Opening the circles.garden api for external apps

Circles technical
1

Hi!

I propose an extension to the Garden API, which enables the external creation of user profiles. This proposal serves as an interim solution until we have implemented a decentralized solution for profiles. It caters to the needs of other wallets interested in integrating with Circles and independent developers seeking Circles integration. Recently, a conference-specific app, DappCon23, was deployed, which allows users to create a new Circles safe, but not a corresponding profile. This proposal will suffice most needs for such use-cases for the time being.

Technical Considerations

  • Authentication/Authorization: Security will be maintained by adopting a challenge/response mechanism for authenticating requests to the API. Here’s a high-level outline of this process:

    1. A user requesting to add a profile will receive a challenge from the server.
    2. The user responds to the challenge by signing it with a private key.
    3. The server verifies the signature, checking if it corresponds to one of the current owners of the safe associated with the safe-address.
    4. If the signature is valid, the user is authorized to add or edit a profile using the safe-address as a primary key.

  • CORS Settings: In the best case the CORS policy can allow access from any domain to facilitate a good portability.

Security Considerations

Allowing everyone to openly write to an API (since everyone can create a key, safe, and thus a profile) poses inherent risks. However, if we verify that the key indeed belongs to a safe owner, this implies that a safe has been previously deployed, which incurs costs and thus makes it unlikely for someone to launch a DDoS attack involving creating a lot of safes. To expedite the API’s decision on whether to discard a request, the list of all Circles safe addresses and their owners could be kept in memory. The same data structure could be used to efficiently enforce a per-safe rate limit. Additionally, there should be a per-IP rate limit that allows high bursts (e.g., when everyone in a room signs up at the same time).

As always with the kind request for comments :slight_smile:

3 Likes
2

We discussed this between (bitspossessed Circles dev team (bits) and GnoCis (Gnosis Circles devs) this Tuesday.
The suggestion from Daniel is up here to gather input from others and also for us to continue the discussion between us.
Thanks for the clear formulation of the proposal Daniel!