TLSNotary Browser Extension

In this Quick Start we will prove ownership of a Twitter account with TLSNotary's browser extension. First we need to install and configure a websocket proxy and a notary server.

Install Browser Extension (Chrome/Brave)

The easiest way to install the TLSN browser extension is to use Chrome Web Store.

Alternatively, you can install it manually:

  1. Download the browser extension from https://github.com/tlsnotary/tlsn-extension/releases/download/0.1.0.700/tlsn-extension-0.1.0.700.zip
  2. Unzip
    ⚠️ This is a flat zip file, so be careful if you unzip from the command line, this zip file contains many file at the top level
  3. Open Manage Extensions: chrome://extensions/
  4. Enable Developer mode
  5. Click the Load unpacked button
  6. Select the unzipped folder

(Optional:) Pin the extension, so that it is easier to find in the next steps:

Websocket Proxy

Since a web browser doesn't have the ability to make TCP connection, we need to use a websocket proxy server. You can either run one yourself, or use a TLSNotary hosted proxy.

To use the TLSnotary hosted proxy:

  1. Open the extension
  2. Click Options
  3. Enter wss://notary.pse.dev/proxy as proxy API
  4. Click Save

To run your own websocket proxy locally, run:

  1. Install wstcp:
cargo install wstcp
  1. Run a websocket proxy for https://swapi.dev:
wstcp --bind-addr 127.0.0.1:55688 swapi.dev:443

Note the api.x.com:443 argument on the last line.

Next use ws://localhost:55688 as proxy API in Step 3 above.

Notary Server

To create a TLSNotary proof, the browser extension needs a TLSNotary notary server. In a real world scenario, this server should be run by a neutral party, or by the verifier of the proofs. In this quick start, you can either run the server yourself or use the test server from the TLSNotary team. Notarizing TLS with Multi Party Computation involves a lot of communication between the extension and notary server, so running a local server is the fastest option.

To use the TLSNotary team notary server:

  1. Open the extension
  2. Click Options
  3. Update Notary API to: https://notary.pse.dev/v0.1.0-alpha.7
  4. Click Save
  5. Skip the next section and continue with the notarization step

If you plan to run a local notary server:

  1. Open the extension
  2. Click Options
  3. Update Notary API to: http://localhost:7047
  4. Click Save
  5. Run a local notary server (see below)

Run a Local Notary Server

  1. Clone the TLSNotary repository (defaults to the main branch, which points to the latest release): 
       git clone https://github.com/tlsnotary/tlsn.git
  2. Edit the notary server config file (crates/notary/server/config/config.yaml) to turn off TLS so that the browser extension can connect to the local notary server without requiring extra steps to accept self-signed certificates in the browser (⚠️ this is only for local development purposes — TLS must be used in production). 
     tls:
     enabled: false
     ...
  3. Run the notary server: 
    cd crates/notary/server
cargo run --release

The notary server will now be running in the background waiting for connections.

Notarize Twitter Account Access

  1. Open Twitter https://twitter.com and login if you haven't yet.
  2. Open the extension, you should see requests being recorded:
  3. Click on Requests
  4. Enter the text setting in search box
  5. Select the GET xmlhttprequest /1.1/account/settings.json request, and then click on Notarize
  6. Select any headers that you would like to reveal.
  7. Highlight the text that you want to make public to hide everything else.
  • Click Notarize, you should see your notarization being processed:

If you use the hosted notary server, notarization will take multiple seconds. You can track progress by opening the offscreen console:

Verify

When the notarization is ready, you can click View Proof. If you did close the UI, you can find the proof by clicking History and View Proof.

Troubleshooting

  • Requests(0): no requests in the Browser extension ➡ restart the TLSN browser extension in chrome://extensions/ and reload the Twitter page.
  • Are you using a local notary server? ➡ Check notary server's console log.