Biweekly update on @humanode vol. 3
23rd July - 6th August

Strategic partnership with Republic Crypto, Substrate CLI to run and test local testnet, An overview of crypto-biometrics, A comparison of liveness detection solutions, The use of biometrics for DeFi discussed, and more!


Hello, crypto fans and tech enthusiasts! The last two weeks have been extremely intense and exciting for the Humanode teams, and we can’t wait to share some of the most significant news with you!
First and foremost, Humanode has announced a strategic partnership with Republic. Republic Crypto will act as a strategic and technical advisor for Humanode in several fields ranging from technology, use cases, partnerships, to marketing and fundraising. Through rigorous technical advisory, ecosystem business development, and cross-promotional marketing, the Republic Crypto team carries a full arsenal of expertise that Humanode is thrilled to engage in preparation for the milestones ahead.
Currently, the Humanode teams are operating extremely hard on the major tasks. As part of the development update, they’ve shared what they’ve been working on over the past two weeks. As for the network development, they’ve added simple cli to run and test local testnet, switched to a different URL scheme for the web app, made FaceTec integration corrections, and used aura keys in bioauth flow. As for the Humanode consensus protocol, they’ve fixed messages in circular visualization and refactored circular visualization. Considering crypto-biometric search and matching and liveness algorithms, the bio-auth team has fixed bugs and integrated face align module for liveness detection, and added the data generation noscript for it, as well as added the dataloader and training code for single frame FAS.
The eighth Fireside talk took place in Humanode telegram voice chat on July 28th, 2021. The discussion was fully devoted to biometrics for DeFi. Listen to the recording on the Humanode Podcast, and join the team on Wednesday for the next conversation!
Humanode's latest blog post discusses crypto biometrics. In a nutshell, crypto-biometrics is based on a combination of various technologies and exists at the intersection of the disciplines of mathematics, information security, cybersecurity, Sybil resistance, biometrics, liveness detection, zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP), homomorphic encryption, and blockchain. Humanode is developing the world's first decentralized biometric identification layer that will not only be used on the Humanode platform but which can be utilized in a variety of services, platforms, and applications. Read more about Humanode’s approach in their blog.
Furthermore, the team published an overview of liveness detection providers. For those who aren’t familiar, biometric liveness refers to the use of computer vision technology to detect the actual presence of a living user, rather than a representation such as a photograph or a mask, video or screen, a fake silicon fingerprint, or other spoof artifacts. Check out a detailed list of liveness detection providers and a quick overview of their technologies to learn more.
That’s a wrap! See you in two weeks with new impressive milestones reached!

#Humanode https://medium.com/paradigm-fund/humanode-strategic-partnership-with-republic-crypto-substrate-cli-to-run-and-test-local-fc670f80090

Quiz time!

Test your knowledge, see how much do you know about Humanode's crypto-biometric technology

🔺https://4screens.net/e/60fe7ad2e9270a010004871b

First article published on Hackernoon (trending on several categories!): https://hackernoon.com/crypto-biometrics-helps-create-decentralized-pseudonymous-identities

🔥 HUMANODE FIRESIDE: BLOCKCHAIN ARCHITECTURE

Dear Friends and Human nodes,

We look forward to seeing you tomorrow in our telegram voice chat! We’ll be talking about blockchain architecture.

As usual, there will be a live talk between the team members first, and then a conversation with the community.

When? 

Wednesday, August 11th, 2021, 16:00 UTC

Where? 

Humanode telegram group: https://news.1rj.ru/str/humanodes

P.S. For those who missed the previous discussion on biometrics for DeFi, the recording is up on our Podcast and YouTube channel.

How Facetec biometric technology serving 100+ million of users will help Humanode revolutionize ownership of blockchain infrastructure bringing Proof-of-Human-Existence validation layer to crypto industry

https://findbiometrics.com/trailblazing-blockchain-project-looks-facetec-key-proof-existence-tech-081001/

Meet the people behind Humanode! We are a diverse bunch of engineers, developers, and researchers building towards a decentralized future where one human = one node.

This interview features 👤 Rafael, Humanode's cryptographer: https://blog.humanode.io/an-interview-with-rafael/

Human nodes,

Fireside is starting in an hour! ⏰
We’ll be talking about blockchain architecture.

