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Description
While at Devcon3 in Cancún, Mexico, we had the chance to follow up with Dr. Aron Fischer of the Colony and Swarm projects. He discusses the input from Status on the need for a lite client as well as some of the exciting new Ethereum projects he learned about while at Devcon3.
A
My
name
is
Aaron
Fisher
I
am
originally
a
mathematician
that,
as
I
was
in
math
and
academia
for
many
years
or
ending
up
with
a
PhD
in
algebraic,
topology
and
then
I
transitioned
into
working
with
a
theorem.
That
I
was
really
excited
about
and
I'm
now,
working
with
the
swarm
team
of
the
theorem
foundation
and
the
colony
project
as
well,
fundamentally
not
I
mean
nothing
has
changed
on
a
fundamental
level.
A
A
There's
a
lot
of
changes
that
went
into
that.
You
know
most
users,
don't
notice.
Just
how
sophisticated
it
was
and
how
amazing
was
that
we
managed
to
do
this
hard
fork
and
been
pulled
off.
It
worked
and
I'm
very
excited
about
what
new
possibilities
that
brings
yes
for
swarm.
So
there's
a
lot
been
happening
under
the
hood
for
swarm
the
public
side.
A
So
a
lot
of
that
has
been
going
on
in
the
background
and
then
it's
borne
a
lot
of
side
projects
like
there's
the
PSS
communications
protocol
and
well,
that's
just
to
name
one,
but
we
had
our
first
swarm
summit
the
summer
in
Berlin,
which
was
a
swarm
specific
conference
and
brought
a
lot
of
people
together
who
are
interested
in
this
topic,
and
that
was
that
was
a
really
great
experience
at
the
summit.
We
discussed
like
what
needs
to
change
and
swarm,
but
also
what
it
could
be
used
for
what
is
needed.
A
There's
input
also
forum
status
about
need
for
light
clients
which
we'd
sort
of
been
ignoring,
but
we
have
taken
hard.
We
really
need
light
clients,
but
we
have
to
define
what
does
that
even
mean
because
there's
light
on
storage
and
there's
light
on
bandwidth.
You
know
some
might,
if
you
have
don't
have
a
hard
drive,
but
a
good
internet
connection.
You
don't
mind
forwarding
packets
for
others,
but
if
you're
on
a
limited
data
plan,
you
don't
even
want
to
do
that,
and
then
we
had
to
figure
out.
A
How
does
that
kind
of
a
light
client
fit
into
our
routing
Network
so
that
all
data
is
still
findable?
And
so
that's
one
of
the
things
we
worked
out
at
the
summit
and
I
was
also
introduced
to
other
projects
that
I
didn't
really
know
about
like
live
peer.
Who
do
video
streaming
over
swarm,
and
that
was
really
cool.
I
was
blown
away
that
you
could
use
our
network
for
that.
A
A
lot
of
stuff
is
exciting,
and
sometimes
you
get
excited
by
things
we
didn't
expect
like
I
was
really
impressed
by
Peters
talk
on
papas,
which
all
it
is
is
a
way
to
easily
launch
your
own
test
net,
and
but
that's
really
important.
If
you
want
to
test
you
on
software,
but
what
he
actually
managed
to
do
on
stage
was
launched
his
own
test
net,
with
his
own
Genesis
block,
launch
a
faucet,
a
web
wallet,
a
block.
A
So
that
is
a
big
hurdle
to
adoption,
because
also
a
lot
of
people
are
gonna,
get
hurt
along
the
way
yeah.
So
that's
an
ease
of
use
thing
so
right
now
it's
hard
to
use,
but
it
has
to
be
hard
because
anything
that
makes
it
easy
often
also
tends
to
compromise
your
security
I
mean
it's
nice
to
see
things
like
hardware
wallets,
get
more
widespread,
because
they're
great
I
have
a
ledger
myself
and
it's
very
happy
with
it.
A
It's
a
cool
little
device,
but
when
you
want
to
run
an
app
which
uses
micro
payments
to
incentivize
various
actors
in
it,
you
can't
use
a
hardware
wallet
for
that.
The
app
needs
to
be
loaded
with
funds
and
need
to
be
able
to
spend
those,
and
you
don't
want
to
have
to
type
long
pass
phrases
with
every
interaction.
