407
00:32:34,588 --> 00:32:36,228
which can be self-generated or whatever.

408
00:32:36,928 --> 00:32:39,288
But bearer promises are basically saying,

409
00:32:39,468 --> 00:32:40,968
hey, this is good to be redeemed

410
00:32:40,968 --> 00:32:45,088
and there's no identity associated with that.

411
00:32:45,748 --> 00:32:47,848
And then I realized, oh my goodness,

412
00:32:48,188 --> 00:32:53,108
that's basically, those are the primitives that we need.

413
00:32:53,108 --> 00:32:56,028
The bound promises to say, hey, I committed to this

414
00:32:56,028 --> 00:32:58,168
and you can look me up and blah, blah, blah.

415
00:32:58,168 --> 00:33:00,928
You can challenge me or you can ignore my authority

416
00:33:00,928 --> 00:33:07,208
or on a mile, but the bearer promises actually allow value to transfer.

417
00:33:08,228 --> 00:33:10,728
So that was the key thing I left out.

418
00:33:10,808 --> 00:33:11,648
So thank you for that.

419
00:33:12,508 --> 00:33:15,108
Yeah, well, I only figured that out a few weeks ago.

420
00:33:16,028 --> 00:33:17,308
So, yeah.

421
00:33:18,028 --> 00:33:22,508
I mean, for those of us that are on a Bitcoin standard, as it were, it's always back there,

422
00:33:22,528 --> 00:33:22,708
right?

423
00:33:22,708 --> 00:33:24,848
But it's good to clarify and point it out.

424
00:33:25,668 --> 00:33:30,568
Well, and again, let's further sort of, let's paint this picture in recess.

425
00:33:30,928 --> 00:33:53,068
Is that the right term? I forget. Not counter to, but against the backdrop of, say, the Pan-Canadian Trust Framework. And so to compare and contrast, it tries or tried, you can tell me, to create interoperability between government identity systems where Safebox creates interoperability without requiring central authority.

426
00:33:53,068 --> 00:33:57,368
And so what's the technical breakthrough that makes that possible?

427
00:33:57,508 --> 00:34:01,848
How does crypto cryptography, to be clear, replace institutions here?

428
00:34:02,848 --> 00:34:02,948
Yeah.

429
00:34:03,268 --> 00:34:11,888
So, like, I've kind of bucketed into two major, like, thrusts, if you will.

430
00:34:11,988 --> 00:34:14,708
One is, like, the shorter term stuff.

431
00:34:14,908 --> 00:34:16,628
And then there's the longer term stuff.

432
00:34:17,848 --> 00:34:20,568
So, excuse me, please.

433
00:34:20,568 --> 00:34:20,668
Okay.

434
00:34:23,068 --> 00:34:30,248
So, like, the world is well on the path of apps and wallets and phones.

435
00:34:31,648 --> 00:34:33,048
There's incremental improvements.

436
00:34:33,388 --> 00:34:35,788
So you can have your driver's license on your phone.

437
00:34:36,048 --> 00:34:37,508
You can have your credit card on your phone.

438
00:34:38,448 --> 00:34:43,648
You can sign into applications with your phone and that.

439
00:34:43,748 --> 00:34:45,948
And it's going to improve government services.

440
00:34:47,548 --> 00:34:48,028
Excellent.

441
00:34:48,268 --> 00:34:48,468
Great.

442
00:34:49,048 --> 00:34:51,348
So it's going to make services less crappy.

443
00:34:51,348 --> 00:34:54,488
a little bit better, and that's great.

444
00:34:54,828 --> 00:34:58,528
But there's really no fundamental change in the status quo.

445
00:34:59,648 --> 00:35:02,088
So just say, okay, incremental improvements, good.

446
00:35:02,448 --> 00:35:04,088
Just celebrate the improvements.

447
00:35:05,168 --> 00:35:09,028
And that's kind of the mainstream stuff that I've been involved with.

448
00:35:09,028 --> 00:35:14,348
It's like, okay, we're going to get these new apps, new capabilities.

449
00:35:15,628 --> 00:35:18,588
You know, no one's going to fall from their perch.

450
00:35:19,208 --> 00:35:20,468
Apple are going to be there.

451
00:35:20,468 --> 00:35:22,868
governments are pretty happy with what's going on.

452
00:35:23,088 --> 00:35:25,748
And so, you know, without getting too much detail,

453
00:35:25,868 --> 00:35:29,268
like I'm involved with like a very detailed technical specification

454
00:35:29,268 --> 00:35:30,528
and that's the reality.

455
00:35:31,128 --> 00:35:33,228
It is, it's like, you know, there's going to be improvements.

456
00:35:34,128 --> 00:35:34,768
That's great.

457
00:35:35,248 --> 00:35:42,468
Works fine for, you know, works, works, oh, just hang on.

458
00:35:43,208 --> 00:35:49,548
Works fine for, works fine for like institutions that you trust in that.

459
00:35:49,548 --> 00:36:08,848
Like, despite what's going on, we do trust Canadian institutions, you know, you trust American institutions, you trust European institutions, but there's going to be a time where you're going to need some capabilities that work despite governments, despite banks.

460
00:36:10,108 --> 00:36:11,068
Right, yes.

461
00:36:11,068 --> 00:36:17,308
You need to have systems that work between friends and enemies.

462
00:36:17,888 --> 00:36:18,168
Yes.

463
00:36:18,508 --> 00:36:21,148
A great example is domain name system.

464
00:36:21,528 --> 00:36:23,688
Like it's – people say it's centralized.

465
00:36:23,988 --> 00:36:25,088
People say it's decentralized.

466
00:36:25,428 --> 00:36:26,728
No, it's really delegated.

467
00:36:27,288 --> 00:36:30,348
And I've done some work in that space as well.

468
00:36:30,348 --> 00:36:40,588
And like to the U.S., to its credit, really kind of nurtured the governance on that for the last three years into ICANN and IANA and that.

469
00:36:41,068 --> 00:36:45,788
And you've got a system that, like, if you need to resolve a name from Russia or China, you can do it.

470
00:36:46,148 --> 00:36:48,668
They're not your friends or anything like that, but it works.

471
00:36:48,668 --> 00:36:54,628
And everybody, when they rotate those certificates, they basically have the guns, everybody's guns to each other's.

472
00:36:54,628 --> 00:36:54,968
Right.

473
00:36:55,628 --> 00:36:55,848
Done.

474
00:36:55,948 --> 00:36:58,988
There's a handshake and there's, pardon me, weaponry.

475
00:36:59,928 --> 00:37:00,148
Yeah.

476
00:37:00,148 --> 00:37:21,268
And so if we zoom that out, like what's – help us understand and appreciate, you know, not necessarily in the deepest of details, but cryptography fundamentally helps us replace, displace, reduce reliance on institutions in what ways?

477
00:37:22,268 --> 00:37:22,908
Yeah.

478
00:37:23,288 --> 00:37:29,808
So, like, you're now – you can rely on axioms as opposed to rules.

479
00:37:30,148 --> 00:37:32,668
That can change at a moment's notice.

480
00:37:34,148 --> 00:37:43,728
And not so much an issue in our society, but, hey, it happened in Canada when all of a sudden with the trucker protests, people were building money.

481
00:37:43,968 --> 00:37:46,928
And all of a sudden, boom, people got shut out of their accounts, bank accounts.

482
00:37:47,328 --> 00:37:52,868
So it's like then you realize how fragile your capabilities are.

483
00:37:52,868 --> 00:38:00,088
And we also have situations, too, where the banks are saying, oh, you know, you did a transaction on a Bitcoin exchange.

484
00:38:00,188 --> 00:38:01,168
We're going to debank you.

485
00:38:01,668 --> 00:38:04,108
And it's like you've been a client for 30 years.

486
00:38:04,488 --> 00:38:08,688
And then, like, people are being debanked and that.

487
00:38:09,008 --> 00:38:18,408
So what happens, and that's a great example, and again, not to hyper-politicize everything, but let's look at the trucker protest V2, you know, if it were to happen.

488
00:38:18,408 --> 00:38:22,568
What would be different on Safebox?

489
00:38:22,868 --> 00:38:25,388
or rather utilizing SafeBox and its primitives.

490
00:38:25,968 --> 00:38:26,248
Okay.

491
00:38:26,488 --> 00:38:31,068
So, and again, not to get too technical, but...

492
00:38:31,068 --> 00:38:35,028
Yeah, day in the life would be sort of my, I think, would be useful.

493
00:38:35,708 --> 00:38:35,928
Yeah.

