Brave Browser

[Macaque Mentality]

Thread for Brave Browser, Basic Attention Token (BAT), and the tech being developed at Brave.

[Macaque Mentality]

The BOOMERANG protocol: A Decentralised Privacy-Preserving Verifiable Incentive Protocol

Link to the paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2401.01353.pdf

Abstract:

In the era of data-driven economies, incentive systems and loyalty programs, have become ubiquitous in various sectors, including advertising, retail, travel, and financial services. While these systems offer advantages for both users and companies, they necessitate the transfer and analysis of substantial amounts of sensitive data. Privacy concerns have become increasingly pertinent, necessitating the development of privacypreserving incentive protocols. Despite the rising demand for secure and decentralised systems, the existing landscape lacks a comprehensive solution.

In this work, we propose the BOOMERANG protocol, a novel decentralised privacy-preserving incentive protocol that leverages cryptographic black box accumulators to securely store user interactions within the incentive system. Moreover, the protocol employs zero-knowledge proofs based on BulletProofs to transparently compute rewards for users, ensuring verifiability while preserving their privacy. To further enhance public verifiability and transparency, we utilise a smart contract on a Layer 1 blockchain to verify these zero-knowledge proofs. The careful combination of black box accumulators with selected elliptic curves in the zero-knowledge proofs makes the BOOMERANG protocol highly efficient.

Our proof of concept implementation shows that we can handle up to 23.6 million users per day, on a single-threaded backend server with financial costs of approximately 2 US$. Using the Solana blockchain we can handle 15.5 million users per day with approximate costs of 0.00011 US$ per user. The versatility of the the BOOMERANG protocol is demonstrated through its applications in personalised privacy-preserving advertising, data collection, and health and fitness tracking. Overall, the BOOMERANG protocol represents a significant advancement in privacy-preserving incentive protocols, laying the groundwork for a more secure and privacy-centric future

[Macaque Mentality]

Boomerang: A new privacy-preserving protocol from Brave Research to decentralize Brave Rewards

https://brave.com/boomerang/

Brave Rewards
Brave Rewards allows users to earn Basic Attention Tokens (BAT) for privacy-preserving ads—called Brave Ads—they choose to see in the Brave browser. Users can control how many ads they see, and easily support their favorite content creators with on-demand and automatic contributions using their BAT. Users’ browsing data remains private and never leaves their device. Users can also use earned BAT to buy gift cards, exchange for other currencies, and more.

Privacy Pass
Brave Rewards currently uses a privacy-preserving protocol called “Privacy Pass” as a key component of its system, enabling users to earn rewards in a privacy-respecting way. For example, when users engage with Brave Ads or perform certain actions (such as viewing an ad or clicking on one), Privacy Pass generates cryptographic tokens (not to be confused with BATs) to validate these interactions without revealing specific details about the user’s identity or browsing habits.

These cryptographic tokens act as a form of proof that the user has completed the required actions, allowing them to earn Basic Attention Tokens (BAT) through Brave Rewards. By incorporating Privacy Pass, Brave Rewards ensures that users can participate in earning rewards without sacrificing their privacy, maintaining a balance between user anonymity and the verification of legitimate interactions.

Boomerang
Privacy Pass, while effective in preserving user privacy in systems like Brave Rewards, operates in a centralized manner, lacking the decentralized properties commonly sought in blockchain-based solutions.

Developed by the Brave Research team, the Boomerang protocol is a novel, decentralized, and privacy-preserving incentive protocol that leverages Black Box Accumulators and Zero-Knowledge Proofs to securely store user interactions. By utilizing this protocol, Brave can replace its current rewards system, based on Privacy Pass, with a more secure and decentralized alternative.

The Boomerang protocol simultaneously ensures privacy and verifiability by utilizing Zero-Knowledge Proofs based on Bulletproofs, and verifying the proofs in a smart contract on a Layer 1 blockchain. This approach allows users to prove their eligibility for rewards without revealing any sensitive information about the reward calculation (for example, about which specific advertisements the user interacted with), while still maintaining transparency and public verifiability. The protocol also employs Black Box Accumulators to securely store user interactions with Brave Ads, further enhancing privacy and security.

Boomerang leverages Bulletproof zero-knowledge proofs as its fundamental mechanism, ensuring privacy while enabling verifiable reward generation. These zero-knowledge proofs are verified on a Layer 1 blockchain, ensuring public verifiability and transparency in the reward generation process. Figure 1 below shows the interaction between an user, the issuer (Brave) and a L1 blockchain that verifies the rewards proofs that are generated by the user.


