PRüF, ethics, and black SUV’s.

When we started with PRüF, we started with a vision. A vision of private and secure ownership. A vision of titles without government, of verifiable ownership, without being exposed to public scrutiny.

In PRüF’s initial iterations, we achieved this, at least in a technical sense. We developed Zero-Knowledge Public Records. Verifiable, immutable public records, while leaking zero knowledge to the public. Only the holder of the record can verify the record, yet it can be used to demonstrate ownership to any third party — but only with the cooperation of the record holder. PRüF records do not contain any sensitive or personal information, yet a record holder can use PRüF to validate the most personal and sensitive of transactions.

As we built out the PRüF protocol, it became increasingly apparent that a zero-knowledge — yet public — system of verification has many uses beyond that of asset provenance.

We realized that anything that is unique in its construction, or with a singular defining characteristic such as a serial number, can be identified and verified as unique and genuine on the blockchain. What had started as a useful tool to reduce theft and encourage honorable behavior in trade had suddenly expanded to include the power to reduce and in some cases eliminate the effective counterfeiting of physical items.

The sudden expansion of a useful personal app to a tool that can economically and conveniently be used by giant manufacturers to ensure that their customers actually receive the quality and prestige that they are paying for left us dazed and momentarily disoriented.

Were we still on the same crusade, of empowering the every-person, or were we becoming yet another instrument of corporate and state power projection? We were obviously excited about the prospect of hundreds of thousands of new PRüF assets flowing into the ecosystem on a daily basis, but also just a little worried that the soul of the project might be in danger.

There were many days of animated deliberation in front of our giant whiteboard — presentation screen. Who were we, and what did we stand for? Why were we working on PRüF? How did we feel about the way that PRüF would change what it means to own things, and what impacts — positive or negative — would that have on the world?

After hours of animated and passionate debate, spanning several days of coding breaks, the debate had distilled the mood. We were OK with buying Roy-Beans at the bodega, but felt that if you pay for Ray-Bans, you should get Ray-Bans.

The hours of discussion and counterpoint had not been wasted. Along the way, we managed to crystallize what PRüF was all about, and put bits on the screen to define our ethos:

Data Sovereignty — you should be in control of your data and how it is used. PRüF does not collect sensitive data from its users. Whenever personally-identifying information is required, it will be used for computations on the user’s own computer, and only the irreversible hashes made from that data will be stored on the blockchain.

Safety — PRüF systems are engineered so that they will not inadvertently or intentionally compromise the security, privacy, or agency of users. PRüF will protect the privacy of its users by collecting the minimum information required to provide the desired service, and clearly informing users of any actions that may put their privacy, security, or agency at risk.

Personal Agency — PRüF strives to increase the freedom of its users from the external application of coercive force, whether financial, physical, or social.

Sustainability — As a blockchain-based service, PRüF is designed to stand the test of time. The PRüF protocol is engineered to be flexible, upgradeable, modular, and persistent. PRüF will seek opportunities to incentivize activities that enhance the sustainable uses of PRüF, its applications, and the natural environment in which we all share.

Do No Harm — The developers of PRüF are committed to building a tool that has a positive impact on society. Many of the design decisions built into the PRüF protocol are designed to facilitate the positive uses of PRüF and discourage bad actors. The PrüF ethos is our commitment to ensuring that PRüF will not be used to deprive others of their rights, freedom, or property.

With our ethos defined, we were armed to keep coding without wondering what kind of beast we would create. We now have a bar with which to measure every feature, idea, or application that we consider.

We also realized, because of the extensibility of the PRüF protocol, that we will not always have control of the systems that PRüF will interact with. This means making an effort, at the protocol level, to make PRüF friendly to useful applications while discouraging harmful ones. It means guiding the project through its formative stages, then releasing it to distributed governance as it becomes mature. The PRüF foundation is envisioned to take on the role of community governance and promote the ethos moving forward from system maturity.

Ultimately, discussions of stakeholder governance led to the development of PIP-170–171 (our first PRüF Improvement Proposal is 170 — if you read the PRüF contract source code you might get the joke). PIP170 proposes a mechanism for community formation and governance of distributed ACnodes (dNodes), as well as a staking mechanism for sharing its earnings. PIP171 proposes that dNodes can distribute up to 100% of earnings to node founders and stakers, up from the 95% for regular nodes.

While PIP170–171 has not been fully implemented in code yet, the API’s have been implemented in the core contracts to make it work when it is ready.

We see the development of dNodes as being a sort of “pilot program” for the community governance that we will eventually deploy over the entire PRüF ecosystem.

(editors note: PIP170 was superseded by PIP173 which offers staking on all nodes and improved governance)

All of that said, I digress. What I hope that you, the reader, will take away from this is: while PRüF is in the process of becoming more oriented towards our larger users that will bring ongoing viability and economic stability to the platform, we haven’t forgotten where we started, and our commitment to privacy, data sovereignty, and user empowerment will not go by the wayside in our efforts to create a widely used and sustainable PRüF ecosystem.