494
00:38:36,048 --> 00:38:41,948
So you can make a private payment with 100% assurance that it can be tracked.

495
00:38:42,628 --> 00:38:47,468
And basically what I've built, the level on top of with Cashew,

496
00:38:48,668 --> 00:38:51,268
I can send you a payment.

497
00:38:51,268 --> 00:38:58,808
I can send you a blind token, blinded tokens, so they're untraceable and or unlinkable is probably the better word to use.

498
00:38:59,668 --> 00:39:13,548
And the other thing that I built is not obvious is that I built a secure document transmission layer based on NIP 17, which is secure messaging.

499
00:39:13,548 --> 00:39:22,888
So I adapted that protocol to transmit events that look like they're coming from random public keys.

500
00:39:23,488 --> 00:39:25,648
So there's just no way to trace it.

501
00:39:26,148 --> 00:39:28,548
And then they're, instead of like permanent—

502
00:39:28,548 --> 00:39:29,228
Hide among the crowd.

503
00:39:29,808 --> 00:39:31,688
Yeah, they're ephemeral events.

504
00:39:32,088 --> 00:39:36,688
So they only listen—they only exist for about 10 minutes or so.

505
00:39:36,688 --> 00:39:40,328
So if I send you a payment, you know, we negotiate beforehand.

506
00:39:40,328 --> 00:39:41,448
And I'm going to send you a payment.

507
00:39:42,188 --> 00:39:45,668
And then you better start listening on this line.

508
00:39:46,008 --> 00:39:47,748
And those tokens are going to show up.

509
00:39:48,068 --> 00:39:52,048
And you better get them because if you wait too long, they're just not going to be there.

510
00:39:52,388 --> 00:40:01,068
So I basically took the Lightning address protocol and added a few more introspection things to say, hey, oh, Lightning address.

511
00:40:01,188 --> 00:40:03,248
Well, let's just check to see if it's a safe box address.

512
00:40:03,688 --> 00:40:04,288
Oh, it is.

513
00:40:04,288 --> 00:40:04,648
Okay.

514
00:40:04,868 --> 00:40:09,688
So instead of going through the Lightning network to send it, I'm just going to emit eCash tokens.

515
00:40:09,688 --> 00:40:19,108
I'm going to tell the other party to start listening on these relays for these encrypted messages and then listen for 10 minutes.

516
00:40:20,148 --> 00:40:23,528
And once they get them, they'll get those eCash tokens.

517
00:40:23,768 --> 00:40:25,788
They just redeem them and add them to their account.

518
00:40:26,728 --> 00:40:35,388
And so what I did, like, maybe it's uncool to call it layer three, but now I have a payment layer that, you know,

519
00:40:35,388 --> 00:40:42,188
if it's smart enough that it doesn't even touch Lightning if it knows that the other address is

520
00:40:42,188 --> 00:40:48,328
Lightning. And I pulled a quote. I think this is a correct quote, which I thought was very to the

521
00:40:48,328 --> 00:40:55,488
point. Bitcoin is the asset. Lightning is the network. Cashi was the credit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

522
00:40:55,488 --> 00:41:04,948
So there are elements of trust involved. So at the Bitcoin, the asset layer, you're trusting the

523
00:41:04,948 --> 00:41:12,708
consensus that everybody is agreeing to these rules.

524
00:41:13,688 --> 00:41:15,028
Lightning is a little bit different.

525
00:41:15,188 --> 00:41:16,548
It's like a penalty protocol.

526
00:41:16,768 --> 00:41:22,068
If you go into it, you're trusting channel partners to not screw each other.

527
00:41:22,228 --> 00:41:22,468
Yes.

528
00:41:22,468 --> 00:41:24,348
And it's motivated to maintain that channel.

529
00:41:24,888 --> 00:41:33,408
And then at the cashew layer, you're trusting these mints for doing redemption, like IOUs.

530
00:41:33,408 --> 00:41:39,628
So if you don't like amend, you can clear out your IOUs via Lightning and put them somewhere else.

531
00:41:40,888 --> 00:41:48,368
And so what we have, if I understand that, again, if we kind of frame it for those who are really, I love the jobs to be done approach, right?

532
00:41:48,368 --> 00:41:49,348
I have a job to be done.

533
00:41:49,628 --> 00:41:53,968
You know, what is, who, what am I going to hire to do it?

534
00:41:53,968 --> 00:42:07,148
And so unstoppable money, unstoppable communication, and maybe this is an awkward way to wedge it in, but a credit system with managed risk.

535
00:42:07,148 --> 00:42:25,828
And so, again, if we sort of look at a trucker protest V2 or that, you know, to happen, we've got the ability to exchange value, to exchange messages and to coordinate and conduct commerce without the ability to be tracked or stopped.

536
00:42:26,708 --> 00:42:31,828
Yeah, yeah. And I kind of boil it down to like there's three capabilities.

537
00:42:32,328 --> 00:42:45,916
One is private messages like signals got that cover to a degree Yes then there I like the term of unlinkable payments It has less of a baggage

538
00:42:45,916 --> 00:42:46,856
as untraceable,

539
00:42:46,956 --> 00:42:47,556
so it doesn't tell me

540
00:42:47,556 --> 00:42:48,496
money laundering,

541
00:42:48,657 --> 00:42:50,117
like a coin is unlinkable.

542
00:42:50,736 --> 00:42:51,996
And then the third part,

543
00:42:52,056 --> 00:42:53,056
which I'm working on,

544
00:42:53,117 --> 00:42:53,996
is what I'm calling

545
00:42:53,996 --> 00:42:55,137
verifiable promises.

546
00:42:55,756 --> 00:42:57,856
And that's where,

547
00:42:57,996 --> 00:42:58,617
a little bit abstract,

548
00:42:58,936 --> 00:43:01,316
but your government issued ID

549
00:43:01,316 --> 00:43:02,657
is a verifiable promise.

550
00:43:03,117 --> 00:43:03,456
And actually,

551
00:43:03,576 --> 00:43:04,717
let me ask you,

552
00:43:04,717 --> 00:43:08,336
Tim, to start here. I think though abstract, I think it's important. That's the reason I paused

553
00:43:08,336 --> 00:43:18,496
you. What is the real world equivalent? Rather, what are we porting to this network and these

554
00:43:18,496 --> 00:43:23,316
layers of networks that we otherwise do in the real world? So a great example, I've done a lot

555
00:43:23,316 --> 00:43:31,376
of work in like a digital trade documentation, like global shipping companies. They still do

556
00:43:31,376 --> 00:43:32,376
like bills of lading,

557
00:43:32,516 --> 00:43:33,296
warehouse receipts

558
00:43:33,296 --> 00:43:33,657
and everything

559
00:43:33,657 --> 00:43:34,536
is all still done

560
00:43:34,536 --> 00:43:35,936
mostly 90% by paper.

561
00:43:36,956 --> 00:43:39,036
This is like paper and fax.

562
00:43:39,376 --> 00:43:40,977
Yeah, paper and fax.

563
00:43:41,556 --> 00:43:42,697
They're starting to move

564
00:43:42,697 --> 00:43:46,496
to electronic trade documents

565
00:43:46,496 --> 00:43:47,977
and there's some bespoke

566
00:43:47,977 --> 00:43:49,076
blockchain services

567
00:43:49,076 --> 00:43:50,876
that are kind of doing the job

568
00:43:50,876 --> 00:43:53,396
out in the Far East.

569
00:43:53,496 --> 00:43:54,157
There's some very

570
00:43:54,157 --> 00:43:55,177
successful platforms.

571
00:43:56,356 --> 00:43:59,076
But the idea here is

572
00:43:59,076 --> 00:44:00,896
like a verifiable promise

573
00:44:00,896 --> 00:44:02,016
could be like a,

574
00:44:02,516 --> 00:44:03,936
what's called a title document.

575
00:44:04,296 --> 00:44:05,036
You hold it,

576
00:44:05,596 --> 00:44:06,896
you have the right to the goods.

577
00:44:08,796 --> 00:44:10,336
And if you want to transfer it

578
00:44:10,336 --> 00:44:10,876
to someone else,

579
00:44:10,977 --> 00:44:12,036
they have the right to the goods.

580
00:44:12,236 --> 00:44:13,756
It is a bearer instrument,

581
00:44:14,016 --> 00:44:14,856
if we will.

582
00:44:15,336 --> 00:44:16,197
Bingo, that's it.