A graphic detailing local reward generation and public verification on a L1 blockchain smart contract.
Figure 1: Local reward generation and public verification on a L1 blockchain smart contract.

The Boomerang protocol presents a significant advancement in privacy-preserving incentive protocols, paving the way for a more secure and decentralized future for Brave Rewards. Stay tuned for further developments.

[Macaque Mentality]

Brave Search now features its AI-powered CodeLLM for programming-related queries

Formatting and links at https://brave.com/codellm/

Today, Brave Search added its newly built CodeLLM to its search engine. CodeLLM is aimed at queries that involve programming, and combines the depth and quality of search results with the summarization and explainability power of large language models (LLMs). CodeLLM offers programmers an option to get AI code snippets grounded in search results, with step-by-step explanations and citations of the sources for reference and validation. CodeLLM is free and is integrated in Brave Search so users do not have to switch apps or compromise on privacy.


Figure 1: Query “kill all processes listening to port 80”

CodeLLM is available to all Brave Search users, on desktop and mobile. To access it, head to privacy-preserving Brave Search and try it out with your favorite programming query:

If Brave Search is your default search engine, simply start a search in your browser’s address bar
If Brave Search isn’t your default, visit search.brave.com and start your search that way
CodeLLM automatically detects programming-related queries, so there’s no need to generate a special search. On top of the search results, if an answer is possible there will be a widget to trigger the CodeLLM response. The detection of programming queries happens outside of the LLM, by other search components (similar to the ones able to detect queries about the weather, queries that lend themselves well to be summarized, queries about stock prices, etc).

How we built CodeLLM
The underlying technology is built on top of Mixtral, a large language model that can use text prompts to generate code, and it is further equipped to answer questions by tapping into our unique capabilities as a search engine, in real-time. As the models get more accessible, and more affordable to run, the value-add is the context we’re able to provide to them. This highlights how vertical search engines can be easily replicated, and also emphasizes how important it is to be independent and to own the whole stack, like Brave Search.


Figure 2: query “install fzf mac”

We are excited to release CodeLLM in Brave Search, and are already considering a number of improvements and additions to its capabilities. CodeLLM results will also be offered via the Brave Search API in the near future. See something you like? Wish it could do more? Tell us! Simply click the Feedback button at the bottom of the CodeLLM window to share feedback.

About Brave Search
Brave Search is the only independent, global-scale search engine outside Big Tech. It’s the default search engine for many of the Brave browser’s over 60 million users, and is available on any browser at search.brave.com. Since its launch two years ago, Brave Search has grown to serve an average of 25 million queries per day.

Rather than adding layers on top of third party APIs and services, Brave Search is truly innovating in the search space. From Goggles (which allows community-driven alternative rankings) to AI summarizer (which offers AI-powered answers at the top of SERP, similar to the Leo experience in the browser), and more, Brave offers novel ways to search the Web and engage with its content. All this while maintaining Brave’s user-first promise: Brave Search does not track users, their queries, or their clicks.

The power of Brave Search is also now available to businesses. Brave Search Ads allow advertisers to reach Brave’s global audience in a way that still respects their privacy.

Its index, meanwhile, is powered not just by simple crawlers, but also by the Web Discovery Project (WDP). This mechanism allows users to anonymously contribute data about searches and page visits, thus ensuring the index is constantly refreshed with the content real humans are searching for and engaging with. The index comprises more than 20 billion quality pages, with 700 million pages indexed each day, 15% of which are new. This index is now available to power other search and AI applications, train models, and more with the Brave Search API.

[Macaque Mentality]

Announcing On-Chain Web3 Crypto Contributions for Brave Creators — BAT, SOL, ETH

Formatting and links at https://brave.com/on-chain-contributions/

Last updated Jan 16, 2024

Today we are excited to announce a new feature that allows Brave Creators to receive on-chain contributions for their content from their fans. Creators can now add Ethereum and Solana addresses to their registered websites and channels, allowing their fans to send them contributions directly on chain. On-chain contributions currently support BAT on Ethereum, BAT (Wormhole) on Solana, as well as ETH and SOL.

Brave Rewards users will now see the option to use their Web3 wallet when sending contributions to creators who’ve set up crypto addresses for their sites or channels.


The Web3 wallet button in the Brave Rewards contribution interface

The Web3 wallet button will open up a creator’s Web3 contribution page, where users can make contributions via any Web3 wallet—including Brave Wallet, other Web3 wallets, and even mobile wallets. Creators can also share a link to their Web3 contribution page with anyone, allowing them to receive contributions not only from Brave Rewards users, but from anyone on the Web.