A
Sure,
but
in
the
same
way
that
the
web
was
hard
to
use
in
the
90s
and
they
used
to
say
it's
only
for
hackers
and
drug
dealers.
So
it's
what
they're
saying
now
about
blockchains,
and
you
know
they
were
right
then,
but
you
know
you
need
to
be
very
technically
minded
and
you
need
to
be
technically
minded
now.
A
One
of
the
things
I
like
is
Nick
Johnson's
project
of
the
ether
cards.
So
are
you
aware
of
that?
So
you
get
these
little
printed
plastic
cards
which
have
a
QR
code
and
you
can
load
the
cards
with
funds
and
if
you
want
to
spend
them,
you
scratch
off
the
secret
and
you
can
load
it.
People
now
in
the
stores
are
buy
gift
cards
for
Amazon
or
for
iTunes
I
mean
it
wouldn't
be
nice.
You
have
like
that
kind
of
a
card
system
you
have
to.
A
You
can
load
your
decentralized
chat,
app
with
no
reload
with,
like
you
know,
five
dollars
worth
of
ether
or
something
that's
a
nice
way
of
transporting
the
funds,
loading
them
into
the
app
and
not
incurring
a
huge
risk
of
sacrificing
your
entire
wallet.
So
maybe
that
might
be
an
easy
way.
You
know,
having
like
gift
card
to
style,
the
activation
of
apps
for
colony.
My
my
personal
side
of
colony
was
getting
the
white
paper
ready
together
with
Jack
and
Alex,
and
we
finally
released
our
white
paper.
A
This
fall
in
September,
so
very
proud
of
that
it
was
a
long
time
coming,
but
we
think
it's
it's
something
we
can
stand
behind.
It's
actually
a
real
white
paper
with
I
mean
we're
not
saying:
we've
solved
everything
and
what's
written,
there
is
how
it's
gonna
be
implemented.
There's
a
lot
of
guesswork
and
a
lot
of
stuff
that
we'll
need
to
adapt
based
on
feedback
from
users
or
just
by
observer,
observing
how
the
software
works,
but
yeah.
That
was
a
big
milestone.
A
That
I
was
closely
involved
with
I
was
only
involved
in
the
white
paper
side
of
things,
but
the
other
side
actually
building
the
app
and
making
something
usable.
A
lot
has
been
happening
and
our
team
has
grown
quite
considerably
over
the
last
year
and
we
have
a
beta
running.
It's
not
public,
which
is
why
we're
not
that
visible
and
we
didn't
do
a
bigger
ICO,
so
we
don't
not
may
be
on
everyone's
radar,
but
behind
the
scenes
it's
been
doing.
A
lot
of
there's
been
a
lot
of
progress
and
I
think
in
the
next
year.
A
A
Other
work,
of
course,
is
now
implementing
what
we've
written
about
in
the
white
paper,
so
the
current
beta
is
still
I,
don't
say,
centralized
because
the
word
is
overused,
but
it's
hierarchical.
You
know,
you've
got
administrators
and
you've
got
workers,
and
you
know
workers
submits
to
the
administrators
administrator,
even
their
accepts
or
doesn't,
and
there's
no
recourse.
So
it's
like
you,
know
your
boss
and
the
employee
so
just
to
get
that
task.
Management
in
interface
done
the
Bounty's,
the
automatic
accounting.
A
That
is
what
our
beta
is
already
doing
and
getting
to
the
point
where
we
have
a
decentralized
decision-making
mechanism
about
who
should
do
work
and
whether
their
work
was
good
enough
and
you
know
without
having
an
administrator
and
a
worker.
That's
the
hard
part
and
that's
sort
of
the
long.
That's
the
long
work
up
ahead
and
so
we're
slowly
starting
to
implement
bits
and
pieces
of
this
decentralized
version
of
colony.
A
We
are
competing
with
Web
Services
that
at
first
glance
appear
the
same
task
management
as
many
sites.
Many
software
projects
that
allow
coordination
amongst
teams
and
most
people
use
them.
They
don't
care
that
it's
on
a
server.
They
don't
care
about
centralization;
they
don't
even
know
why
it
will
be
better
to
use
it
theorem
where
it
is
more
expensive
and
slower
right.
So
we're
fighting
a
lot
about
the
lag
in
responsiveness
to
our
app.