583
00:44:16,496 --> 00:44:19,177
So really trying to think that

584
00:44:19,177 --> 00:44:20,296
through of these,

585
00:44:20,576 --> 00:44:22,376
what I call bound promises,

586
00:44:22,756 --> 00:44:23,596
that my bound promises,

587
00:44:23,836 --> 00:44:24,756
hey, I'm Tim,

588
00:44:24,977 --> 00:44:26,356
and as per the government of Canada,

589
00:44:26,956 --> 00:44:27,956
this is my name,

590
00:44:28,056 --> 00:44:29,036
this is my passport ID,

591
00:44:29,256 --> 00:44:29,996
this is how you track me,

592
00:44:29,996 --> 00:44:31,637
this is my fingerprints and blah, blah, blah.

593
00:44:32,056 --> 00:44:36,816
And the government can is promising that the person that's in front of you is actually me.

594
00:44:36,936 --> 00:44:38,157
That's a bound promise.

595
00:44:38,376 --> 00:44:43,796
But a bare promise might be, well, I have like cash in hand.

596
00:44:44,316 --> 00:44:49,076
Or it could be I have a title document to pick up that shipping container just right there.

597
00:44:49,316 --> 00:44:49,796
Right.

598
00:44:49,956 --> 00:44:53,736
So I'm just thinking about that stuff more abstractly.

599
00:44:53,736 --> 00:45:02,756
And I've boiled it down to, like, I like to experiment with some fake advertising messages or whatever.

600
00:45:03,197 --> 00:45:03,477
Yes.

601
00:45:04,036 --> 00:45:07,657
It really boils down to, I want to have control over my funds and records.

602
00:45:08,717 --> 00:45:13,736
My funds could be in Canadian dollars, could be Bitcoin or whatever.

603
00:45:13,836 --> 00:45:20,477
But I have funds, and I may want to give you some funds to carry out a transaction.

604
00:45:21,316 --> 00:45:23,056
But then I have some records.

605
00:45:23,056 --> 00:45:32,117
I might have what I call negotiable records, a title document, but I have other non-negotiable or bound promises that say who I am and blah, blah, blah.

606
00:45:32,217 --> 00:45:33,236
I can present that to you.

607
00:45:33,836 --> 00:45:45,217
So I feel like now I have a pretty simple theory for Nostra Safebox where I've kind of landed on the characteristics where I want to build a capability that lives in the network on relays.

608
00:45:45,217 --> 00:45:54,056
So if your phone gets taken away from you or part of the internet gets shut down, if things are replicated, you can get back up in business again.

609
00:45:54,396 --> 00:46:04,396
But then kind of taking those models of like verifiable credentials and say, well, there's a more general model of what I'm calling verifiable promises.

610
00:46:05,036 --> 00:46:08,056
It could be your government issued ID.

611
00:46:08,477 --> 00:46:10,296
It could be a bill of lading.

612
00:46:10,617 --> 00:46:13,336
It could be all e-cash fits in there as well.

613
00:46:13,336 --> 00:46:17,217
like a note that's issued that's cash, you know, same thing.

614
00:46:17,856 --> 00:46:21,956
So I feel like I have a simple model where I can kind of weave this all together.

615
00:46:22,376 --> 00:46:25,217
So like I have the payment stuff working,

616
00:46:25,637 --> 00:46:29,477
but that's not going to be the compelling part of the wallet.

617
00:46:29,697 --> 00:46:31,856
It's just like a starting point.

618
00:46:32,217 --> 00:46:35,137
But I think where things are going to get really exciting

619
00:46:35,137 --> 00:46:39,056
is when I actually can transfer records.

620
00:46:39,056 --> 00:46:40,157
And I have that stuff working,

621
00:46:40,157 --> 00:46:47,177
Like the big use case that I'm working on is being able to issue a simple NFC card.

622
00:46:47,356 --> 00:47:01,336
And I took a hard look at like how Visa and MasterCard do it with the tokenized payment systems token and basically implemented that and realized at first principles, it's actually more secure than what MasterCard and Visa have.

623
00:47:01,956 --> 00:47:04,677
Like, yeah, lots of engineering still to be done.

624
00:47:04,997 --> 00:47:05,516
No doubt.

625
00:47:05,516 --> 00:47:17,637
I feel like with these nouveau primitives, it's like I'm not sending stuff down, insecure stuff through ostensibly secure pipes where they get dumped out of the computer and get encrypted again.

626
00:47:18,436 --> 00:47:22,177
I have 100% certainty when I'm sending stuff from point A to point B.

627
00:47:22,916 --> 00:47:25,157
Point B is the only one that can actually get the stuff.

628
00:47:26,236 --> 00:47:28,076
And that is, I mean, I think that's really powerful.

629
00:47:28,076 --> 00:47:36,536
So I think, you know, one, funds and documents, records, forgive me, forgive me, funds and records.

630
00:47:36,536 --> 00:47:39,056
I think that's a great takeaway.

631
00:47:39,536 --> 00:47:51,056
And then if we just look at this perhaps through another lens or we zoom out a bit, you have therefore spent 15 years working on government digital identity, right?

632
00:47:51,076 --> 00:47:54,256
I mean, that's, yeah, I mean, that's a lot of time.

633
00:47:54,256 --> 00:47:59,296
I don't think most people perhaps appreciate that governments have been working on digital ID for that long.

634
00:48:00,756 --> 00:48:09,657
What convinced you that permissionless protocols, that's a tongue twister, you know, weren't just interesting experiments but necessary alternatives?

635
00:48:10,197 --> 00:48:11,956
Was there a specific moment of realization?

636
00:48:13,576 --> 00:48:18,816
Like I'm an amateur historian by – part of my hobby.

637
00:48:18,816 --> 00:48:20,177
like another thing

638
00:48:20,177 --> 00:48:21,376
I've written a historical

639
00:48:21,376 --> 00:48:21,997
fiction book

640
00:48:21,997 --> 00:48:22,657
that was published

641
00:48:22,657 --> 00:48:24,556
and I like to zero in

642
00:48:24,556 --> 00:48:25,516
like points of history

643
00:48:25,516 --> 00:48:25,997
in that

644
00:48:25,997 --> 00:48:26,776
and

645
00:48:26,776 --> 00:48:29,096
and

646
00:48:29,096 --> 00:48:31,556
that project aside

647
00:48:31,556 --> 00:48:32,896
about four or five years ago

648
00:48:32,896 --> 00:48:34,157
I started to look into

649
00:48:34,157 --> 00:48:35,536
this book

650
00:48:35,536 --> 00:48:36,477
that really intrigued

651
00:48:36,477 --> 00:48:38,096
my imagination

652
00:48:38,096 --> 00:48:38,697
was called

653
00:48:38,697 --> 00:48:39,776
Medieval

654
00:48:39,776 --> 00:48:41,836
Forgery

655
00:48:41,836 --> 00:48:44,477
During the Millennium

656
00:48:44,477 --> 00:48:47,356
and like I read this book

657
00:48:47,356 --> 00:48:48,177
and realized like

658
00:48:48,816 --> 00:48:50,936
Half the shit out there is fake to begin with.

659
00:48:51,316 --> 00:48:55,076
Like medieval forgeries.

660
00:48:55,316 --> 00:49:01,896
Like the thing is, is that the mindset like in the 13th, near the millennium was not about being truthful.

661
00:49:02,117 --> 00:49:04,256
It's like, what is the will of God?

662
00:49:05,016 --> 00:49:14,396
And so the monks that were like copying these charters that gave rights and that, they weren't saying, what's a truthful copy?

663
00:49:14,456 --> 00:49:15,677
It's like, what's the will of God?

664
00:49:15,677 --> 00:49:22,177
Well, I think the will of God is that our abbey should have more rights on getting the grapes in the hills there.

665
00:49:22,256 --> 00:49:23,157
So we'll add that in.

666
00:49:23,997 --> 00:49:26,816
And thereby the means justify the ends.

667
00:49:27,296 --> 00:49:27,556
Yeah.

668
00:49:27,896 --> 00:49:29,296
Or the ends justify the means, excuse me.

669
00:49:29,356 --> 00:49:29,596
Yeah.

670
00:49:29,756 --> 00:49:36,516
And then you realize another term that stopped me dead in my tracks was what was called the cult of the original.

671
00:49:38,096 --> 00:49:38,977
What the heck is that?

672
00:49:38,977 --> 00:49:47,657
But like up until about like the 12th century or so, there was no idea of attributing like a work of art to like an individual.

673
00:49:48,137 --> 00:49:49,816
Like it just that wasn't the case at all.

