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About DEP Oracle
This document provides a brief description of oracle's role in the
DEP ecosystem and a conceptual introduction to why we use the SGX environment. There is also a brief description of oracle reward for active oracle participation in the DEP ecosystem.Oracle is a key component of
data validation in the DEP ecosystem.Oracle is a validator that validates data as it transmits from provider to consumer.
Since data encryption is required for data privacy,
Panacea, a public blockchain, cannot act as a validator. Instead, the oracle decrypts and validates the provider's data and provides the result in the form of a certificate. Then, data consumer and Panacea can check the certificate to determine the validity of the data.Oracle also works as a data deliverer. The oracle is responsible for delivering the verified data to the appropriate consumer. And, to prevent malicious consumers who just want to get the data without paying the incentive, the oracle is responsible for managing the data decryption key (
secret key). The consumer can get secret key through the oracle after the provider get incentive.In order for the oracle to work as a validator/deliverer, the data it decrypts inside the oracle must be inaccessible to anyone, including the oracle operator. Also, the private key it uses must also be inaccessible to anyone. To achieve this, it was necessary to make the oracle run in
Intel SGX environment that provides an enclave environment.Below is more information about the operation of oracle in the
SGX environment:Enclave is a trusted execution environment, which means that enclave memory cannot be read or written from outside. This ensures data privacy because even the oracle operator cannot get the original data while the oracle is decrypting and verifying data.In DEP, the oracle private key is important key that should not be leaked. The encrypted data that the provider sends to the oracle during the
data validation process, can be decrypted using oracle private key. Also, the signature that is included in the certificate is also generated based on the oracle private key. The secret key that allows the consumer to access the data is also created based on the oracle private key.As shown above, the
oracle private key is information that should not be revealed to anyone, including the oracle operator, because it is the key to ensuring data privacy and making DEP work. In the SGX environment, oracle can store the oracle private key in a completely private way using a feature called sealing. Sealed data can only be decrypted within the enclave, and even the oracle operator cannot obtain the decrypted data. Therefore, oracle stores the oracle private key in sealed form and only uses it within the enclave to prevent the risk of leakage.In the DEP ecosystem, anyone can run the oracle and participate in the ecosystem. Running a proper oracle prevents the oracle operator from obtaining the original data or the
oracle private key, but there may be users who want to use a modified oracle to steal sensitive data. Using the unique ID and remote report provided by SGX, the DEP ecosystem is designed to block these potentially malicious oracles.In order for an oracle to act normally, it must go through the
oracle registration process through Panacea, which checks the remote report and unique ID of the oracle. The unique ID allows us to verify that the oracle is an oracle running on the valid binary, and the remote report allows us to verify that it is an oracle running on the SGX environment. A modified oracle will not be able to pass this part and will not be able to participate in the DEP ecosystem.In the
DEP ecosystem, oracle is an essential element, and the performance of verification increases as the number of operated oracles increases. Therefore, the DEP ecosystem aims to be an ecosystem where many oracles participate. However, running an oracle requires considerable operating costs because it must be run in a special environment called SGX. Therefore, oracle incentive is needed to encourage active oracle participation in the DEP ecosystem.Currently, it is designed so that when a provider submits a
certificate from an oracle, the oracle information is put inside, and when the provider is rewarded, the oracle get rewards with a certain commission rate. This may be further developed in the future, see here for more details.Last modified 8mo ago