Blockchain Meets Object-Capabilities
Details
Hosted by Blockchain at Berkeley R&D and Economic Space Agency (http://economicspace.agency/)
Please RSVP here if you intend on coming.
Format: Fireside Chat with Q&A
At ECSA's first Blockchain Meets OCap event (https://www.meetup.com/EconomyOS/events/241234327/), their panel of experts dove deep into exploring the feasibility of applying the object-capability paradigm to the blockchain world of verifiable computation to enable new models of decentralization topologies. In this event, Jorge Lopez and Duke Jones will lead a continuation of the exploration of:
Object-Capability (OCap)
Of the two main approaches to securing computer systems, the one most familiar is Access Control Lists (ACL), where the access permissions are defined on the object in question (e.g. a file) and in terms of defined agents (e.g. user accounts). The object-capability model turns this on its head and represents the capability to access a resource as a bearer token, which itself can be copied and transmitted. Decades after ACL-based security was enshrined into Minix and then into Unix and Linux, adherents of OCap still maintain it provides the only secure basis for reasoning about multi-agent systems.
Blockchain
Blockchain as a data structure and network protocol provides the ability to synthesize a single logical state across a very large network. The ability to encode an unalterable history, mutual verification which disallows broken or bad actors from writing to the central ledger, and the self-operationalization of having no central authority or point of failure, have allowed us to do something previously unheard of: create a self-sovereign digital currency exchange and enable smart contracts which we can know with certainty will execute according to the defined code and inputs.
Is it possible to leverage the advantages of both paradigms?
Current blockchain systems synthesize a single VM with a single global state among all agents on the network. Is it possible to abstract and apply this virtual machine synthesis to a network of any number of agents running any defined network protocol? Can the object-capability model allow interoperation between disparate contracts, functions, and virtual machines, with a programming interface that feels like standard imperative programming?
Additional resources:
Blockchain Meets Object-Capabilities