674
00:49:50,516 --> 00:49:51,856
And it wasn't until the Renaissance.

675
00:49:51,856 --> 00:49:52,637
Work stood on its own.

676
00:49:53,096 --> 00:49:58,376
Yeah, they just kind of, they were there for the glorify God and that was it.

677
00:49:58,536 --> 00:49:58,956
Right, right.

678
00:49:58,956 --> 00:50:00,617
It's like, yeah, just do your thing.

679
00:50:00,617 --> 00:50:11,756
And then just looking at the long lens of history here, like, you know, there's a big discussion of what's fake, what's authentic, what's fake in good faith and that.

680
00:50:11,836 --> 00:50:17,236
And I realized, oh, this is pretty, pretty, pretty gray zone.

681
00:50:17,236 --> 00:50:32,536
But what was really interesting, this book came out and there was a big discussion saying the original scholarship that was done in the late 1800s, early 20th century was through the lens of centralized bureaucracy.

682
00:50:32,836 --> 00:50:37,056
They kind of assumed that all the stuff was done through a centralized administrative process.

683
00:50:37,816 --> 00:50:38,977
And it wasn't.

684
00:50:39,296 --> 00:50:40,456
It wasn't at all.

685
00:50:40,456 --> 00:50:55,736
And if you read about like how charters get formulated and how they get witnessed and how they get the royal assent, sometimes it would be years before like you get assent from a king that was not even literate, you know.

686
00:50:55,736 --> 00:50:59,036
And then there was different systems of wax seals.

687
00:50:59,356 --> 00:51:03,117
In the UK, it was more about witnesses having your name on the document.

688
00:51:03,117 --> 00:51:12,836
And I went, oh, this is not as simple, simple cut and dry as what people think it would be.

689
00:51:13,697 --> 00:51:23,216
And I realized, like, again, from a central agency point of view, sometimes you just kind of write the rules and then you interpret them.

690
00:51:23,216 --> 00:51:28,876
And I've been in situations like that where I wrote the policies and then I had to interpret those things.

691
00:51:28,997 --> 00:51:30,456
I was like, oh, this is kind of interesting.

692
00:51:31,276 --> 00:51:32,137
Unintended consequences.

693
00:51:32,776 --> 00:51:48,477
Well, and I think, you know, that's actually – there's an example of that I wanted to touch on if I follow you, Tim, which is that in the vein of, you know, let us be mindful of what we record, declare or otherwise stipulate.

694
00:51:48,956 --> 00:51:54,336
Canada's Conservative Party is actively campaigning against, quote, mandatory digital IDs.

695
00:51:55,016 --> 00:51:58,637
Privacy surveys show that 88 percent of Canadians are worried about their data.

696
00:51:58,776 --> 00:52:00,036
I take that to be very bullish.

697
00:52:00,516 --> 00:52:07,657
So as someone who's worked on these government systems, what do you think the public misunderstands about them and what do they understand correctly?

698
00:52:07,657 --> 00:52:13,356
Yeah. So the Conservative Party came out in favor of a voluntary digital ID system.

699
00:52:14,056 --> 00:52:14,936
Keyword being voluntary.

700
00:52:14,936 --> 00:52:29,536
Platform. And I think maybe what you're talking about was one of the MPs decided to do a YouTube video reacting to what's happening in the UK with.

701
00:52:29,997 --> 00:52:35,036
With a website and all. I've seen the I've seen the site to sign up to sign the declaration or the.

702
00:52:35,036 --> 00:52:46,776
So this is always a tricky thing is, you know, they say that there's never a temporary government measure and there's never a voluntary government measure.

703
00:52:48,117 --> 00:52:48,177
Right.

704
00:52:48,177 --> 00:52:57,076
Yeah. So I think I think that's what's happening is like, you know, I don't want to comment, but.

705
00:52:57,076 --> 00:53:07,716
Well, as I say, I think what I'm curious particularly about is let us assume that this, you know, what is the right word?

706
00:53:07,796 --> 00:53:08,756
It's a campaign.

707
00:53:08,956 --> 00:53:12,296
Let's assume this campaign is informed by a constituency.

708
00:53:13,016 --> 00:53:19,776
And let's assume that, you know, as this particular survey, you know, that I'm referencing shows 88 percent of Canadians are worried.

709
00:53:20,477 --> 00:53:24,056
Why are they right to and they understand correctly?

710
00:53:24,177 --> 00:53:25,576
And what perhaps do they misunderstand?

711
00:53:27,076 --> 00:53:32,716
about digital ID and where the UK, among others, appear to be marching?

712
00:53:33,816 --> 00:53:37,796
Well, it's just not going to be mandatory in Canada, period.

713
00:53:38,556 --> 00:53:40,536
The other thing, too, is that—

714
00:53:40,536 --> 00:53:43,096
And how so? How can you make that statement? I am curious.

715
00:53:43,536 --> 00:53:47,356
Oh, again, what I said earlier, it's very decentralized.

716
00:53:49,356 --> 00:53:55,617
It's probably, like, different in the UK, there's really only two levels of government.

717
00:53:55,617 --> 00:54:14,436
There's federal and basically the town councils. And basically the town councils pretty much exist at the leisure of the federal government. It's not like that in Canada at all. So it's really like where are they going to do that?

718
00:54:14,436 --> 00:54:20,697
Like provincial, like health stuff is all provincial.

719
00:54:23,276 --> 00:54:27,376
Banking, in many cases, yes, there's federal regulations,

720
00:54:27,836 --> 00:54:33,137
but more concerningly what's calling the shots is like what's called the FATF,

721
00:54:33,216 --> 00:54:34,736
the Financial Action Task Force.

722
00:54:36,356 --> 00:54:42,997
And, you know, a lot of the work there is actually driven by like very authoritarian governments

723
00:54:42,997 --> 00:54:49,356
kind of, so there's, you don't want to be on the gray list there or the blacklist or whatever.

724
00:54:49,836 --> 00:54:55,576
So a lot of identification requirements are actually governed by

725
00:54:55,576 --> 00:55:01,216
unelected bureaucrats sitting on committees across the ocean.

726
00:55:03,216 --> 00:55:08,977
Yeah. And there's also like bodies like the College of Physicians,

727
00:55:08,977 --> 00:55:16,236
like the bar associations, et cetera, that's how you relate as well.

728
00:55:16,336 --> 00:55:19,477
So there's a lot of like a lot of bodies that do self-regulate

729
00:55:19,477 --> 00:55:26,376
and they've either been kind of delegated or what's the fancy word?

730
00:55:26,977 --> 00:55:31,736
I forget the word, but they actually were delegated in legislation to take care of that.

731
00:55:31,736 --> 00:55:43,137
So you're not going to see an out-and-out sort of legislation coming out that's going to happen.

732
00:55:43,137 --> 00:56:08,556
So Canada's original and ongoing diversity, tricky word these days, and sort of complexity in some ways, I guess, of its structure as provinces, as territories, as First Nations, just precludes any sort of top-down authoritarian dictate.

733
00:56:08,556 --> 00:56:30,876
Yeah. And probably what's going to happen is that there's going to be some standards that they will abide by. The discussion that's happening now is mutual recognition. And one thing, like mutually recognizing that a health card being presented in province A to province B will be honored, for example.

734
00:56:30,876 --> 00:56:37,117
and then the second part kind of with its own degree of freedom is technical acceptance like

735
00:56:37,117 --> 00:56:42,436
okay you've decided that you're going to accept a health card from province a to province b

736
00:56:42,436 --> 00:56:49,936
and that's great ministers sign off on that and that's good so but the technical acceptance might

737
00:56:49,936 --> 00:56:57,956
be well one province is using this protocol here and this presentation method and we feel good

738
00:56:57,956 --> 00:57:05,796
about that, we'll accept it. And it's a much more involved technical discussion, but it's not as

739
00:57:05,796 --> 00:57:12,836
momentum as the mutual recognition. So I think if we, at the governance level, we say, yes,

740
00:57:12,936 --> 00:57:19,796
we will accept, like, if you're Canadian and you end up being hospitalized in, like,

741
00:57:20,137 --> 00:57:25,336
you're from Alberta, you get hospitalized in Quebec, you don't have to worry at all about

742
00:57:25,336 --> 00:57:30,396
expenses or anything like that, eventually it will all go back to the province of Alberta,

743
00:57:30,497 --> 00:57:34,716
whatever. But when you show up in the hospital in Quebec, you're just going to be taken care of,

744
00:57:34,716 --> 00:57:41,157
period. Okay. And then the fact is, is that, well, whether it's a paper card, a plastic card,

745
00:57:41,396 --> 00:57:48,157
or, you know, a card that's on your phone or whatever, like that's a separate discussion

746
00:57:48,157 --> 00:57:52,416
entirely. Well, I think what's powerful about that, or, you know, particularly poignant about

747
00:57:52,416 --> 00:57:59,056
that if we contrast this scenario in which, you know, setting aside private versus public

748
00:57:59,056 --> 00:58:06,576
insurance and all that good stuff, where it is honored versus digital ID and CBDCs, where

749
00:58:06,576 --> 00:58:13,256
there is no option to trust. You will use it if you want services, if you wish to exchange value.

