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title: Open Technology IFF Grant Request

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# Open Technology Funds Grant Requests

## 1. IFF-2026-01

https://apply.opentech.fund/internet-freedom-fund-concept-note/

# IFF-2026-01

## 1. Tell us about your project idea

### Project Title *

Hubert Dead-Drop Libraries

### Describe your project in 1-3 sentences.

Hubert supports asynchronous coordination through dead-drops on distributed storage systems (BitTorrent, IPFS), allowing both exchange of information and participation in protocols in a way that can't be censored or surveilled. This project takes our existing proof-of-concept to the next level by producing libraries & documentation for use by mobile developers.

### What problem will your project address? How does this project strengthen Internet freedom for human rights defenders, journalists, and/or activists operating in authoritarian and repressive environments?
 
Hubert allows for the exchange of information and the usage of protocols in the face of three major problems:

UNRELIABLE NETWORKING. Networking might not be reliable because of poor infrastructure or because or governmental control. Hubert resolves that because it's asynchronous: one user drops off a message, another user picks it up when they're able. The use of distributed storage systems  also ensures that no centralized infrastructure is needed.

INDIVIDUAL CENSORSHIP. Individual Hubert messages are designed to appear as noise within the distributed storage systems. That means that a centralized entity (such as a government) has no idea that communication is happening. Censorship can only occur if all means used to dead-drop (transport) Hubert messages are blocked. 

GENERAL SURVEILLANCE. Because individual messages are designed to appear as noise, there's also no possibility of surveillance. The messages themselves are encrypted, so there's no way to know which data in the storage system is actually a message (and therefore which data accesses are of interest as communication). IP addresses are not protected, but all they can show is general access to the storage system.

Ensuring communication when infrastructure has become unreliable, for example after a disaster or in a location with immature or unstable buildouts, is very powerful. We expect the ability to communicate in cases of poor infrastructure will serve some real human rights purposes by protecting those with the least digital access.

However, it's the protection against censorship and surveillance that we think provides the biggest human rights wins. We feel that this is exactly what's needed for journalists and activists who are working in states controlled by hostile governments. A journalist can dead-drop their stories. Activists can jointly make decisions using voting or signing protocols and then plan meetings, issue warnings, or organize demonstrations.

We think the ability to participate in protocols is what makes Hubert particularly powerful, going beyond the standard usage of posting in steganographic objects. We've already demonstrated the possibilities in one of the CLI-based proofs-of-concept we released for the technology in 2025. Our `frost-hubert-rust` proof-of-concept CLI demonstrated a protocol-focused usage for the system by automating Hubert to work with FROST ceremonies. It allowed members to both create digital signatures and sign, in a secure, non-surveillable way, even when separated in space and time.

There are many other possibilities for protocol-focused usage of Hubert. Digital credentials can be exchanged and multi-party digital ceremonies of all sorts can be conducted.

## 2. If this project is funded, what form will it take? 
  
            Technology Development
  
### Give a brief overview of the activities in this project.

The primary goal of this project is to turn our Hubert proof-of-concept, which we have previously demoed with a pair of CLIs (one for general usage, one for FROST ceremonies), into a complete reference implementation available to developers. Our focus is mobile development, since that's likely to have the most impact on the average person facing censorship and surveillance or poor insfrastructure. Beyond just creating a reference library implementation, we will demo it and promote it, to encourage its usage.

Overall, this should result in four major activities:

* Development of Hubert Swift library for iPhone usage.
* Development of Hubert Kotlin/Java/C++ library for Android usage.
* Documentation on using Hubert & developing with it.
* Release of 1 or more recorded demos / meetings. 

The secondary goal of the project is to provide more front-end uses for Hubert, which will allow its quick, integrated uses with other protocols. This will result in the following additional activities:

* Holding 1 or more community meetings to get feedback on protocol-based needs/uses for Hubert.
* Incorporating existing FROST ceremonies into iPhone/Android APIs.
* Incorporating some additional protocol-focused front-ends into iPhone/Android APIs.

### Are there similar projects that exist already? How is your project different or complementary to those projects?

The closest is probably Tor, which was another attempt to foil surveillance, and to some extent censorship. We believe that Hubert provides enough additional functionality that it's actually revolutionary.

The differences include:

* Hubert can work with a variety of backends. Though BitTorrent and IPFS form the foundation of Hubert's current support, additional options can be added & doing so can be transparent to the user. 
* Hubert can work with a variety of protocols. Tor theoretically can as well, but its fundamental usage is through the Tor Browser, which means HTTP. Hubert's libraries will instead allow a much more abstract level of communication to make it easy to integrate whichever front-end protocols are desired.

The variability of both frontend and backend is probably sufficient to make Hubert stand-out, but it also has additional advantages. These include the following (though we expect we'll be able to document more as we continue the project and especially as we learn how to best promote it):

* Asynchronicity. Users do not have to be online at the same time (or even have networks operating at the same time).
* Near Absolute Protection against Surveillance. Tor only protects within its nodes: users and services can still be surveilled. Hubert protects stronger protection, because all that can be detecting is the writing and access of randomized noise-like files.
* Support of a Larger Network. Hubert takes advantage of a larger, multipurpose network rather than putting all of its eggs in the privacy basket.

