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ELEMENT 31

Sealed job

A sealed job is a unit of computing work that arrives at a Genie encrypted, runs without Genie or the household being able to read it, and leaves encrypted. The customer can verify what ran.

IN SHORT

A sealed job is a unit of batch computing work sent to a Genie through E31 Cloud that arrives encrypted, runs without Genie or the household being able to read its contents, and returns its results encrypted. The customer who ordered the work can verify exactly what ran. The seal protects the customer's work and the household's home at the same time.

A sealed job is a unit of batch computing work sent to a Genie through E31 Cloud that arrives encrypted, runs without Genie or the household being able to read it, and leaves encrypted. The customer who ordered the work can verify exactly what ran.

Why it matters

A business will only put real work on machines in strangers' homes if the work cannot be read or altered on the way. A household will only host such a machine if the work cannot see the home. The sealed job satisfies both at once. The business gets work that stays private and verifiable. The household gets a machine that runs things it cannot look into and that cannot look back.

Without the seal, Genie would be an experiment. With it, Genie's surplus becomes something a paying customer can buy, which is the only condition under which the household is paid.

How it works here

Jobs are the behind-the-scenes batch work that does not mind waiting for the sun. A job arrives over the home's ordinary internet connection through a connection Genie opened itself, since Genie makes only outbound connections and never accepts incoming ones. Genie runs the job while the home has solar surplus, pauses it when the surplus goes, and returns the results encrypted to E31 Cloud, which delivers them to the customer.

At no stage can Genie or the household read the job. The app shows the household the shape of the work, as work performed and work sold, never its substance. The customer, for its part, can verify that what it sent is what ran. Genie reports its own energy use and health, and nothing else, so nothing about the home travels alongside the results.

Genie is in development. The full account is in Jobs that arrive sealed and leave sealed, and the privacy rule it rests on is on the principles page.

  • Solar surplus: the power a sealed job runs on.
  • Quiet day: a day with few jobs sold, whatever the reason.
  • Private by design: the rule that keeps the home out of the job and the job out of the home.

Questions this raises

Can the household see what a sealed job computed?
No. The household sees the shape of the work in the app, as work performed and work sold, never its substance. There is nothing on the appliance for the household to read.
Can a sealed job see the home it runs in?
No. Genie makes only outbound connections and does not watch the home network. The job runs inside the appliance with no view of the house.
What happens to a sealed job when the sun goes in?
It pauses. Sealed jobs are batch work chosen because it does not mind waiting for the sun. When surplus returns, the job resumes.

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