There has been a lot of talk lately around what makes an environment secure. Should we discuss sensitive information in an air-gapped vault, complete with state of the art security measures? Or should we use a commercial app in a group text? All valid questions, but one thing is for sure: No matter what you are doing, you should make absolutely sure that you protect the information that you consider private and confidential.
This is not a topical conversation, but rather one we’ve been dealing with for most of history. It always seems to come down to security vs. convenience. On one side, you have the open air transmission of data that is incredibly convenient but very easy to steal. At the other end, you have a secure drive locked in a vault without a key, completely safe but impossible for anyone to access. Neither of these scenarios work. There has to be an ideal middle ground, a balance of security and convenience.
For more and more blockchain applications, this balance is a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE).
TEE Primer
So what is a TEE and how does it strike this balance? Very simply, a TEE is a processing environment designed to do two things well: Enable the secure execution of code (which has sensitive, private, or otherwise confidential information to be protected); and ensure it is isolated from the host’s key components such as the OS, kernel, and hypervisor. It can do this in a number of ways (see this analysis for more detail), but the important thing to take away is that a system can effectively operate in a public, transparent manner while still protecting sensitive and private information.
In many ways, a TEE is like a physical SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) used to protect military or government classified information. It is a physically isolated area (usually as small as possible, like a meeting room) that is protected from electronic surveillance, physical surveillance, and has a strong vetting process for people entering and exiting. No cell phones, no electronics, often no pen and paper.
What happens in these rooms stays in these rooms, except what can be carried in the heads of the vetted and monitored people allowed inside. This allows highly sensitive conversations (which is a form of computation) and decisions to be made. A TEE is like a computer’s version of a SCIF, ensuring that private information is highly secure and can be both processed and computed.
TEE And Blockchain: Quite the Team
So why is the Web3 world so excited about TEEs? After all, the concept of a TEE has been around since the 1990’s, and isn’t anything truly groundbreaking (just useful). Well, if we think about the pros and cons of blockchain, we can start to see why the pair of technologies work so well together. Blockchain’s unique value is that it can store information on a public ledger, owned by a decentralized community, immutable, and transparent.
This allows for incredible use cases never before possible. However, the very benefit of the public and transparent blockchain elements also severely limits what would be incredible use cases for blockchain. There are Web3 networks building out the infrastructure necessary to deploy TEEs for platforms in a cost effective way, with ecosystems such as the Flare Network specializing in data intensive—and sensitive—use cases.
Smart contracts have the ability to create a trustless environment for countless applications, essentially becoming the objective, trusted third party in a deal between strangers. However, if it can’t have a place to process certain sensitive information, this creates massive issues where key data should rightly remain private, and should stay secure.
Likewise, the ability for the many blockchains in operation to interact with one another is crucial for building up a healthy and massive Web3 ecosystem. As the past years have shown, cross-chain interoperability is excellent when it works well, but billions have been lost when it hasn’t. TEEs offer an excellent way for blockchains to work together, providing a secure environment where information can be shared and processed, protecting both privacy and security. While nothing is 100% secure, TEEs have a track record of providing an excellent balance of both convenience and security.
One additional interesting use case for TEEs are the rise in AI everywhere, including blockchain. Verifiable AI is a necessary component of implementing it across critical use cases, and decentralized AI is quickly showing just how powerful the combination of blockchain and AI will be. However, that verification and validation of the proper algorithm requires a secure environment, and TEEs have shown themselves capable of providing it.
Looking Ahead
All of these developments are evolving at a rapid pace. With Flare and other similar platforms rapidly innovating new use cases for TEEs, we can be assured that blockchain will continue to develop more and more ways to serve the global market. That optimum balance of privacy and transparency, publicly open yet secure, and decentralized yet protected, is exactly what Web3 has long sought to achieve.
As this balance helps to improve the ability for smart contracts to handle a more broad base of use cases, we will see TEEs become more and more commonplace. As the use of TEEs works to bind the full network of blockchains, we will see a rise in the value of the Web3 industry as a whole, connecting these many chains into a single ecosystem that traditional companies can seamlessly do business with. One thing is for sure: Although TEEs and their functionality will continue to improve and evolve, they are here to stay and will likely serve a critical purpose for blockchain as it follows its trajectory into mainstream adoption.
