Is Privacy and Freedom on the internet a failed notion?

As human evolved through centuries of civilisation, the material world around us has transformed beyond recognition. Although the fundamental reasons for our physical existence are still basic survival and expansion of human species, emotionally and psychologically, our priorities have changed considerably. From hunting animals and collecting food for survival, we moved on to establish control over the earth and beyond. We perfected the art of survival and began to find the purpose of our existence.

We find happiness in pursuing our interests and leading a life being our own self. The family bonds give us emotional protection and social life bring us a sense of belongingness to a community. We feel safe and secure in this socio-cultural structure. However, the right of freedom to be ourselves and the ability to protect us from external surveillance have always been subject to threat throughout human history.

Historically, governments and dictators always found a way to influence people and make them behave collectively towards institutionalised goals by law enforcement and physical pressure. Today, this function is carried out by corporates and powerful individuals through technology and media. Physical force is replaced by creating social and emotional pressure to follow the latest trends, which enslaves people to the corporate agendas and propagandas of exploiting vulnerability of people for profit.

We are constantly connected to the internet with our every move, activity and behavioural pattern recorded as data. This data or the history of our lives are not only documented forever and controlled by third parties, but also sold, resold and manipulated for corporate benefits. With big data and advanced algorithms, popular search engines and mass messaging platforms can predict individual or collective behaviour more precisely than we can do ourselves. Just because they let us find any information over the internet, share messages with the world or store our media files in their server, we are ready to compromise on our privacy.

If technology progresses at this pace, which it would, and if corporates and administrations are allowed to continue their crony agendas, the day is not far when our existence would become a race against time for survival and we will completely be transformed into non-emotional beings limited to following instructions.

Does it mean that humanity will face the unfortunate fate of losing our unique identity as superior intellectual and emotional beings? Will advancement in artificial intelligence make machines smarter and human artificially ignorant? Would human be brain-chipped, surveilled 24/7 and ranked based on our digital activities score? Will digital identity be more important than our physical identity for survival? Not quite.

We have made some great progress with technology as human beings, in conquering the world and understanding the universe. Innovations and technological advancements need not come at the cost of humanity if individual privacy and freedom to choose are respected. The beauty of technology, especially information technology, is that deficiencies and disadvantages of existing systems can be overcome with software or hardware upgrades without having to reinvent the wheel.

What if internet can be made so safe that our digital identities, the messages and media content that we share are accessible only to intended recipients? Imagine a network that can conceal the origin and routes of messages so beautifully that no external forces can ever track or gain access other than the owners. A network that is so robust that it can't die or can't be shut down. What if it can interact with and be available on any app, network, or blockchain that requires truly private communication services?

Such a network will have tremendous potential for developing trusts between unknown and unrelated parties without evading privacy and freedom. Imagine the limitless possibilities of applications and infrastructure that can be built on it. A shared but still private network can harness the synergy benefits and economies of scale without compromising on privacy and security.

Well, let me introduce MainFrame, a company set out on a mission to achieve this and sustain humanity. MainFrame is a decentralized network for censorship-resistant message routing. A company that believes: “you should have access to and control of your own data online; and the tools you use should empower you to reveal and share only what you choose”. It aims to build a secure and private network over the internet on the existing infrastructure.

The Mainframe network is built based on the following five fundamental principles:

1. Encryption - Your Content Can't Be Opened
   Messages and media exchanged between users on the MainFrame network are fully encrypted end-to-end with an asymmetric key pair associated with each MainFrame nodes working as gatekeepers at both the ends. No external parties can gain access to the data within the network without consent from owners.

2. Dark routing – Your Content Can't Be Followed
   Mainframe algorithmically determines sensible default routing settings based on network conditions and users' privacy requirements. It works with configurable dark routing, making it difficult to track the origin or detect existence of messages in the network almost impossible.

