Semiotic Labs December 2022 Update

:woman_astronaut: Exec summary

Below are the November highlights and December plans for Semiotic Labs. In November, we studied the market impact of our automated query pricing tool, worked toward finalizing the cryptography solution for Scalar payment channel updates, and worked toward finalizing a SNARK paper.

:tada: Looking back (what was delivered)

  • Automated query pricing
    • We began a deeper investigation and measurement of AutoAgora’s (GitHub) impact in production. We want to understand how efficient the tool is and if/how it can be improved.
  • Verifiable payments
    • Cryptography: Designed a protocol for Scalar using H2S2 (our algorithm based on this paper), but a weakness was found by the end of the Core Dev winter retreat. We are working on updates to patch the vulnerability. Related, E&N is working with The Graph Foundation to establish a contract with a cryptographic assessment expert to help us identify and patch cryptographic vulnerabilities.
    • Implementation: Implemented NCS1 (signature primitive used by H2S2) and started work on H2S2 Rust implementation. Implemented H2S2 Verifier smart contract.
  • Novel SNARK algorithm (with E&N)
    • Our Roadrunner SNARK paper was reviewed by a well-known cryptographer. That paper will be released as a preprint version soon.

:rocket: Looking ahead (upcoming priorities)

  • Automated query pricing
    • Continue investigation of AutoAgora’s impact in production.
    • AutoAgora dynamic pricing paper draft posted to arXiv. link
    • Work with GraphOps to include AutoAgora into Indexer Launchpad (GitHub)
  • Verifiable payments
    • Cryptography: Continue to explore cryptographic changes to H2S2 or mitigations that could be available by changing the Scalar system architecture.
    • Implementation: Start code review with E&N to prepare H2S2 “verifier” smart contract for audit. Continue work on Rust implementation.
  • Novel SNARK algorithm (with E&N)
    • Incorporate reviewer’s recommendations into the paper.
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