Blockchain voting from Iranians Vote and Freedom Tool

Rarimo is a privacy-focused zero-knowledge (ZK) protocol that ushers in a new generation of social apps. In February, Rarimo launched Freedom Tool, an open-source software for citizen-run, anonymized elections and voting that solves the long-standing technical challenge of enabling digital identity verification while protecting citizens from tracking.

Rarimo launches new tool for Iranians’ choice and freedom

Since its launch, Freedom Tool has been deployed in Russia and Iran. These use cases have given freedom fighters around the world a tool to make their voices heard and are a very clear demonstration of how important privacy is to upholding human rights.

ADM: Will these votes be counted along with the official votes, and tell me about the blockchain vote?

Rarely: No. Although Freedom Tool can and will be used by governments, this particular app, Iranians Vote, is intended to provide an alternative to a corrupt system, not be an extension of it.

“Iranians Vote” provides a safe way for dissidents to express their opinions, is an invaluable tool for coordinating protesters, and expresses the true public opinion in Iran.

Voting will remain open for six months starting in June 2024 and the results will be published on the Gnosis blockchain, where they will be transparent and accessible to both the government and the public.

ADM: Can every Iranian citizen vote using the app? Even if they live outside Iran?

Rarely: Anyone with an Iranian passport can vote via the app, regardless of location.

As with all applications supported by Freedom Tool, Iranians Vote users prove their eligibility to vote by scanning their biometric passport with their phone. The data on the biometric chip in the passport is verified and with this confirmation of citizenship, uniqueness and age, an anonymous voting ID is issued.

These credentials are protected with zero-knowledge cryptography, which sever any connection between the voter ID and the passport data. The passport data itself never leaves the mobile device used to scan it. This means it never goes through a server and there are no points where it could be intercepted.

ADM: How can you filter the data to separate those with truly dissenting views from those who want to manipulate the results?

Rarely: Freedom Tool-powered applications like Iranians Vote not only protect their citizens from surveillance, but also leverage the immutability and transparency of blockchain to prevent electoral fraud.

To prevent governments from finding out whether or not a citizen has registered to vote and then penalizing them for using the app, Freedom Tool allows all passport holders to re-register and then removes duplicate votes from the final vote count. This approach achieves something previously impossible: preventing duplicate voting while maintaining untraceability.

ADM: How did you go about building trust and engaging citizens in the app?

Rarely: Especially when used in regimens, these applications are not designed to be one-hit wonders. The potential risks associated with their use require deep trust that must be built slowly.

Continued resilience against interference and surveillance increases trust in Iranians Vote and all other Freedom Tool apps. When citizens see that users cannot and will not be identified, they become even bolder.

However, verification has played a crucial role in building the foundation of trust. The verifications of Freedom Tool's components (listed on Halborn's website) cover the entire system – from applications running on mobile phones to the blockchain where the smart contract for voting is deployed. Iranians Vote is built on exactly this code base and all of its components are included in these verifications.

ADM: Where else has this technology been used?

Rarely: Freedom Tool was first launched in Russia in March. Mark Feygin, the exiled Russian opposition activist, launched Russia2024 and used it to hold an unmonitored referendum challenging Putin's inauguration. In the long term, Feygin hopes to use the app to help the opposition gauge public sentiment and develop strategies and campaigns accordingly.

In the coming weeks, an app based on an advanced version of Freedom Tool will be presented by elected representatives in an upcoming election in Eastern Europe. This app will go beyond anonymous polling and will also be used to launch civic engagement initiatives. If elected, the leading opposition party has also pledged to use the app to digitize some government services.

ADM: What is the importance of zero-knowledge technology?

Rarely: The magic of zero-knowledge cryptography is that it allows one entity to prove the truth of a given statement to another without revealing any additional information.

Under Freedom Tool, zero-knowledge technology allows people to prove their eligibility to vote by confirming their age, citizenship and identity without revealing their identity. This in turn means they can vote without fear of surveillance or tracking.

Zero-knowledge technology is a critical component of the data protection infrastructure and is at the heart of many of the world's most promising data protection solutions.

ADM: What is the ideal end goal of this technology?

Rarely: Iranians Vote and Russia2024 were early use cases that showed what Freedom Tool can do. We are seeing increasing interest not only from activists and dissidents, but also from progressive-thinking governments and officials around the world.

In the long term, it is hoped that Freedom Tool will be used to strengthen existing civic practices such as voter participation, but also to enable new kinds of democratic experiments and processes. Elections can go beyond regular elections, and there are endless opportunities for individuals to make their voices heard.

Freedom Tool is just one solution in Rarimo's toolbox. As a privacy-first social protocol, the broader vision is to continue building next-generation social apps that contribute to a freer, fairer world. Privacy is freedom, and life is digital.

ADM: How do Freedom Tools' underlying verification methods (passport scans) as an alternative to WorldCoin compare to WorldCoin (eye scans) in terms of potential vulnerabilities and fraud resistance?

Rarely: WorldCoin uses bullets to scan eyeballs, while Freedom Tool and other Rarimo apps use phones to allow users to scan their passports.

Rarimo's Passport ZKPs also allow users to anonymously prove more about themselves than just their humanity. Users can also prove their age, citizenship, and gender.

And finally, the same applies to Rarimo and passports: the user is the issuer of the identity!

ADM: What are social graphs and why do they need to be protected?

Rarely: Social graphs are the key component of our online profiles. They map relationships and interactions and reflect our social media connections, our browser search history, and more.

To truly put the power back in the hands of users, our social graphs need to be firstly private and secondly verifiable. This way we can store and protect our data privately, but also prove aspects of our identity or certain historical interactions whenever we need to.

One reason it's so important to keep the entire social network private is that without privacy, social capital is always sacrificed and therefore difficult to scale. For most of our most meaningful online interactions, we want to know at least something about the people we're interacting with. For example, if we see a tweet about X, we might want to know if the people we follow also follow and support it.

With private but verifiable identities, we can remain incognito while taking our history and reputation with us.

ADM: What other solutions has Rarimo developed to protect digital identities?

Rarely: In June, we launched the RariMe app, a self-governed identity wallet. The app uses the same passport scanning technology as Freedom Tool and allows users to generate zero-knowledge proofs that can verify your age, citizenship, uniqueness, and humanity, while maintaining complete anonymity.

RariMe allows any dApp or protocol in the Web3 space to request and use these credentials to verify a user's identity. Upcoming use cases included programmable airdrops, a humanitarian aid airdrop that puts money directly into the hands of Ukrainian citizens, and anti-Sybil measures.

One of the beautiful things about RariMe is that each pass added to the system waters it down, making it even stronger and more robust. Projects using it for anti-Sybil measures, for example, are protecting both their own ecosystems and our most vulnerable users, who may be using Rarimo to protest a local regime, for example.

About Lasha Antadze

Lasha Antadze is the co-founder of Rarilabs (formerly Rarify Labs), a company that is driving Rarimo, the privacy-focused social ZK protocol. In 2022, Rarilabs raised $10 million in a Series A funding round from Pantera Capital at a $100 million valuation.

A serial entrepreneur, Lasha has nearly a decade of experience in the blockchain industry. Prior to Rarilabs, Lasha co-founded the decentralized auction platform Shelf Network, which won Best Real-World Blockchain Use Case at the 2018 Frontier Innovations Awards and was acquired by Aurora Group in 2022.

Back in 2015, Lasha led the government's first blockchain initiatives as part of the anti-corruption reform. His previous roles included working on the Ukrainian government's eID project to migrate various state processes to blockchain and the EU's Stork 2.0 digital signature standardization, which gave him a special position at the intersection of identity and Web3.