750
00:58:13,356 --> 00:58:18,556
And I think that's worth calling out is, and, you know, Godspeed to Canada. I hope this does play

751
00:58:18,556 --> 00:58:28,977
out where this is a opt-in standards-driven program for efficiencies and hopefully other

752
00:58:28,977 --> 00:58:37,536
sort of positives as opposed to a draconian top-down there is opt-in or there is be left out.

753
00:58:39,137 --> 00:58:45,836
Yeah, yeah, it's very, very, very pragmatic with immediate value. And it's the same thing with the

754
00:58:45,836 --> 00:58:47,296
whole CBDC discussion.

755
00:58:48,197 --> 00:58:50,716
The Bank of Canada had done quite a bit of work.

756
00:58:50,816 --> 00:58:52,697
I know that research team there quite well.

757
00:58:53,197 --> 00:58:55,177
And kudos to them.

758
00:58:55,256 --> 00:58:59,256
They came out with a report about a year ago just saying that Canadians just don't want

759
00:58:59,256 --> 00:58:59,396
it.

760
00:59:00,316 --> 00:59:02,396
So they basically stood down their research team.

761
00:59:02,637 --> 00:59:02,657
Yeah.

762
00:59:02,876 --> 00:59:03,416
Just kind of.

763
00:59:03,556 --> 00:59:03,896
Fantastic.

764
00:59:03,896 --> 00:59:06,536
Kind of realized it's just not going to happen.

765
00:59:06,977 --> 00:59:10,816
And now there's discussions around stable coins.

766
00:59:11,137 --> 00:59:13,316
They're not necessarily in the center of that discussion.

767
00:59:13,456 --> 00:59:14,697
That's more of a payment rail.

768
00:59:15,296 --> 00:59:15,456
Sure.

769
00:59:15,456 --> 00:59:27,536
That's going on. In contrast, like the European Central Bank just seems to be like scared of their shadows and are trying to double down on this thing, how great this stuff is going to be.

770
00:59:27,756 --> 00:59:28,157
Absolutely.

771
00:59:28,657 --> 00:59:34,336
And it's like, you know, you know, in Canada, we just said, yeah, Canadians just don't want it, period.

772
00:59:34,916 --> 00:59:38,216
Yeah. Which I think is classically Canadian. It's so great.

773
00:59:38,216 --> 00:59:41,076
Well, and let me ask you this then, Tim.

774
00:59:41,396 --> 00:59:49,436
We fast forward five years and, you know, that may sound like a little, but on a technology landscape, it can mean a lot.

775
00:59:50,517 --> 00:59:56,017
Where are we with regard to government digital ID, Safebox?

776
00:59:56,497 --> 00:59:58,716
You know, what does the winning architecture look like?

777
00:59:58,716 --> 01:00:04,356
What are you betting on in terms of within Canada and perhaps elsewhere?

778
01:00:04,796 --> 01:00:08,456
What does success look like in five years as you see it?

779
01:00:09,556 --> 01:00:09,657
Yeah.

780
01:00:09,736 --> 01:00:17,336
And again, I always like to look at the long term and I don't think, you know, or push

781
01:00:17,336 --> 01:00:19,137
it out a decade if that's easier.

782
01:00:19,137 --> 01:00:23,157
Well, let me roll back 20 years, first of all, when I started getting the authentication.

783
01:00:23,157 --> 01:00:40,916
The only online behavior that was relatively crystallized back then was online banking. Like this was before like Facebook, like before social media, people were doing, like going 2004, early 2000s, like people were starting to do online banking.

784
01:00:40,916 --> 01:00:55,836
And so we looked at it and said, well, people are trusting the banks to do their financial transactions and the banks have an interest on ensuring that the authentication actually works before they carry out the transactions.

785
01:00:55,836 --> 01:00:59,756
Let's try to leverage that.

786
01:01:00,736 --> 01:01:04,836
But we didn't want to trust the banks for the identity part.

787
01:01:04,956 --> 01:01:06,856
We said that's just too much, just too much.

788
01:01:06,856 --> 01:01:12,517
And so the policy framework that we came up with was the authentication piece versus the identity proofing piece.

789
01:01:12,637 --> 01:01:14,056
That was not obvious back then.

790
01:01:14,997 --> 01:01:19,477
And so we broke those things separate.

791
01:01:20,836 --> 01:01:36,836
So moving to today, what's happened is like in the intervening period, we got these protocols like OAuth and OAuth 2 and started to get adopted and TLS and that.

792
01:01:36,856 --> 01:01:39,517
And then boom, we get our lock on our browser.

793
01:01:39,816 --> 01:01:44,556
And that ultimately tells us we can trust to a greater degree what we're interacting with.

794
01:01:44,936 --> 01:01:53,037
But then you have the digital platforms like the Googles and the Facebooks and that basically locking up the authentication piece, like sign in with Google, sign in, whatever.

795
01:01:54,637 --> 01:01:56,977
Once again, distribution and UX.

796
01:01:57,896 --> 01:01:58,997
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

797
01:01:58,997 --> 01:02:07,336
And so, like, going forward, like, five, ten years, I was just trying to figure out, it's not about better KYC.

798
01:02:07,497 --> 01:02:09,776
It's not about whether you're a human or not.

799
01:02:09,776 --> 01:02:15,117
Like, this is what I'm really trying to zero in on.

800
01:02:15,256 --> 01:02:26,776
It's about preserving my agency and ensuring my agency that if I decide to do something, I'm the one that generated that intention.

801
01:02:26,776 --> 01:02:40,336
And that intention is actually properly communicated to the other counterparty, if you will, without training in LLM, without being futzed by like cryptographically chain.

802
01:02:41,117 --> 01:02:43,556
Some sort of man in the middle or machine in the middle.

803
01:02:43,936 --> 01:02:44,117
Yeah.

804
01:02:44,537 --> 01:02:44,956
Yeah.

805
01:02:45,117 --> 01:02:48,816
So the issue, it's not about identity theft.

806
01:02:48,876 --> 01:02:50,137
It's about intention theft.

807
01:02:51,296 --> 01:02:54,676
And so that's where I'm putting my energy into.

808
01:02:54,676 --> 01:03:04,676
And there's some really great projects that are going on, like the first person network saying, you know, we need to prove that you're a human before you can access anything online.

809
01:03:04,816 --> 01:03:09,497
And it's like, well, OK, what body part are you going to measure?

810
01:03:09,876 --> 01:03:13,336
Right. Is that really what we need to demonstrate? I think it's an excellent point.

811
01:03:13,617 --> 01:03:19,617
Yeah. And who's who gets to measure that body part and provide that single dispensation that I'm human?

812
01:03:19,617 --> 01:03:27,796
And it's like, I kind of, I get the good intentions here, but I think there's something deeper here that we have.

813
01:03:27,796 --> 01:03:28,477
It's a blunt instrument.

814
01:03:29,056 --> 01:03:29,736
Analyze.

815
01:03:30,037 --> 01:03:32,537
Yeah, blunt instrument with the wrong model.

816
01:03:33,037 --> 01:03:39,716
And so that's why I started to dig into like conscious agency.

817
01:03:40,256 --> 01:03:49,076
Like you're hearing terms about agents, but like the stuff I'm seeing about agents is pretty like they haven't figured out.

818
01:03:49,076 --> 01:03:53,376
like some of the more foundational pieces that we need.

819
01:03:53,376 --> 01:04:05,444
And this is where I seeing like whether it NOSRA that wins out in the end or not it a simple protocol Everything signed It enables me to define a semantic space

820
01:04:05,564 --> 01:04:07,484
So if I have a subjective experience

821
01:04:07,484 --> 01:04:10,184
and I want to define my own kinds for whatever

822
01:04:10,184 --> 01:04:13,024
in relation to my public key, I can do that.

823
01:04:13,885 --> 01:04:15,544
And it gives me, I don't have to,

824
01:04:16,104 --> 01:04:18,624
I don't need permission for that single credential.

