TEE - Trusted Execution Environment, part i
Lisa Loud explains:
"A Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) is a dedicated, secure area within a processor that guarantees the protection of sensitive data. In the blockchain world, where security and privacy are non-negotiable, this technology is a game-changer.
"Secret uses TEE technology to provide decentralized computations without adding unnecessary load to the blockchain network. The nodes themselves are equipped with TEEs, which allows encrypted storage and complex encrypted calculation that is technically on-chain, but which does not put a heavy load on the chain itself. It’s a sort of shortcut, using a hardware walled garden instead of pure math to keep things encrypted.
"I was trying to think of an analogy that would convey how this works and here’s what I came up with: it’s as though in the middle of a battle, all the commanding officers of one side are able to jump into another dimension where they can privately discuss their strategy with no risk of anyone intercepting, overhearing, or recording their conversation. Like a multi-party remote Vulcan mind meld, where all the TEE processors are talking to each other but no one in the real world can hear them.
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"That’s how the TEEs in Secret’s blockchain nodes talk to each other. It’s brilliant, really, combining the technology of secure enclaves with the technology of decentralized ledgers to come up with a very elegant solution to the problem of privacy on-chain.
"There’s a lot of talk about TEEs recently. At Secret Network we’ve been talking about TEEs for a few years now, and we’ve had to argue about how useful they are in solving critical problems in blockchains. Suddenly, everyone agrees with us, and it’s nice to see this concept finally sinking in and becoming widely understood."
Come back next week to find out more ... TEE education
