Development Update - December 30th, 2014
The Gems development team has been super busy in the last month - working around the clock for the Android App launch and preparing for wrap-up of the token sale on January 5th.
The pre-sale process has been an incredible learning experience for us. The project gained a lot of media attention and the amount of feedback we've received is amazing. The amount of backing we've received is also incredible - and Gems is on its way to becoming even bigger than we had originally anticipated.
It became clear early on, that in order to live up to our reputation, the most important aspect for Gems during the first few months post launch is to show traction and growth. It also became evident that our original plan had 2 main limitations - the first is the distant milestone date for an Android version and the second is the lack of critical mass of Gems users on launch (our new users would not have anyone to message with).
TELEGRAM INTEGRATIONWe thought long and hard about how to tackle the bootstrap issue and as we've announced, the solution we've chosen was to integrate with Telegram. Telegram has over 35M users and many potential Gems user already have contacts on Telegram already. We wanted Gems users to be able to chat with Telegram users right after installing our app.
REPRIORITIZING ANDROID over IOS RELEASEIn order to integrate with Telegram, we had to redevelop some part of Gems based on the official Telegram code. Unfortunately, the iOS Telegram open source code has not been kept up-to-date in the public repository. We’ve communicated with Telegram team and, gladly, were told iOS update will be made available shortly (
http://bit.ly/1wz6oee, Markus Ra Head of Support, Media and Miscellaneous @Telegram).
In light of the iOS dependency on Telegram update (as it doesn’t quite make sense to release a non-Telegram compatible version at this moment), the team shifted focus to Android development in past couple of weeks. We’ll continue working on iOS version as soon as Telegram iOS code updated.
ANDROID FIRST RELEASE AVAILABLE TODAY -
www.getgems.org/dlWe are happy to announce that we've completed this ambitious task and our first proof-of-concept Android version is ready on Google Play Store!
There’re are a couple of features worth mentioning:
First of all, thanks to Telegram integration, we’re now able to support group messaging and photo/video messages, both frequently requested features.
In addition, Our wallet in the Android version now supports both GEMZ and Bitcoin - meaning every Gems user can also view their Bitcoin/GEMZ balance with the tap of a finger. Users can also send both GEMZ and Bitcoin to one another in contact list, without typing a wallet address.
We've also made several improvements to our passphrase model according to feedback we've received. Up until now, before performing a privileged action like sending Gems, a user would have had to retype their entire passphrase for security reasons, which wasn’t terribly user friendly. To overcome this, we've introduced a PIN code that is much shorter and easier to remember.
Our security policy dictates that a passphrase can never leave the device. This means the passphrase is always encrypted and stored locally in the device's storage, with a pair of keys - the first is generated locally according to the PIN, and the other is provided by the Gems server. Without both keys, the passphrase in local store cannot be decrypted. Whenever the passphrase is needed, the user is asked to type their PIN - this provides the first half of the key.
The Gems app then authenticates the current user with the Gems crypto server, and if authentication is successful, the server replies with the other half of the decryption key (in an encrypted tunnel). Hence, the server would never have access to the passphrase. In addition, if the device is stolen, the thief cannot decrypt the key because they will not know the PIN. Once the user moves their Gems account to a new device, the stolen device is immediately deauthorized, and the server no longer responds to it, making brute forcing the PIN impossible.
Community feedback regarding this beta version is critical - so we can fix any issues and release a stable production version as soon as possible. You are welcome to report any bugs to:
[email protected].