825
01:04:19,164 --> 01:04:22,964
And then the Web of Trust stuff is really interesting as well.

826
01:04:22,964 --> 01:04:26,184
and as opposed to authorities.

827
01:04:26,624 --> 01:04:28,584
And again, this is where the Mark Burgess theory

828
01:04:28,584 --> 01:04:32,484
is really, really useful.

829
01:04:32,624 --> 01:04:34,905
Instead of kind of relying on top-down authorities

830
01:04:34,905 --> 01:04:38,504
to do stuff, let's work on this idea of promises.

831
01:04:38,825 --> 01:04:40,284
And if agents keep their promises,

832
01:04:40,604 --> 01:04:42,624
you actually attribute those to more authority.

833
01:04:44,264 --> 01:04:46,804
And so it's just like...

834
01:04:46,804 --> 01:04:48,385
Graduated trust, graduated agency

835
01:04:48,385 --> 01:04:50,184
based on demonstrated outcomes.

836
01:04:50,604 --> 01:04:52,204
Yeah, like I come from a tradition

837
01:04:52,204 --> 01:04:53,964
of what I call reverse governance,

838
01:04:54,244 --> 01:04:55,924
like the cultural background

839
01:04:55,924 --> 01:04:56,804
that I grew up with.

840
01:04:56,885 --> 01:04:58,144
It's not about top-down authority.

841
01:04:58,304 --> 01:04:59,964
It's about me as an individual member

842
01:04:59,964 --> 01:05:02,885
delegating authority to like a council

843
01:05:02,885 --> 01:05:04,264
and then to a classist

844
01:05:04,264 --> 01:05:05,224
and then to a synod.

845
01:05:06,144 --> 01:05:08,385
And if you don't like it,

846
01:05:08,385 --> 01:05:10,064
then there's a process

847
01:05:10,064 --> 01:05:11,064
to change that stuff.

848
01:05:11,204 --> 01:05:11,885
To reclaim it.

849
01:05:12,224 --> 01:05:13,924
It's not like the Pope

850
01:05:13,924 --> 01:05:15,544
has like the divine authority

851
01:05:15,544 --> 01:05:18,004
and everybody has to be in charge.

852
01:05:18,204 --> 01:05:19,424
I mean, they're in charge

853
01:05:19,424 --> 01:05:20,104
and you have to...

854
01:05:20,104 --> 01:05:21,144
And that's powerful.

855
01:05:21,144 --> 01:05:47,484
I'm sorry to interrupt. I think, you know, I want to draw this out is the technical ability and the, well, the ability to grant degrees of trust and agency to increase or decrease those, to put them forward and to pull them back as composed or rather as compared to it being binary.

856
01:05:47,484 --> 01:06:03,924
I hand over, I outsource, I give over. I think what I hear you say, Tim, is that there is this, you know, it's the beads on the abacus, if you will. I can move them and adjust based on demonstrated outcomes as opposed to empty promises.

857
01:06:03,924 --> 01:06:24,204
Yeah, and if rules need to change or doctrinal positions need to be changed, there's a forum where you can actually bring those forward and hash that out. And then if you're an officer, if you will, you've agreed to abide by those things. But as a member, it doesn't mean you have to abide by them. And you might honor them.

858
01:06:24,204 --> 01:06:36,424
So all I'm saying is that, you know, the decentralized governance that I'm quite used to, what's also interesting, the governance that I'm used to is actually crosses national borders between Canada and the U.S.

859
01:06:36,444 --> 01:06:40,385
So like nation states are not involved there.

860
01:06:41,124 --> 01:06:41,345
Right.

861
01:06:41,764 --> 01:06:42,244
Right.

862
01:06:42,345 --> 01:06:42,665
Absolutely.

863
01:06:43,345 --> 01:06:43,825
Tradition.

864
01:06:43,825 --> 01:06:49,325
So, you know, I'm just kind of applying kind of like the cultural background that I come from.

865
01:06:49,325 --> 01:06:54,484
It's like I don't have 100% view of what's good or bad.

866
01:06:55,524 --> 01:07:04,964
But I can be part of a larger body that is living to some degree to adapt.

867
01:07:05,104 --> 01:07:10,144
And I think kind of what we're seeing now, I'm hearing stuff like the web is dead.

868
01:07:10,584 --> 01:07:12,544
Well, dead internet theory.

869
01:07:13,044 --> 01:07:19,304
The dead internet theory is because you actually haven't figured out what the body is because you're just dealing with something.

870
01:07:19,325 --> 01:07:45,564
Fascinating. And is there, can we then project that forward five or 10 years, Tim? I mean, it may be a tough one, but what is, again, I come back to day in the life, you know, so I'm rooting for you. But more importantly, as I know you'll take this, I'm rooting for these protocols and their application. What does a typical Canadian citizen's life look like in 10 years if we're successful here?

871
01:07:45,564 --> 01:08:10,704
Yeah. So there would be no technological distinction between your passport. If I need to present a passport via Nostra Safebox, okay, and I need to show a membership to a skating club, the technology is exactly the same.

872
01:08:10,704 --> 01:08:16,964
where the difference might be is that for presenting my passport,

873
01:08:18,504 --> 01:08:22,565
the government of Canada has to have an agreement with other governments

874
01:08:22,565 --> 01:08:25,665
to say that these are the issuers that need to be honored.

875
01:08:25,665 --> 01:08:36,624
And when you verify it, not only are you verifying that nothing's been tampered with,

876
01:08:36,745 --> 01:08:38,765
but you actually trust the issuer in that,

877
01:08:38,765 --> 01:08:54,105
And there might be a few additional requirements that we need to capture a biometric digest at that time from your wallet, facial recognition, and map that against to what was issued with that passport.

878
01:08:54,105 --> 01:09:12,904
And that might be good enough for a passport, but like for a gym membership or a club membership, it's like all we need to know is that the name is yours and the expiry date and that it was issued by the gym club.

879
01:09:13,844 --> 01:09:17,864
And, you know, look up that the gym club signed it.

880
01:09:17,944 --> 01:09:18,624
It's legitimate.

881
01:09:19,584 --> 01:09:21,105
Or rolling into a pub.

882
01:09:21,225 --> 01:09:22,444
It's that you're of age.

883
01:09:22,444 --> 01:09:28,065
I don't need to know your name, your birth date, all these things, just that you have this attribute that can be verified.

884
01:09:28,984 --> 01:09:36,084
Yeah, and it's hilarious to see the sort of the gaping holes that are out there.

885
01:09:36,145 --> 01:09:41,344
For example, I had to go to a medical specialist for something, and it was, thank you very much.

886
01:09:41,404 --> 01:09:47,804
And then they sent me a PDF of the report, and then they said, oh, and we faxed it to your doctor.

887
01:09:48,665 --> 01:09:50,705
I mean, yeah, yeah, same here.

888
01:09:50,705 --> 01:10:12,044
Just boggles the mind, boggles the mind. But those are the, you know, systems that, you know, there's lots of improvements that could be made. And I was looking at that and saying, just imagine where you could say, like, I could send that record to your DostroSafe box, then you have it online.

889
01:10:12,044 --> 01:10:15,524
if you lose your phone, you still have the record.

890
01:10:15,984 --> 01:10:18,904
If you want to send that record off to your doctor or whatever,

891
01:10:19,024 --> 01:10:21,645
they can actually check to see the public key.

892
01:10:21,804 --> 01:10:23,584
They can check the payload and that.

893
01:10:23,844 --> 01:10:24,705
And it's just like...

894
01:10:24,705 --> 01:10:25,844
Integrity attribution.

895
01:10:26,544 --> 01:10:27,424
Yeah, yeah.

896
01:10:27,424 --> 01:10:34,324
So I see an infrastructure like the internet,

897
01:10:34,765 --> 01:10:37,765
like the genius of what Vint Cerf invented

898
01:10:37,765 --> 01:10:41,725
was the idea of this address space that was hierarchical

899
01:10:41,725 --> 01:10:56,864
And it was an internet packet that has its own address and self-address and it can figure out where to get in the network and get from point A to point B and then the abstraction of the gateways and that.

900
01:10:57,145 --> 01:10:57,765
So it's like –

901
01:10:57,765 --> 01:10:58,804
Without explicit coordination.

902
01:10:59,464 --> 01:10:59,745
Yeah.

903
01:10:59,924 --> 01:11:00,165
Yeah.

904
01:11:00,245 --> 01:11:02,665
Why can't we do that with self-signed records?

