Henri Stern

Hi there.

I spend a lot of time thinking about decentralized systems and online privacy.

I used to be a research scientist at Protocol Labs working on Filecoin's consensus protocol and Filecoin research more generally.

I got an M.Sc. in Computer Security, Systems and Applied Cryptography at Stanford and a B.A. at Columbia University.

In between, I built marketplaces at Shout (YC S14).

Projects I've worked on

Filecoin.
A protocol to incentivize decentralized data storage.

De-anonymizing Web Browsing Data with Social Networks.
Using Twitter follower data to deanonymize users based on their browsing histories.

The Declassification Engine at the Columbia History Lab.
Matching documents declassified and redacted by different government agencies to better understand the declassification process.

Some Thoughts

To be or not to be... On chain. Privacy and decentralization as systems scale. (Jul 2021)

Acheron: A vision for the future of app stores (Nov 2020)

On Privacy:

  1. What do we mean when we talk about online privacy? (Oct 2020)
  2. There's too little to be gained from treating your users' data with respect. (Oct 2020)
  3. Is Web 3.0 our only way out of a world of bad privacy incentives? (Nov 2020)
  4. Understanding digital privacy today. (Jan 2021)
  5. Understanding digital privacy tomorrow. (Jan 2021)

Questions for cofounders. (Jan 2020)

A Small History of Cryptocurrencies. (Nov 2017)

Other Stuff

Manuscripts

Securing Home IoT Devices Using Commodity WiFi Routers.
H. Stern, Y. Michalevsky, B. Bünz, Y. Tian. 2017.

Published Work

The Case For Secure Delegation.
Dmitry Kogan, Henri Stern, Ashley Tolbert, David Mazières, Keith Winstein. HotNets 2017.

Using Online Reviews by Restaurant Patrons to Identify Unreported Cases of Foodborne Illness.
C. Harrison, M. Jorder, H. Stern, F. Stavinsky, V. Reddy, H. Hanson, H. Waechter, L. Lowe, L. Gravano, S. Balter. MMWR Vol. 63(20). 2014.