Miracam

The Problem: A World of Fake Images

In today's digital landscape, images are losing their authenticity. AI-generated renders and heavily edited photos are everywhere, and they’re becoming so realistic that they challenge our trust in visual media. Historically, photographs were considered absolute representations of reality, often used as evidence. But now, we’re constantly second-guessing the authenticity of the images we see.

Current Anti-Fake Solutions:

Anti-deepfake technologies aim to identify fake images. While effective, these solutions are often complex, requiring significant computational power and technical expertise to detect manipulated media. These barriers make it less accessible to the general public.

---

The Solution: Proof of Reality

Miracam flips the narrative by proving an image is real rather than proving it is fake. Through hardware-enabled cryptography, Miracam generates cryptographic proofs that can only be created on a real device. These proofs, alongside the captured image, are uploaded to the blockchain, ensuring they are immutable, verifiable, and tied to ownership.

---

The Challenges of Building a Camera On-Chain

While the concept of on-chain cameras is promising, several hurdles need to be overcome:

1. Privacy Concerns

   Blockchains are public by nature. Without safeguards, publishing images on-chain compromises user privacy.

2. Cost and Speed

   Writing data to the blockchain incurs gas fees, which can be expensive and slow.

3. User Experience Barriers

   Requiring users to set up wallets or understand blockchain-specific concepts like gas fees hinders adoption and complicates the experience.

4. Hardware Requirements

   Devices need cryptographic capabilities, like Secure Enclaves, to generate secure proofs that cannot be tampered with.

To make an on-chain camera practical, it must be privacy-preserving, fast, cost-effective, intuitive to use, and digitally authentic—and this is exactly what Miracam delivers:

Miracam is a camera app that make every image real by storing them on-chain, verifiable and authentic via proofs. Most importantly, user did not require any knowledge of wallet, or even gas to use Miracam. L2 enabled transactions to be super cost-efficient, and taking a on-chain shot now cost at least 10x less than a polaroid film.

Miracam makes image real again.

Miracam seamlessly integrates hardware-enabled cryptography with blockchain technology to establish the authenticity of images. Here’s how it works step-by-step:

---

1. Assigning On-Chain Identity

Each Miracam device is assigned a unique Ethereum address. To secure this identity:

• The device leverages Apple’s Secure Enclave to generate a P256R1 key pair. The private key is stored securely within the device and cannot be extracted.
• Miracam establishes a trusted link between the device’s Ethereum address and its cryptographic key pair through an attestation process, which verifies the device’s identity.
• The attestation receipt is published on the blockchain, ensuring anyone can verify the device’s authenticity.
• We generate a wallet-specific content key for encrypting and decrypting images and managed via Lit Protocol.
• We assign the ENS subname with the user chosen username. The subname is stored in L2 base sepolia, where registry contracts are deployed using Durin.
• This step is completed in less than 30 seconds. Which means in less than 30 seconds, the user gets an Ethereum wallet.

---

2. Capturing and Authenticating Images

When a user takes a photo, Miracam ensures its authenticity by embedding cryptographic proofs:

• The captured image is digitally signed using two cryptographic keys:
  • The device’s P256R1 private key.
  • The Ethereum key tied to the device’s on-chain identity.
• These signatures prove that the image was captured on a verified, physical device.
• User pays usage with an ERC20 token, which is Permit2 enabled, making transfers completely gasless and invisible.

---

3. Minting the Image as an NFT

Once authenticated, the image and its metadata are minted as a non-fungible token (NFT) on the blockchain. This step provides:

• Ownership: The NFT represents the user's ownership of the photo.
• Immutability: The photo and its proofs are stored securely, ensuring they cannot be altered or tampered with.
• The image is currently stored in Arweave via Irys. This guarantee the content is immutable and is going to be stored virtually forever at least 200 years.

---

4. Adding Context Through Metadata

To proof of authenticity even further, Miracam collects sensor data at the time of capture. This metadata includes:

• Geolocation (latitude and longitude)
• Environmental conditions (ambient sound levels)
• Battery status
• Compass direction

These contextual data further supports the claim that the image is real and unaltered.

---

5. Privacy-Preserving Encryption

In private mode, Miracam encrypts images to maintain user privacy:

• Encryption keys are managed using the Lit Protocol, enabling wallet-based access control.
• Users can decrypt their images by connecting their wallet. Additionally, they can assign permissions to other wallets via Sign Protocol, granting decryption rights securely.
• Wallet connections are facilitated through Privy, which also supports social login for a seamless user experience.

---

6. Verification Through the Miracam Explorer

To make verification accessible, Miracam provides an explorer where anyone can view and verify images:

• Data Streaming: Using The Graph’s Substream, image and metadata records are streamed in real-time.
• Real-Time Updates: Push Protocol ensures that new images and updates appear instantly in the explorer.

This transparent system allows users, researchers, or third parties to confirm the authenticity of any image captured with Miracam. User can share the link to their image to any interested parties concerning authenticity.

---

Why It Works

By combining cryptographic signatures, secure hardware, blockchain immutability, and privacy-preserving encryption, Miracam provides a robust, user-friendly solution to authenticate images in a world of increasing visual manipulation.