905
01:11:04,185 --> 01:11:10,324
And then without explicit coordination and then when I receive it, I'll decide how I'm going to trust that record.

906
01:11:10,924 --> 01:11:11,284
Yes.

907
01:11:11,284 --> 01:11:35,424
If it's a passport record, I'll do extra stuff. If it's a doctor's note, maybe I'll do a bit of a different stuff in that. One of the problems I started to put my finger on with the advanced models of what's called the whole issuer-holder-verifier model with decentralized identity is that, well, you're giving the issuer special privilege and you're giving the verifier special privilege.

908
01:11:35,424 --> 01:11:42,124
And me as the holder, I don't really have anything – I'm subject to those issuers and verifiers.

909
01:11:42,444 --> 01:11:44,624
And the vendors are saying, yeah, this is great.

910
01:11:44,964 --> 01:11:47,124
Like I'll collude with governments.

911
01:11:47,245 --> 01:11:48,524
I'll get contracts with them.

912
01:11:48,605 --> 01:11:49,804
I'll be the trusted issuer.

913
01:11:50,165 --> 01:11:51,304
I'll be the trusted verifier.

914
01:11:51,605 --> 01:11:55,705
And I looked at it and said, okay, there's an incremental improvement there.

915
01:11:56,864 --> 01:11:57,605
But at what cost?

916
01:11:58,084 --> 01:12:00,424
The status quo has not changed at all.

917
01:12:00,504 --> 01:12:01,524
Right, right.

918
01:12:01,524 --> 01:12:12,084
And what unintended consequences or risks or threats have you injected into these fundamental human-to-human encounters and exchanges?

919
01:12:12,665 --> 01:12:12,725
Yeah.

920
01:12:12,924 --> 01:12:23,384
And so the idea is that if you and I and maybe someone else want to create a club and create verifiable promises or records or whatever, I don't want anybody to get in between.

921
01:12:25,105 --> 01:12:25,544
Right.

922
01:12:25,665 --> 01:12:27,884
And what a radical idea that is these days, right?

923
01:12:27,884 --> 01:12:31,904
It has been that way and it should be that way and we need to get back there.

924
01:12:32,884 --> 01:12:33,004
Yeah.

925
01:12:33,324 --> 01:12:39,605
And a lot of society was organized quite well along those lines for centuries, if not millennia.

926
01:12:39,964 --> 01:12:42,065
And again, like my wife and I have traveled a lot.

927
01:12:42,165 --> 01:12:51,364
Like we went to India early in the year, kind of learned about the trading routes and like the Jains who managed routes and that.

928
01:12:51,504 --> 01:12:54,444
And realized, you know, this is nothing new.

929
01:12:54,444 --> 01:13:05,305
And sometimes just say centralization is a bit of an anomaly and kind of look at what happened in the early 20th century with centralized bureaucracies, right?

930
01:13:05,864 --> 01:13:05,884
Yes.

931
01:13:06,145 --> 01:13:06,384
You know.

932
01:13:06,824 --> 01:13:10,565
Well, I think that is – I mean you're drawing an arc, which I think is really interesting.

933
01:13:10,765 --> 01:13:18,364
And I believe perhaps ultimately the takeaway here is easy for folks, you know, myself included, to look at centralization and say bad.

934
01:13:18,364 --> 01:13:35,444
But I think what you've reminded us of is that a certain degree of it is necessary, if nothing else, than to land on standards and protocols and handshakes and means of agreeing to do things in ways that are productive and constructive within a society.

935
01:13:36,444 --> 01:13:43,305
However, centralizing forces tend to – ever greater centralization emerges from them.

936
01:13:43,305 --> 01:14:06,904
And now what we have with Bitcoin, with Nostra, with Cashew, with these protocols is the ability to get back to basics, to get back to facilitating communication, exchange of value, voluntary interactions, but to take these centralizing parties out of the loop, out of the process.

937
01:14:07,404 --> 01:14:08,645
Is that – do you think a fair –

938
01:14:08,645 --> 01:14:12,424
Yeah, it's always trade-offs.

939
01:14:12,424 --> 01:14:21,145
like um trade-offs all the way down yeah like dns i'm perfectly happy with uh uh uh dns some

940
01:14:21,145 --> 01:14:28,904
might argue as a as a um as a centralized namespace but hey i have another project

941
01:14:28,904 --> 01:14:36,145
where i actually figured out how to expose like any npub looking like an ordinary dns name

942
01:14:36,145 --> 01:14:41,964
and like pulling records and it works i've tested it and it works with the existing

943
01:14:41,964 --> 01:14:51,084
infrastructure. So it's like namespace, names. Okay. I figured out how to work it in with the

944
01:14:51,084 --> 01:15:01,864
existing protocol. And, you know, so now it's like, I don't have any motivation to set up like

945
01:15:01,864 --> 01:15:07,165
an Ethereum namespace or anything like that. I just know how to bolt it in and play by the rules

946
01:15:07,165 --> 01:15:13,484
with the data works perfectly fine and i don't need anything more it's some some of the cypher

947
01:15:13,484 --> 01:15:18,844
punks might take objection to that but you know for global adoption like i've created a system

948
01:15:18,844 --> 01:15:24,645
where i can publish an npub with the kind zero events and then i'm watching it get resolved

949
01:15:24,645 --> 01:15:31,185
across the world and turkey and russia when that like two seconds later it's like okay it works like

950
01:15:31,185 --> 01:15:38,484
next. Absolutely. And I think that, you know, that's the message that I want to really leave

951
01:15:38,484 --> 01:15:46,685
people with for those who may be looking across to the UK or to other places where things are

952
01:15:46,685 --> 01:15:53,565
getting quite totalitarian. I think what I hear and certainly, you know, believe to be true is that

953
01:15:53,565 --> 01:15:59,265
the path is clear, if not simple. There will be a tremendous amount of work. There is a tremendous

954
01:15:59,265 --> 01:16:09,765
amount of work ahead. But this option, this freedom tech driven, permissionless option and

955
01:16:09,765 --> 01:16:20,024
path is very, very real and very possible. Let's wrap up here. What's required at the institutional

956
01:16:20,024 --> 01:16:26,084
level, given your perspective within government and the individual level? What's the message

957
01:16:26,084 --> 01:16:29,844
to those two audiences you would want to leave us with?

958
01:16:30,645 --> 01:16:33,864
Well, think hard about what I call reinstitutionalization.

959
01:16:34,964 --> 01:16:37,824
Some of the institutions that you've grown up with

960
01:16:37,824 --> 01:16:40,944
and take for granted may no longer be irrelevant.

961
01:16:42,265 --> 01:16:44,645
And so it's not a good or bad thing.

962
01:16:44,805 --> 01:16:48,544
It's just the fact is, is that now we have some new

963
01:16:48,544 --> 01:16:52,524
organizing, ordering forces at play

964
01:16:52,524 --> 01:17:00,864
and we just have to figure out how to incorporate that into the society that we are part of.

965
01:17:00,864 --> 01:17:07,685
And I think people do forget that government is not society and society is not government.

966
01:17:07,924 --> 01:17:13,165
Like government exists for the day to do things and it's not the be all and end all.

967
01:17:13,305 --> 01:17:17,964
There's societies that exist without government, societies that exist with government,

968
01:17:17,964 --> 01:17:23,524
societies that exist at the kind of at the behest of government in that.

969
01:17:24,124 --> 01:17:31,084
So I just say is that we just have to figure this out.

970
01:17:31,084 --> 01:17:37,084
And also, like when you're doing innovation, I think this is a trap that Europe's falling

971
01:17:37,084 --> 01:17:42,344
into is that they've kind of gone on this track of, you know, innovation through regulation.

972
01:17:43,044 --> 01:17:44,725
And so they're trying to figure everything beforehand.

973
01:17:44,725 --> 01:18:13,084
As soon as you regulate something, that means you're enforcing a status quo. You're enforcing like an existing line of thought. And there might be something, some little gem that comes along that realizes, well, we don't need this, like need this anymore. And that's kind of what I'm doing. And, you know, the being part of the sovereign engineering cohort, like one of the ideas is build the future, like build something new and then kind of figure out, figure out what the policy implications are.

974
01:18:13,084 --> 01:18:24,305
And I made it pretty clear that, you know, I'm going to these like in-person events and meeting with the new crop of cypherpunks and kind of I'm seeing the future.

975
01:18:24,725 --> 01:18:29,444
And then I'm trying to figure out how to dial some of that back into the present.

976
01:18:29,665 --> 01:18:34,044
And it's not like, yeah, this or that or screw the state or that.

