[Humanode Special Interview Series]: Tony, Rust engineer at Humanode

Tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from, and what is your history?

Hi, well, I am from a small town next to Moscow. As a child, I was a pretty bad student, doing the bare minimum with bad grades. But one day when I was in 8th grade, during a computer class I realized that I understood what was going on and that I understood what was being taught better than everyone else. In reality, that day was the start of my journey as a programmer. I had a great teacher who took things one step further, and taught us programming, which in reality wasn’t required. I still don’t know why she chose Borland Pascal as the language to teach us, because it is a pretty bad language, but I wouldn’t be here without her. To me at that time, no matter how bad the language is in hindsight, it was something truly refreshing. I mean, I could tell the computer what I wanted from it, and it would obey my commands! After discovering computers, I wanted to grow up and become a programmer, and that is exactly what I did. I also had some interest in Chemistry later on, but I realized that my interest in Chemistry was in the algorithms, which is in common with math, and that helped me discover that my true interest was in algorithms, so that sealed my path in programming.

I actually started my journey in learning English from computers too.  Well, actually from computer games.  My first 3 words were “New Game”, “Continue”, and “Exit”.

I continued my path in computing in University, and I specialized in Math and IT which gave me a more specific view on how I wanted to develop.

After University, like many young Russian males I was conscripted to the military.  After my service, while looking for a job, I was invited to join Roscosmos, which is the Russians equivalent of NASA.  I know talking about what I did at Roscosmos would be an interesting story, but it is under NDA, so no comment there.  (laughter)

How did you discover Humanode, and what got you interested?

Well, that is a rather simple story.  I was groupmates with one of the Humanode developers in University.  One day when we were chatting, he told me that he was looking for programmers that could work with the RUST language, which he had introduced me to before and I was familiar with, and told me that I could contact Dato and Victor and then gave me more information about Humanode. At that time I was still under contract with Roscosmos, writing code and working on hardware solutions for various projects including some of my own, which I was the team leader of, but I was kind of unhappy about my work environment.  Don’t get me wrong, Roscosmos is cool.  But the facility that I worked at kind of looked like it came out of an old Soviet era movie, and the people that worked there acted as if they were also back in the days of the Soviet Union.  On top of that, at that facility we weren't actually working with groundbreaking advanced technology.  I mean, such technologies exist, but because of the secrecy, we weren't able to use them in our projects.  So, in reality, it was kind of boring to me.

What is your current role in Humanode, and what challenges do you face?

I work on use-cases, so there is a bit of full-stack development and a bit of DevOps, it is all pretty fun and challenging.  In the backend I had a bunch of new and advanced things that I knew little about, so it gave me an opportunity to learn about them, and although I really didn’t like web programming because it is a bit strange to me and it lives within its own rules, I introduced myself into the frontend development.  Fortunately, I am more comfortable with both, now that I understand them.

My biggest challenge now is related to DevOps. Especially Kubernetes and Terraform, you know, when you tell the servers around the globe to work together things get pretty complicated, but interesting and challenging.

What do you like the most about Humanode?

The fact that it is human friendly, that a human can know that his node is truly equal to his peer nodes. He holds the same rights and the same voting power.  I also like the fact that Humanode is ecology friendly unlike Bitcoin which has serious problems with energy consumption. You know, the top 3 countries that mine Bitcoin are USA, Kazakhstan, and Russia, and now Russia is placing legal obstructions to the miners, and even more will come.  I honestly think that if Bitcoin was more eco friendly and economy friendly, these problems would not have happened.  Kazakhstan also had to cut off electricity supply to mining facilities for a while due to the energy consumption and blackouts, and miners will continue to face energy rotation and a limit in how much they can use. Bitcoin is just not eco friendly.

So, I really like that Humanode is structured to be eco friendly and is economy friendly.

How do you envision the Humanode bio-authentication 5 years from now?

I believe that our great mathematicians who are working on biometric authentication will be able to develop a system that will surpass any existing system that we have now.  What they are working on now, is truly groundbreaking.

Are there any specific types of applications that you would like to see utilize the Humanode protocol?  Are there any use cases that you think would really benefit from Humanode?

One of the things that we are working on and like, which I think will be a game changer, is the ability for people to be able to log into any site, without passwords, by just using their face. There are many other specific use cases, but this one can be used at the largest scale, and many more use cases can be born from this. It is really handy, secure, and beautiful.

Setting Humanode aside for a moment, what do you do in your free time?

Well, I learn Esperanto which was inspired by Harry Harrison’s book, “The Stainless Steel Rat”, I like to go on walks with my wife, I play video games in my free time.  I mostly like turn-based strategies like Civilization 6, Heroes of Might and Magic, XCOM, and so on.

We should play together sometime! As you know, we have quite a few gamers in the core team.

Sure! Would be happy to! But just to warn you in advance, I play really really dirty, so beware!

What are your goals in life?

Well, my life is family first.  So, I really want to build a legacy that I can leave to my future children, and if possible, for humankind.

Well, your first legacy may be in being a core member in building Humanode!

Yes, yes!  It is a great opportunity, and I really like it!

What do you want to be doing in 5 years time, then in 10 years time?

Hmmm… nothing special in mind for now.  I like my life, and what I am doing.  In any stage of my life, I want to be programming, solving math problems, and improving myself. I will continue to move forward.

What is your favorite food, favorite movie, and favorite rock song?

Favorite food is a tough one, because I like to cook, and in my mind, the best foods are those that take time and effort to make, and that are tasty to eat at the end of the process.  If I was to name a few, I would say Borscht, Lasagna, and Beef Wellington.  As for movies, that would be an easy question.  Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  As for my favorite rock song, it has to be The Unforgiven by Metallica.

As the last question, anything you would like to say to the community?

Be safe, and be decentralized!