See you all in our Telegram voice chat at 16:00 UTC
http://t.me/humanodes

Humanode selects FaceTec biometrics and liveness to secure decentralized platform

The integration and development partnership with FaceTec will provide an anchor for the chain of trust behind the digital identity. FaceTec’s 3D FaceMaps will be used to create decentralized pseudonymous identities with reliable defense against Sybil manipulation, and enable remote identity verification.

https://www.biometricupdate.com/202108/humanode-selects-facetec-biometrics-and-liveness-to-secure-decentralized-platform

Episode #15 of Humanode Podcast is released!

The recording of the Fireside talk which took place in Humanode telegram voice chat on August 11th, 2021.- https://anchor.fm/humanode/episodes/15---Humanode-Fireside-Blockchain-Architecture-e15qapk

We discussed about
🔺 decision behind the shift from original architecture
🔺 keeping user identity safe in a decentralized system
🔺 benefits of Substrate, with a modular approach

Biometric-based NFTs

What makes NFT technology so attractive for content creators and collectors? Are there any drawbacks or pitfalls that need to be looked at and addressed? May biometrics grant an original solution to some main NFT technology demerits? And what is Humanode's approach here?
Find out in our new blog post!


#biometrics #nfts https://blog.humanode.io/biometric-based-nfts/

Humanode is governed by Vortex, a decentralised organization which uses the voting power of equal human nodes to decide on crucial parameters. The execution body of Humanode DAO is called 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.
https://blog.humanode.io/formation/

Interested to learn about 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝘆𝗯𝗶𝗹 𝗔𝘁𝘁𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗶𝗻?

Vote for our entry as Humanode enters the $WRITE RACE 💨 on @viamirror

Appreciate the support ✒️

https://mirror.xyz/race?candidate=humanode_io

Humanode Dev Report

We'd like to share some bullet points with our community in this report to shine some light on the exciting advancements that our development team has been working on!

HUMANODE NETWORK

🔺 Switched bioauth enroll toggle from environment variable to a CLI flag

🔺 Wired bio-authentication parameters through the CLI options rather than environment variables

🔺 Prepared run command for extending with extra parameters

🔺Added an indirection layer for obtaining the Substrate CLI configuration

🔺 Reworked the configuration to allow custom parameters

🔺 Added support for --dev mode and allow reading chain spec from files

🔺 Used camel case for robonode on-the-wire JSON format

🔺 Refactored HTTP handlers to use combinators and improve readability

🔺 Refactored the CLI modules structure

🔺 Added some basic CI timeouts

🔺 Fixed the logic integration tests u/facetec

🔺 Updated Substrate and dependencies

🔺 Corrected bioauth pallet name usage

🔺 Decoupled bioauth consensus from Aura and bioauth pallet

🔺 Started internal infrastructure testing



CRYPTO-BIOMETRIC SEARCH AND MATCHING AND LIVENESS ALGORITHMS



🔺 Speeded up the evaluation process and add a threshold - accuracy noscript

🔺 Fixed a bug in the model loading part and add the debug code in the evaluation noscript

🔺 Updated the evaluation and dataset preparation noscript for liveness detection

🔺 Added the evaluation noscript and modify the dataset preparation noscript for liveness detection

🔺 Updated Sagemath

🔺 Experimented on Zero Knowledge Proof for Convolutional Neural Network

🔺 Implemented of homomorphic encryption scheme based on ring learning with error problem

🔺 Implemented of lattice RLWE encryption scheme for Python

Biweekly update on @humanode vol.4
6th August — 20th August

Integration with FaceTec, Internal infrastructure testing, An overview of Formation grant-based development program, An interview with Senior Cryptographer, An intro to biometric-based NFTs, Blockchain architecture discussed, and more!

