#night $NIGHT Last week, the neighbor lady met me in the hallway and pulled me aside to tell me something. She installed a smart doorbell that can monitor the hallway, and it caught someone knocking on my door in the middle of the night. "I didn’t mean to look at your house; it’s the doorbell that recorded it by itself. Do you want to see who it was?" @MidnightNetwork
I said no need, but I understand your good intentions. The problem is, where is the video recorded by this doorbell stored? Who has permission to view it? How long have you kept it? If the property management wants to check the surveillance, will you provide it? The lady paused for a moment and said she didn’t expect so much.
I said there’s a project called Midnight that addresses the issue of “who can see the data.” Its core logic is “selective disclosure” — you can prove the fact that “someone visited my door,” but you don’t have to hand over the entire 24-hour video footage of the hallway. If the property needs to investigate, you only show them that five-minute clip; no one else gets to see the data from other times. @MidnightNetwork
The lady asked how to do that. I said using zero-knowledge proofs. Just like when you shop online, the platform needs to confirm “you have made the payment” but doesn’t need to know how much money you have left in your bank account. Similarly, the doorbell can generate a proof saying “someone knocked on the door at this time,” but the video itself remains on your own device, and no one can take it away.
After she heard that, she said: “Then this doorbell needs to be replaced.” I said once the technology is widely adopted, in the future when buying smart devices, who manages the data and who has permission to view it can all be agreed upon by code, without relying on everyone’s awareness.
I said no need, but I understand your good intentions. The problem is, where is the video recorded by this doorbell stored? Who has permission to view it? How long have you kept it? If the property management wants to check the surveillance, will you provide it? The lady paused for a moment and said she didn’t expect so much.
I said there’s a project called Midnight that addresses the issue of “who can see the data.” Its core logic is “selective disclosure” — you can prove the fact that “someone visited my door,” but you don’t have to hand over the entire 24-hour video footage of the hallway. If the property needs to investigate, you only show them that five-minute clip; no one else gets to see the data from other times. @MidnightNetwork
The lady asked how to do that. I said using zero-knowledge proofs. Just like when you shop online, the platform needs to confirm “you have made the payment” but doesn’t need to know how much money you have left in your bank account. Similarly, the doorbell can generate a proof saying “someone knocked on the door at this time,” but the video itself remains on your own device, and no one can take it away.
After she heard that, she said: “Then this doorbell needs to be replaced.” I said once the technology is widely adopted, in the future when buying smart devices, who manages the data and who has permission to view it can all be agreed upon by code, without relying on everyone’s awareness.