The world has changed dramatically since our last quarterly update, but amid the turbulence and economic uncertainty, Remme continues to improve its mainnet, refine its certificate management tools, and secure valuable partnerships with leading CAs. As hectic and challenging as the first three months of 2020 have been, the growing demand for digital services validates the toil of recent years, the long hours spent strengthening our blockchain-based infrastructure. Let’s take a closer look at developments in our world for the year to date.
Auth
Decentralizing the human identity and access management process is something that excites us. That’s why we’re designing Auth, our very own dApp for the management of human digital IDs.This quarter, we’re excited to launch our marketing website for Auth solutions. Pitched at both businesses and private users, Auth gives digital security a much-needed upgrade.
For businesses, it means that blockchain-based identity solutions are finally ready for enterprise adoption. We’ve already developed a pilot project for a Fortune 500 German car manufacturer, and shared the details in our recent case study.
At present, we are in the process of onboarding forward-thinking companies to participate in our pilot projects and experience the benefits Auth brings to:
- Customer identity with passwordless login, pre-built self-sovereign ID that is securely stored on customer mobile device.
- Workforce identity and single sign-on solution with simplified access to corporate apps and facilities with verified business profiles. Neither passwords, no cards are needed.
- Federated identity with an easy way to grant access to identity profiles managed by independent partners.
- Blockchain identity with one-tap signup and login for dApps via a simple interface
For personal use, Auth solution means retaining full control of your identity wherever you browse on the web. We’re currently working on the beta version of the Auth app. In the first release the users will be able to:
- Control over personal data with a comprehensive view on where and when a user shares it and when it gets deleted
- Elevated security with the typing-free and passwordless sign-in process
- Flexible and user-friendly identity recovery options
This is just the beginning. We have a lot in store for the future, planning to add more amazing features like anonymized email addresses, verifiable credential exchange, multiple trusted devices management and others.
The wait list for Auth beta is open, so please get in touch to register your interest and become an early adopter.
PKI(d) Protocol
Our next-gen Public Key Infrastructure protocol, which secures online communication among browsers, apps and servers, has come a long way, moving to EOSIO last summer before the testnet launched in Q3 and the mainnet followed just before Christmas. Today the REMChain mainnet is active and going strong, with 41 Block Producers, 93 Guardians, 18 million blocks produced and 280M REM staked. Now’s a great time to get involved and learn how to become a REMChain participant.
Naturally, the quiet, critical development work continues at pace. Recent housekeeping has centered on merging Remnode with the recent versions of EOSIO codebase and reworking the swap plugin; boosting swap speed and fixing bugs with the plugin; fixing the block explorer’s account page; configuring the on-chain account creation fee to be dynamically capped at 0.5 USD in REM equivalent; and ironing out minor issues with the system contracts. Suffice to say, a succession of bugs, large and small, have been identified and fixed. But as any dev knows, the work never stops.
A few months back, we put together a lengthy blog detailing the ways in which blockchain technology addresses the shortcomings of traditional PKI. It gives a better indication as to what we’re striving to achieve with Protocol.
Keyhub
Just under a year ago, Keyhub 1.0 was launched. A cloud-based certificate lifecycle management tool, it quickly made an impression. So much so that we secured a partnership with leading Certificate Authority GlobalSign just eight months later, with the giant now leveraging Keyhub as a standalone whitelabel certificate discovery, inventory and management platform for its sizable customer base.
We have been busy improving the product’s features. For example, we have recently introduced a Certificate Revocation status bar in the Certificate Single View card; all new certificates will be checked automatically while existing ones can be checked manually. You can follow all product updates in our changelog.
As far as Keyhub is concerned, there are a few articles you might like to take a look at:
• The state of PKI management: Australia’s banking service providers
• How to choose the right certificate and CSR decoder tools
• How to find the right CT Log monitoring tool
In light of the continued disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we are now offering Keyhub free of charge to those entities fighting the outbreak. Healthcare providers, in particular, have witnessed a huge surge in digital traffic and we are keen to help them protect it. If you need help managing your digital certs at this trying time, apply to use Keyhub for free.
What’s Next?
With so much uncertainty swirling, it’s tough to predict where the world, including Remme, will be three months from now. What we can say with cast-iron confidence is that our team will continue improving our products, introducing new features, and onboarding new clients. In many respects, we are lucky that the nature of our work means we are largely immunized from the worst of the fallout. To that end, further work on the Auth app is underway and will be presented to users who apply for the waitlist. Wherever you are in the world, we thank you for your support and wish you good health. We will get through this.