TL;DR
Hello to the amazing Humanode community! As usual, we are here to share a recap of the latest news and events from the network. These weeks were quite fruitful for teams, so let’s point out some of the key updates.
First and foremost, Humanode has reached a deal to integrate FaceTec’s face biometrics and liveness detection into its ‘crypto-biometrics’ platform. The integration and development partnership with FaceTec will provide an anchor for the chain of trust behind the digital identity. FaceTec’s 3D FaceMaps will be used to create decentralized pseudonymous identities with reliable defense against Sybil manipulation, and enable remote identity verification. Previously, the team announced a strategic partnership with startup support and finance firm Republic Crypto.
The work is going steadily on the development side. As part of the latest update, teams shared what they’ve been working on over the past two weeks. As for the network development, they’ve switched bioauth enroll toggle from environment variable to a CLI flag, wired bio-authentication parameters through the CLI options rather than environment variables, prepared run command for extending with extra parameters, added an indirection layer for obtaining the Substrate CLI configuration, reworked the configuration to allow custom parameters, added support for — dev mode and allow reading chain spec from files, used camel case for robonode on-the-wire JSON format, refactored HTTP handlers to use combinators and the CLI modules structure, updated Substrate and dependencies, corrected bioauth pallet name usage, decoupled bioauth consensus from Aura and bioauth pallet, and started internal infrastructure testing.
Considering crypto-biometric search and matching and liveness algorithms, they’ve speeded up the evaluation process and added a threshold — accuracy noscript, fixed a bug in the model loading part and add the debug code in the evaluation noscript, updated the evaluation and dataset preparation noscript for liveness detection, added the evaluation noscript and modify the dataset preparation noscript for liveness detection, updated Sagemath, experimented on zero-knowledge proof for Convolutional Neural Network, implemented homomorphic encryption scheme based on ring learning with error problem as well as lattice RLWE encryption scheme for Python.
The ninth Fireside talk took place in Humanode telegram voice chat on August 11th, 2021. The discussion was fully devoted to blockchain architecture. Listen to the recording on the Humanode Podcast, and join the team on Wednesday for the next conversation!
Furthermore, the team continues a series of interviews with Humanode researchers, engineers, and devs. The second interview featured Rafael, one of the senior cryptographers of the Humanode Bio-authentication team. Rafael discussed his background and role in the Humanode project and told us about what excites him the most about crypto-biometrics.

Humanode’s latest blog post discusses Formation. In a nutshell, Formation is a one-of-a-kind grant-funded development initiative. Grants, investments, service agreements, and jobs are all available. Its sole purpose is to support the Humanode network and its associated technologies. Successful projects can eventually deliver more value than they were given, producing a positive feedback cycle. Learn more in the blog post.
Human nodes, if you’ve ever wondered, what makes NFT technology so attractive for content creators and collectors, and if biometrics is able to grant an original solution to some main NFT technology demerits, the ‘Biometric-based NFTs’ article is here for you. Utilizing biometrics as one of its core technologies, Humanode creates the decentralized biometric identification layer that is not only used on the native Humanode platform but can be used in a variety of platforms and decentralized applications, including popular NFTs marketplaces and services. These biometric identifications ensure that the particular NFT is unique and authentic and eliminate the copyright problem. Read more about Humanode’s approach in their blog.
That’s a wrap! Check out the article below and keep yourself updated!

#Humanode https://twitter.com/Paradigm_fund/status/1428840337481637888?s=20

🔥 HUMANODE FIRESIDE: THE PLACE OF HUMANODE IN CRYPTO

Dear Friends and Human nodes,

We look forward to seeing you today in our telegram voice chat! We’ll be discussing the place of Humanode in crypto space.

As usual, there will be a live talk between the team members first, and then a conversation with the community.

When?
Wednesday, August 25th, 2021, 16:00 UTC

Where?
Humanode telegram group: https://news.1rj.ru/str/humanodes

P.S. For those who missed previous discussions, recordings are up on our Podcast and YouTube channel.

🔥 Humanode Fireside is starting in an hour!

We’ll be discussing the place of Humanode in crypto.

See you all in our Telegram voice chat at 16:00 UTC 👉
http://t.me/humanodes

New article: 𝗕𝗶𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰-𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲𝘀

A use case of how Humanode can be a win-win situation for both buyers and sellers, while solving a major headache for marketplaces trying to establish trust and accountability.

https://blog.humanode.io/biometric-based-marketplaces/

🎧 Check out the new podcast episode on Anchor (and on all major podcast platforms): https://anchor.fm/humanode/episodes/16---Humanode-Fireside-The-place-of-Humanode-in-Crypto-e16fsvo

Discover the place of Humanode in Crypto 🔺

Recording of the Fireside took place in Humanode telegram voice chat on August 25th

Humanode Network API will enable human-verified single sign-on (SSO) for Humanode powered dapps and protocols.

𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗱 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝗦𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 is a great use case. Projects like ARCx are building towards this reality!

https://blog.humanode.io/biometric-credit-scoring/