We aim to build systems users can use securely. We cannot do so by painting a user interface on security models even programmers find incomprehensible. The Belay Research Project seeks to research and co-design the user experience and underlying architecture.

Our current work is focused on developing the Belay Cloud Access Protocol: a protocol and API that provides a simple, yet secure, mechanism for interactions between components on the web and in the browser. It enables cloud applications to build facilities such as sharing, accounts, and 3rd party access in a way that is both more secure, and more understandable to the user.

The Belay project is developing BCAP and building software that implements it in a variety of execution environments (JavaScript, AppEngine, etc...). The team is also developing toolkits of for facilities that can be built on BCAP. In conjunction with these development efforts, the project is researching a formal security semantics of the system, and exploring improvements in the user experience of security that this technology enables.

See our public site at: Belay Research