## 3. How long do you estimate this project will take? 
            
            6 months to 1 year
        
### How much funding do you estimate you will need? (In US Dollars) *

$229,000

## 4. Who are the users?

### Who would benefit from this project?

We are most immediately supporting developers. The goal is to provide them with the privacy toolkit they need to support users in repressive regimes. We want to empower them to focus on the core functionality of their specific protocols (and applications) while we take care of the privacy-focused layer that ensures that their users are properly protected from censorship and surveillance.

We plan to hold one or more meeting to work with application developers working in this space, to best understand their needs (and so the needs of their users). We have our own contacts from our work at Blockchain Commons, which has included previous work under grant from the Human Rights Foundation. We also have contacts from the Rebooting the Web of Trust workshops that we hosted, which supported decentralized identity work. We hope that the Open Technology Fund can make this even more successful by connecting us to other grantees who might be interested in using our technology.

But we already know that Hubert can provide direct support for people in a variety of circumstances. This includes:

* People engaging in collective decision making, when some are in repressive regimes (e.g., foundation board members).
* People authenticating with joint signatures, when some are in repressive regimes (e.g., fact checkers or digital asset dispensers).
* People in repressive regimes wanting to engage in collaborative work, possibly outside the regime (e.g., open source programmers).
* News reporters wanting to send stories home from repressive regimes.
* Organizers wanting to organize in a repressive regime.
* Citizen reporters wanting to spread news that a repressive regime is censoring.
* People in foreign countries wanting to send information home to family members in a repressive regime.

Fundamentally, we believe Hubert can increase digital democratization by allowing people in repressive regimes to participate in both information distribution and collaborative protocols such as signing and decision making.

## 5. Where are your intended users, or audiences located? 
        
            Global

## 6. About you and your team

### What is your name? *

Christopher Allen

### What email address should we use to contact you? *

christopherA@lifewithalacrity.com

### Why are you, and your team members, the right people to work on this project?

Christopher Allen, the leader of the Blockchain Commons team, has been focusing on fighting coercion and maintaining human rights in the digital world for decades. He is the co-author of the TLS standard, which is the foundation of almost all secure communications on the internet, as well as the co-author of the DID standard, which defines decentralized identitifers that are controlled by the users.

Besides leading Blockchain Commons and providing the architectural vision for these projects, Christopher is also the founder of Rebooting the Web of Trust, which built on his pioneering paper "The Path to Self-Sovereign Identity" and has facilitated the creation of over 60 white papers on digital identity (including those that led to the DID standard), most of which are focused on users controlling their own digital destiny. Christopher's expertise and considerable experience in this space (also working as Principal Architect at Blockstream, CTO at Certicom, and VP of Developer Relations at Blackphone) is a prime reason that we think our team is right for a project like this with the Open Technology Fund.

The vision of Blockchain Commons itself is that it "advocates for the creation of open, interoperable, secure & compassionate digital infrastructure to enable people to control their own digital destiny and to maintain their human dignity online." We think this closely allies with OTF's own goals of supporting internet freedom.

We have also proven our ability to successfully complete work through the development of a number of specifications that were all intended to support human rights and self-sovereignty on the internet. These include:

* Creation of Animated QRs/UR specification used by over a dozen wallets primarily for airgapped signature of PSBTs.
* Creation of Lifehash visual hash for identifying digital assets by sight.
* Development of security-reviewed SSKR libraries to allow safe usage of Shamir's Secret Sharing.
* Authorship of the Learning Bitcoin from the Command Line course, which has brought new developers into the field and is now available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
* Successful completion of two grants for the Human Rights Foundation focused on expanding the usage of FROST signing.

### Please upload any supporting documents to your application.

[include PDF of Hubert paper]

### If this project is for a community gathering, what is your proposed start date?

The main product of this project is expected to be the libraries and documentation. We do have at least two community meetings scheduled, one to talk about needs, and one to provide demo. We would expect the first to occur near the start of the project and the second to occur right at the end. 

## 7. I acknowledge:

## 8. I am at least 18 years of age*

## 9. My application will be dismissed if it does not fit within OTF's mission, values, principles statements.*

## 10. I have read and understand OTF's Terms and Privacy policy.*

## 11. I understand that all intellectual property created with support for this application must be openly licensed.*

## 12. If my project involves technology development, I agree to undergo a code security audit facilitated by OTF *
            
        
        
            
                See help guide for more information.
            
        
        
            

            
                
            Yes
        
            No
            
            
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## Our Model for Funding

* Engineering 3-5 months for one language, x1.25 for a second, so 3.75-6.25 months

6 mo * $200/hr = $208k

* Engineering 2 mo at my 40% time

2 mo * $150/hr * .4 = $20,800

TOTAL = $229k