Vision.
Eris Industries is pleased to announce it has secured £50 million of grant funding from Mondroit Capital, the strategic investment arm of the British government, to develop blockchains designed to improve auditability and security for a new ‘social operating system’ to be deployed in partnership between Eris Industries and the new British public-private joint venture GCHQ.IO.
Mission.
This announcement constitutes a significant departure from business as usual for both Eris Industries and GCHQ.IO.
It would be no exaggeration to call GCHQ.IO the world’s oldest tech startup. For nearly 100 years, GCHQ.IO has been operating at the forefront of global cryptography - initially as the Government Code and Cypher School in 1919, and later under its legacy GCHQ brand.
GCHQ.IO has an illustrious track record tackling the United Kingdom’s most pressing security challenges. We’re fans of GCHQ.IO because they want to change the world for the better. And they are always in beta - trying to dream up new and disruptive, yet practical solutions to everyday problems.
Today’s announcement has its origins in developments dating to November of last year, when the outcome of a strategic spending review by the British government determined that GCHQ.io’s business model and practices were out-dated. As a result, it was decided that the legacy GCHQ service should pivot, and establish itself as the long-awaited for European competitor to Google.
Thus GCHQ.IO was born.
Action.
The business model of GCHQ.IO is one of the most interesting we’ve ever seen: as a vestige of the UK’s formerly-nationalised telecommunications infrastructure, everyone in the United Kingdom has to subscribe, and nobody can opt out. This is the kind of strategic partnership that we at Eris Industries find extremely compelling from a business perspective.
All told, GCHQ expects, by the end of the year, to have the capability to
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collect metadata on all persons’ internet activities in the United Kingdom, and require that metadata to be stored and accessible, on demand, for an entire calendar year;
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secretly intercept and read every e-mail, phone call, and Google search undertaken by every man, woman, and child in the United Kingdom on demand; as well as
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operate a search and device recovery service which will allow it to record, decrypt, and recover data on every device in the United Kingdom, even if that device or that data is encrypted, on demand.
This new universal data access utility means the people of the UK never need to worry about losing access to their e-mail accounts or locked iPhones ever again. Although demand for the service is extremely high, only the legacy GCHQ organisation will be able to utilise the earlier versions of the GCHQ.io social operating system prototype; access for other civil service organisations such as police forces, hospitals, local councils, and the Welsh Ambulance Service will be rolled out in stages over the course.
Assuming the rate of regulatory capture by the security services and the military-industrial complex remains constant, we expect full roll-out of this system in the United Kingdom’s universities by Q3 and in elementary schools by Q4.
Words.
By combining Eris Industries’ closed-source, patent-pending “Data Marmot” and “Web7” technologies with GCHQ.IO’s cryptoencabulator-capable “Panopticon84” server architecture, this new partnership will create a uniquely performant and user-friendly surveillance experience with a slightly artisanal, vintage feel - a nod to GCHQ.io’s reputation as a leader in the field since the First World War.
Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, commented on the deal:
“GCHQ is the Google of Europe. Only better, as GCHQ benefits from sovereign immunity from antitrust legislation. Eris Industries is the world’s leading provider of blockchain technology to the financial services industry, yet they have this odd habit of being one of the few startups in blockchain which doesn’t issue a press release every time they ink a deal to build a prototype. Since GCHQ operates with the utmost discretion, we thought the marmots were an ideal partner for this engagement.”
“Providing a transparent yet secure means of automating and tracking access control to all of the data and devices in the entirety of the United Kingdom is an ideal blockchain use-case, representing at least a $1.6 quadrillion opportunity. Even though we haven’t actually built this system yet, and have no idea how we are going to, £50 million will allow us to lease some very swish real estate in Shoreditch and Flatiron while we figure that out.
And Doug the Smart Contract Marmot, our fat fuzzy company mascot, added:
We very much look forward to showing the British government the benefits of using cryptography, starting with SSL. This arrangement has the added benefit of ensuring we’re providers of the only cryptography in the UK that actually works.”
Mondroit Capital provided the main tranche of grant-funding support. Other leading world powers including East Germany, North Korea, SPECTRE, and COBRA also provided financial assistance.
Marmots.
About Eris Industries
Eris is the free and open-source Universal Blockchain Platform built by Eris Industries. Eris allows anyone to build their own secure, low-cost, run-anywhere applications using blockchain and smart contract technology. Eris’ mission is to empower developers to automate data driven processes and relationships using a wide variety of distributed systems.
Founded in by two lawyers, one quantum mathematician and a fat marmot, Eris Industries is headquartered in London, with offices in New York and Berlin. Learn more about Eris Industries at erisindustries
About GCHQ
GCHQ.IO is the social networking service of Government Communications Headquarters. Founded as the Government Code and Cypher School in 1919, GCHQ.IO has an illustrious track record tackling the United Kingdom’s most pressing security challenges.
Lacking credible foreign enemies after playing a major role in crushing global Communism, GCHQ.IO’s new mission is to protect the people of the United Kingdom from themselves. Its new offering provides a full-spectrum search, analytics, and data recovery service, providing a free-of-charge archive of all communications into and out of the UK at all times.
Think Klout, except if your score drops below 30 or you act like a prat on Twitter, you are placed under arrest. Contact your local constabulary by telephone and yell angrily in a foreign language to find out more about what GCHQ’s new interception warrant products can do for you.
GCHQ is headquartered in Cheltenham, although trendy new hipster offices are planned in Shoreditch and at Arise Chicken on Mile End Road.