A creator’s shareable on-chain contribution page

Contributions made through your Web3 wallet are completely on-chain and decentralized. That means they’re uncensorable, and any contribution you make goes directly from you to the creator, without any intermediaries.

Direct, on-chain contributions reinforce Brave’s mission to put users first, and to provide them with more control over how they use the Web and connect with their favorite creators. It’s also a step toward progressively decentralizing the Creators, Rewards, and Ads ecosystem—a long-standing objective at Brave. Try on-chain contributions for a completely self-custody experience to support your favorite creators. If you’re a creator, add your Web3 addresses to your sites and channels today. It’s easy and free.

Instructions for Brave Creators
Log in to your Brave Creators account at https://creators.brave.com. If you don’t already have one, you can quickly sign up.
Next to your registered channel of choice, select Add crypto address. If you haven’t registered any channels, add some channels first.
You’re ready to start receiving Web3 crypto contributions! You can also share the URLs to your Web3 contribution pages however you like.
If you need help or would just like to discuss this exciting new feature, join us on the Brave Community forums.

[Clayton]

@Macaque Mentality: you may find this interesting...

Link


Note that I can run Mixtral on my laptop (it is a pretty decent laptop, so some people will not be able to), so what Brave really needs to do is drop a fully-local integration of Brave with a local Mixtral/Llama server for users that have good enough hardware to support it. That won't be everybody but I think that the privacy of not sending data over the wire always exceeds the privacy of sending data over the wire to people who "promise" to never record it (even though they may actually have no power to live up to that promise, see for example what happened to Lavabit).

[Macaque Mentality]

@Macaque Mentality: you may find this interesting...

Link


Note that I can run Mixtral on my laptop (it is a pretty decent laptop, so some people will not be able to), so what Brave really needs to do is drop a fully-local integration of Brave with a local Mixtral/Llama server for users that have good enough hardware to support it. That won't be everybody but I think that the privacy of not sending data over the wire always exceeds the privacy of sending data over the wire to people who "promise" to never record it (even though they may actually have no power to live up to that promise, see for example what happened to Lavabit).

Thanks!

Man, it would be great if you or someone like you could be on the Brave team. I fear they are too bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for their own good, though I am confident they will end up with a not-insignificant part of the Web3.0 market share.

[Clayton]

Man, it would be great if you or someone like you could be on the Brave team. I fear they are too bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for their own good, though I am confident they will end up with a not-insignificant part of the Web3.0 market share.

Thanks for the kind words. Sadly, I'm too cynical to be part of that kind of project. I mean that sincerely... even if they have the purest of motives, I would end up dragging them down because I have so many other monsters I'm battling. But yes, I sense we need some kind of truly trustworthy guidance in the technological space because of the enormous impact that AI is having on people's lives.

I do have a project in the works, see here, I'm basically working on building a Bible-question answering bot. The initial revision will be just a proof-of-concept. It will take a user query, look up relevant texts from a vector DB (so-called RAG, Retrieval-Augmented Generation), paste them into the prompt along with the user query. So, if you ask it a question about Jacob and Esau, it will pull up the relevant texts, put them in the prompt, along with your question and return the LLM's reply. I have a bunch of plain-text assets such as chain-references, commentaries, Bible dictionaries, etc. that I'm planning to merge into this tool.

If you know of folks who would be interested in potentially hosting a project like this, let me know. I'm not good at web front-end design. I know it's "easy", but everything is "easy" if you know the steps... and difficult if you don't. Once I get the PoC working well enough, I may stand up a VPS instance with a super-ugly HTML front-end to allow people to perform queries and get replies.

PS: No, it will not be "theologically unbiased", but I'll include a list of assets which the bot is consulting so users will be aware of how it's generating its responses. Long-run, I'd like to get set up to fine-tune an open-source LLM and get a special-purpose chatbot + vector-DB backing it up for reference. This would greatly increase the quality of replies to where the bot would feel like it actually understands what it's saying to some extent, rather than just regurgitating snippets from reference material in its own words. On topics which are indifferent in respect to salvation, I will try to hit a "balanced tone" so that it can present "its" view, along with alternative views that are similar. I also have some ideas on how to give the bot "core beliefs" that it won't recant.

[Macaque Mentality]

Thanks for the kind words. Sadly, I'm too cynical to be part of that kind of project. I mean that sincerely... even if they have the purest of motives, I would end up dragging them down because I have so many other monsters I'm battling. But yes, I sense we need some kind of truly trustworthy guidance in the technological space because of the enormous impact that AI is having on people's lives.

