Gaining back control of the internet

I recently came across an ambitious company that will completely redefine the way we are using the internet. Or rather, the way we are using its underlying infrastructure which ultimately is the internet. While looking at their offering, I also learned how to get anonymous cloud machines, you will also learn how to get anonymous cloud machines and how to avoid the hassle with MetaMask for users.

Sounds interesting? It is! This presentation by Lon Lundgren at San Francisco Blockchain Week explains the core idea of Ocelot and a cool new project they built on top of it. The project is called Burner Machine and allows you to get an anonymous cloud machine for three hours for just one USD.

After watching it, I reached out to them and ended up collaborating with the team. Working with them, I learned more about their vision, ideas and tech behind the project. It turned out to be even more fascinating than I imagined.

The reality of internet today

You can see that, whether you like it or not, more than half of the cloud market today is owned by just three companies: Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

This situation is not likely to change. And with the cloud market itself growing more and more, the internet itself will essentially be in the control of three companies.

Crypto to the rescue

But wait, don’t we have this amazing decentralized technology called “Blockchain”? An internet where there is no central control. A space of peace, privacy and fairness. Yes, we do, but what good is that if 33% of all websites are hosted on AWS anyways?

And even worse, the architecture of this great new decentralization is still just reliant on AWS, e.g., Infura which is using AWS currently. Or think into the future of ETH2.0 and the new VDF ASIC's. Now imagine Amazon having a bunch of ASIC's around and offering those as another VDF service on AWS.

So no rescue?

The reality is that these cloud providers are here to stay, but we can still use blockchain technology for the rescue!

Ocelot proposes to create an autonomous infrastructure substrate with Blockchain at its core as a way to provide people with cloud resources without the need for an account and without being locked in with a single centralized provider. As an example, they built Burner Machine, which allows you to get an anonymous cloud machine for three hours.

This all happens

• Fully client-side, without any server storing any of your data
• Fully end-to-end encrypted
• Transparently on the blockchain, with no need for MetaMask

Fully client-side

More power to you, the user. The original project described a static frontend with no conventional application server of its own. The service still relied on the Ocelot substrate and cloud infrastructure. In fact, the only time you communicate with a web server is to download the static frontend. Once you’ve opened burnermachine.com, you can request a new machine by interacting with the Burner Machine smart contract. This contract is monitored by the Ocelot substrate which launches and configures your anonymous cloud desktop. The substrate is itself hosted on the cloud and constantly self-replicates to new cloud machines, which was intended to improve availability. Self-replication does not by itself prove decentralization or make a service impossible to shut down.

Fully end-to-end encrypted

When you open the application, your browser generates an ephemeral key pair used for encrypted communication. All interactions with the Burner Machine smart contract are encrypted with Ocelot's public key. The response, which is sent through the blockchain and contains your virtual desktop connection information, is encrypted with your ephemeral key, as the original design’s intended confidentiality mechanism. The application’s key handling, delivered code and remote-machine operators still affect that claim.

And no MetaMask?

Another cool trick is that MetaMask is not even required when you pay in ETH. This is the first time I have seen this kind of payment flow. It is really cool and deserves some special attention. An address is presented on your screen and you can send ETH there by whatever means you want.

Scope of the original claims: A static frontend still depends on cloud operators, blockchain infrastructure and the delivery of that frontend. Encrypted request/response payloads do not hide all network or payment metadata, and replication alone does not establish that a service is impossible to shut down. These were design claims, not an independently verified anonymity guarantee.

But how is the data passed to the smart contract if you only send ETH?

Once again, the browser is there to help us. The address you sent ETH to is simply a wallet generated by the Burner Machine application in the browser. Once it detects ETH on the address, it automatically sends out a new transaction with all of the required data. No further user interaction is required. We might be seeing more services using this trick in the future. A convenient flow, whose security still depends on browser key generation, key handling and the integrity of the downloaded application.

The future

I know that Burner Machine is just the beginning for Ocelot. The underlying technology has a lot of potential. Ocelot has already integrated several big cloud providers and will continue expanding their offerings. Yes, the servers will still be owned by Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

This is a reality we cannot change, but we can use blockchain to give more control and power to the user. And ultimately, we will even be able to truly decentralize blockchain infrastructure by running a decentralized Infura service using Ethereum nodes hosted on Ocelot.