Hello world!

Hi Everyone!!
I wanted to properly introduce myself. My name is Marta Piekarska, I’m the Security Architect at Blockstream. I thought, that since I am getting involved in all of the Blockchain work, and I would love to help more with organizing the community group it would be good for me to give you some background information. So here is my standard spiel:

I am a Bachelor of Electrical and Computer Engineering from Warsaw University of Technology and a double Master from Computer Science and Informatics at Technical University of Berlin and Warsaw University of Technology. I did my undergrad Thesis on Voice Encryption on Android Platform and my grad work on GPU-aided Payload Delivery on Linux Kernel. I am currently finishing my PhD dissertation on User-Informed Design of Privacy Tools, while working for one of the hottest Silicon Valley startups, Blockstream, as their Security Architect. Previously, I have been working at Deutsche Telekom as the Lead Architect on the Future of Mobile Privacy, a collaboration with Mozilla and Deutsche Telekom improving Firefox OS. Of course, I also teach and work at the Unitiverity (Technical University of Berlin). My technical interests are covered by what I do - user-informed privacy and security, applications of Bitcoin technology beyond cryptocurrency, and lock picking. Outside of work I climbing, read latin-american novels and watch Emir Kusturica’s movies. I also cook. A lot:)

I was thinking what would be a good plan for our group and here is what I came up with:

After providing the Report and presenting it to the Board of the W3C, in August, we should plan to organize a meeting during the TPAC in Lisbon. It will take place on Tuesday 20th of September at 10:30–12:30, or thats the slot currently allocated in the agenda.
It makes sense for us to continue to work closely together with the Blockchain Digital Assets Community Group, and participate in the Interledger Payments Community Group meeting at TPAC on Thursday, 23rd of September. Moreover we should collaborate with the Verifiable Claims Working Group that is in the process of being currently formed.

I think  that Blockchain is a technology that will be appearing in many domains and the two biggest tasks I see for our team is to:
1) monitor the work of other groups (Web Payment, Internet of Things etc) to make sure we are aware of what is happening in their field.
2) propose use cases beyond what is happening in the other working groups and make sure we can identify the applications of Blockchain that do and do not make sense. It was clear from the various discussions during the workshop that there is a consensus among the participants that not every application of Blockchain technology makes sense. But we have not yet reached a point where we could identify a common set of the “unreasonable” applications.

Until TPAC meeting I would work with everyone to prepare agenda for the meeting and see how can we best use the time we have together in Lisbon.

Next, after September meeting we could continue with regular calls, and plan to convert into a Blockchain Working Group that can have more formalized character and bigger impact. With that we could also continue to plan our second workshop on the West Coast, this time, where we would be working on more technical aspects and specifications that can contribute to W3C standardization.

Finally, by the end of the year I would hope we will have a Blockchain Working Group and our first RFC.

How does that sound to everyone?

I would be happy to answer any questions and discuss more. Below you have all of my contact details, feel free to hit me up about anything!

Have a great day
m


—
Security Architect @ Blockstream

mp@blockstream.com

+491703311307 (Germany)
+14159608938 (U.S.)
Signal, Wickr (martap)