I hear you. I can only comment on the marketing/business angle. To put it nicely, Brendan and his team seem like very smart engineers, but their business angle is very limited in scope. But I think someone like me might end up dragging them down because Brendan, the founder, is fundamentally not a marketer or businessman. The inherent conflict would be divisive to the company. He knows this, which is why he's put Brave on such a long-term (I would argue impractical) business model. He's running his company like a research institution and waiting until the "innovations" stack up enough to cross the chasm between early adopters and early majority.

I do have a project in the works, see here, I'm basically working on building a Bible-question answering bot. The initial revision will be just a proof-of-concept. It will take a user query, look up relevant texts from a vector DB (so-called RAG, Retrieval-Augmented Generation), paste them into the prompt along with the user query. So, if you ask it a question about Jacob and Esau, it will pull up the relevant texts, put them in the prompt, along with your question and return the LLM's reply. I have a bunch of plain-text assets such as chain-references, commentaries, Bible dictionaries, etc. that I'm planning to merge into this tool.

If you know of folks who would be interested in potentially hosting a project like this, let me know. I'm not good at web front-end design. I know it's "easy", but everything is "easy" if you know the steps... and difficult if you don't. Once I get the PoC working well enough, I may stand up a VPS instance with a super-ugly HTML front-end to allow people to perform queries and get replies.

Yeah, I've been paying attention to this project. I do know high-level front-end designers who are very good. I personally think that the best designers are cut from the same cloth as engineers. And I have to disagree a bit: front-end isn't "easy", not even supposedly "simple" web-only UI. I've been involved in a complete UX/UI software overhaul and it was a LOT of work. It wasn't nearly as fun as I thought it would be. Every pixel has a purpose.

FYI, the bottleneck is money. If I'm ever able, I would seriously consider supporting this project. But I'm on a rambling path of my own. God's definitely preparing me for something, whatever it is.

PS: No, it will not be "theologically unbiased", but I'll include a list of assets which the bot is consulting so users will be aware of how it's generating its responses. Long-run, I'd like to get set up to fine-tune an open-source LLM and get a special-purpose chatbot + vector-DB backing it up for reference. This would greatly increase the quality of replies to where the bot would feel like it actually understands what it's saying to some extent, rather than just regurgitating snippets from reference material in its own words. On topics which are indifferent in respect to salvation, I will try to hit a "balanced tone" so that it can present "its" view, along with alternative views that are similar. I also have some ideas on how to give the bot "core beliefs" that it won't recant.

Balance is not as important as honest disclosure

[Clayton]

FYI, the bottleneck is money. If I'm ever able, I would seriously consider supporting this project. But I'm on a rambling path of my own. God's definitely preparing me for something, whatever it is.

Well, I'm not putting out a hat yet. I can afford to run it as a lone VPS instance (you can rent for super-cheap, $5-10/mo. or so), the resources would only become relevant if people get interested in it. I'm sure a donation-model would work fine, I've never been one to worry too much about resources.

Balance is not as important as honest disclosure

Exactly! I don't mind talking to a biased person (or bot) but why cant you just tell me honestly what you stand for? That kind of behavior is inherently psychopathic, IMO, because it reflects an inherent intention to seize dominance by any means possible. Generals on the opposite side of a battlefield never disclose their intentions to one another. Brothers do. So are we brothers or enemies? Just my opinion...

[Macaque Mentality]

Well, I'm not putting out a hat yet. I can afford to run it as a lone VPS instance (you can rent for super-cheap, $5-10/mo. or so), the resources would only become relevant if people get interested in it. I'm sure a donation-model would work fine, I've never been one to worry too much about resources.

From my observations, donation models rarely work. The best model I've seen is "AndBible", which is a very polished SWORD Project-based development for Android. It's probably the best SWORD-based project I've seen and the best bible app I've used thus far. And even then, he went to a paid model. I don't care how simple a project is, it will need money to distribute and market effectively.

Exactly! I don't mind talking to a biased person (or bot) but why cant you just tell me honestly what you stand for? That kind of behavior is inherently psychopathic, IMO, because it reflects an inherent intention to seize dominance by any means possible. Generals on the opposite side of a battlefield never disclose their intentions to one another. Brothers do. So are we brothers or enemies? Just my opinion...

Exactly. We all have free will, but we also have logic and reasoning. Honesty is key. We might be on the same side, but our battles/battlefields might be completely different. As such, God will give us completely different types of gifts, training, etc. This doesn't mean that we need to fight each other. Honest communication enables us to better understand how our brethren fight, thereby giving us a clearer understanding of the greater spiritual war.

"Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."