977
01:18:34,384 --> 01:18:37,084
Yeah. Packaging, palatability. Right. I mean.

978
01:18:37,084 --> 01:18:52,605
Yeah. Yeah. So like my main message is that, you know, we have to re-institutionalize and there may be some capabilities like the Internet that exist despite the state and don't make them automatically illegal.

979
01:18:52,605 --> 01:18:59,784
And I think that's what the Europeans are doing is that if you don't follow their thousand-page regulations, you immediately get fined.

980
01:19:00,004 --> 01:19:01,884
And it's killing innovation.

981
01:19:02,745 --> 01:19:11,784
And I'm seeing a lot of innovative spirit that's out there that is kind of just being like under the radar screen.

982
01:19:12,044 --> 01:19:17,145
And really what I want to do is cultivate like a safe space.

983
01:19:17,145 --> 01:19:21,565
Like I've been in meetings with some government official to say, I'm an engineer.

984
01:19:21,685 --> 01:19:22,344
I'm not a bad guy.

985
01:19:22,605 --> 01:19:38,924
Okay. So I'm literally trying to figure out, you know, the gunpowder is not bad. It just blows things up more efficiently. You know, it's like how you weaponize it. That's a policy question. It's not a technology question.

986
01:19:38,924 --> 01:19:41,765
And then there might be something comes along.

987
01:19:41,864 --> 01:19:48,265
It's like these self-generated keys, the ability to be addresses and encryption and that.

988
01:19:49,305 --> 01:19:52,504
And, you know, I'm showing you, you can do payments that just can't be traced.

989
01:19:52,725 --> 01:19:53,745
What are you going to do about that?

990
01:19:54,424 --> 01:20:02,784
You know, you know, just, and I've had responses saying, well, you're supporting the terrorists or you're, you know, it's like, come on.

991
01:20:03,065 --> 01:20:05,924
Such a lazy, such a lazy perspective and mindset.

992
01:20:06,444 --> 01:20:06,765
Yeah.

993
01:20:06,765 --> 01:20:08,784
I love the gunpowder analogy.

994
01:20:09,105 --> 01:20:11,185
I think that's really powerful.

995
01:20:11,565 --> 01:20:14,065
And then, Tim, as we wrap it up for the individual.

996
01:20:14,065 --> 01:20:19,205
So as I will often say, I aspire to reach those in the bubble.

997
01:20:19,524 --> 01:20:22,904
You know, they may be looking at what is broken.

998
01:20:23,205 --> 01:20:26,305
They may be thinking about what and who they cannot trust.

999
01:20:26,305 --> 01:20:38,065
What would you encourage or inspire an individual like that to do with regard to learning and sort of technical literacy and hands-on?

1000
01:20:38,165 --> 01:20:44,904
What are a couple of things that they can do to get started better understanding what you've laid out today?

1001
01:20:46,864 --> 01:20:51,524
I guess I've got some website stuff, but it's not really consumable yet.

1002
01:20:51,524 --> 01:21:03,565
But I think even 101, I mean, what do you think is important for someone to begin to feel a little more comfortable with these concepts and technologies?

1003
01:21:04,225 --> 01:21:06,744
Yeah, I'd say, first of all, like, draw deep within yourself.

1004
01:21:06,964 --> 01:21:08,484
Really understand that you are an individual.

1005
01:21:08,744 --> 01:21:10,284
You have subjective experience.

1006
01:21:11,124 --> 01:21:16,645
And how you interact online is being intermediated by all these platform players.

1007
01:21:16,645 --> 01:21:22,424
So keep your eye out for this idea of protocols that preserve your agency.

1008
01:21:23,705 --> 01:21:29,284
And like read up, there's a two-minute explainer that Jack Dorsey does on Nostra.

1009
01:21:29,404 --> 01:21:33,924
It's really great to watch that.

1010
01:21:34,845 --> 01:21:36,705
We can dig up that link and put that in there.

1011
01:21:36,705 --> 01:21:37,145
I will do that.

1012
01:21:37,265 --> 01:21:37,484
Absolutely.

1013
01:21:37,624 --> 01:21:39,324
It's a great example.

1014
01:21:40,305 --> 01:21:44,225
Understand like the innovation of Bitcoin.

1015
01:21:44,225 --> 01:21:45,705
It's not just money.

1016
01:21:45,705 --> 01:21:47,924
It's about inverting the security model.

1017
01:21:48,244 --> 01:21:50,565
It's enabling you to generate your own keys.

1018
01:21:50,685 --> 01:22:00,284
And maybe just play around with that stuff and really understand that you don't have to be at the whim of Twitter or Facebook or Google or whatever.

1019
01:22:01,345 --> 01:22:05,384
And just be mindful of that.

1020
01:22:05,584 --> 01:22:11,284
Like the other thing too is like LLMs, I think it's going to be a time where you'll be able to have your own local model.

1021
01:22:11,284 --> 01:22:20,584
So you can query that stuff by yourself without all your data being siphoned off to train something else.

1022
01:22:21,404 --> 01:22:28,004
Just be mindful of sort of keeping your own agency.

1023
01:22:28,444 --> 01:22:31,725
There's another handle on Nostra that I like following.

1024
01:22:32,744 --> 01:22:38,565
He's called Ghost, and he has stuff about just maintaining your agency.

1025
01:22:38,565 --> 01:22:44,284
like, and it's always good to read that stuff to say, oh, I don't think I can do that stuff.

1026
01:22:44,484 --> 01:22:53,744
But at least I'm aware of how I'm being tracked and deal with my phone and that.

1027
01:22:54,024 --> 01:22:54,284
And just.

1028
01:22:55,324 --> 01:22:58,464
I think it's got a very practical, pragmatic take on those things.

1029
01:22:58,464 --> 01:23:02,464
Yeah, just read them and try to practice some of that stuff or be aware.

1030
01:23:02,464 --> 01:23:14,924
And then, yeah, like my goal with my project, I want to have something what I call pilot ready by mid-2026.

1031
01:23:15,305 --> 01:23:23,565
I'm really looking to do something like in the health space, like a doctor accepting a payment and issuing a doctor's note or prescription.

1032
01:23:24,105 --> 01:23:25,124
And not sending a fax.

1033
01:23:25,685 --> 01:23:26,605
Not sending a fax.

1034
01:23:27,225 --> 01:23:29,145
That would be revolutionary.

1035
01:23:29,964 --> 01:23:30,165
Yeah.

1036
01:23:30,165 --> 01:23:31,464
Go ahead, please.

1037
01:23:31,464 --> 01:23:44,805
Yeah, and I say, like, think about what your existence would be without a phone. What alternative devices would you might want to have? And I'm starting to see stuff about personal digital assistants again, like PDAs.

1038
01:23:44,805 --> 01:23:45,805
Wow, the 90s are back.

1039
01:23:45,805 --> 01:23:56,145
the 90s are back and just start just start thinking just being more mindful of your existence like

1040
01:23:56,145 --> 01:24:02,784
you know i'm trying to do like a like a blackout time that after a certain time that's it yes i'm

1041
01:24:02,784 --> 01:24:08,744
not online anymore or i try i try not to you know i i turn off all the notifications on my phone my

1042
01:24:08,744 --> 01:24:13,765
wife doesn't like that because she called actually i put it on just for her and she called me um just

1043
01:24:13,765 --> 01:24:24,524
like turn all that crap off sorry mrs boma yeah yeah and um uh just kind of do mindful

1044
01:24:24,524 --> 01:24:33,444
be aware yeah i mean man mindfulness that that that can be awareness mindfulness attention uh

1045
01:24:33,444 --> 01:24:37,964
we could all use so much more of that but i think these are these are excellent recommendations tim

1046
01:24:37,964 --> 01:24:44,484
exciting work rooting for you. Can't wait to see what comes of it. I know you've got an announcement

1047
01:24:44,484 --> 01:24:50,145
coming up, which I will not tease, but I just did. Rather, I will not spoil and I will look forward

1048
01:24:50,145 --> 01:24:56,185
to it. So thanks again, Tim. I'll check in with you soon and hope to do a follow-up to see how

1049
01:24:56,185 --> 01:24:58,284
progress is moving along.

1050
01:24:58,284 --> 01:24:58,924
Superb.

1051
01:24:59,504 --> 01:25:01,305
Thank you. Have a great day, Tim. Bye-bye.

1052
01:25:01,645 --> 01:25:01,765
Bye.

1053
01:25:07,964 --> 01:25:19,544
Thank you.