3. Incentivisation – The network can’t die
   Each node is monitored for credit worthiness and rewarded based on bandwidth provided to the network packet relay and storage, data services, and file storage. The community-based model will allow profits to be distributed in the community and participants equitably as opposed to only shareholders benefiting from a corporate structure.

4. Peer-to-Peer Architecture - The Network Can't Be Shut Down
   Applications hosted on MainFrame network can rely on uninterrupted services as resources are distributed in redundant fragments throughout the network. No downtime, no reliance on one entity for continuity of business.

5. Interoperability - The Network Works Everywhere
   The Mainframe protocol will be available to any app, network, or blockchain that requires truly private communication services. One of the major limiting factor of most blockchain projects today is that they are confined to their own networks. Interoperability of MainFrame multiplies its usability exponentially.

The applicability and benefits of MainFrame are endless. MainFrame, with the Power of an 'Unstoppable Private Network', has numerous use cases. Some of the potential use cases are outlined below:

• Elimination of middle men
  Today, financial institutions, lawyers, government authorities are required to execute legally binding agreements or contracts. Even private funds cannot be transferred between consenting individuals without the involvement of external entities. However, with the help of MainFrame, transactions/ agreements/ communication between unknown or unrelated parties can be made legally binding. Thereby, eradicating the need of middlemen completely and saving billions of dollars for business and individuals.

• Building own ecosystem by organisations
  Organisations can build their entire ecosystems using the MainFrame network over the internet. Business activities, administration, book keeping, identity management, data storage, enterprise applications, communication with all stakeholders and even transfer of value and ownership can all be built into in this ecosystem.

• IP protection by companies
  Organisations can protect their Intellectual properties and data without spending billions of dollars on data security.

• Take control of movement of money and value
  Businesses and other entities can issue their own currencies within the ecosystem, providing complete control over the business without being affected by the daily fluctuation in fiat currencies. Multinationals would be able to manage transfer pricing and transfer of money between different business units and countries without destroying value or subjecting themselves to volatile forex market.

• Shared information network effect
  Today, every entity records and manages its business activities, communications and transactions within their own applications, systems and networks. So, each transaction involving an external entity is recorded more than once in respective systems, duplicating the effort and resources required. With MainFrame, related entities can share common and relevant information with each other more securely, thereby letting individual systems smartly identify and record relevant information in their systems from the pool of shared information network. As the network matures and adaptability accelerates, every transaction needs to be recorded only once in the network and all related parties can duplicate it to their systems from the shared network. Co-existence of different platforms and systems in a shared environment within MainFrame, would allow transactions, product information and services be traced back to its origin and monitored throughout the value chain.

• Eliminate the use of VPN
  Organisations across the world still use private and internal networks, in order to protect their sensitive and confidential data. Setting up a private network not only costs large amount of money, it also results in duplication of work and waste of unused resources. With Mainframe, as a shared private network, organisations can move intranet and internal applications completely to the internet and be accessed from anywhere without having to set up VPN (Virtual Private Networks).

Virtually, any application, network or platform can be made secure and extended beyond traditional uses with MainFrame. Existing apps can be extended to perform multiple functions, address different target audience and integrate many other apps to their existing environment.

For example, a messenger app, such as the one MainFrame itself has developed (Onyx), that can be used as a mass messenger as well as a corporate messaging app, addressing the varying needs of every stakeholders. With the help of interoperability and security of a decentralised platform, apps can be made available on all platforms and devices with same features functionalities. They can be integrated with other applications and securely share information across different networks/platforms. Social media apps and platforms can be developed using MainFrame that would protect individual identity and give complete control over one's data. Enterprise applications on different platforms can be integrated and made to share information over the internet.

In conclusion, the complete control over our data on the MainFrame network would give us the power to selectively reveal information to intended parties without exposing ourselves to privacy evasion. All of the sudden, putting our personal life stories and experiences online can feel safe and secure. We will be able to keep digital identities and personal lives separate. Privacy and freedom would become a reality and be respected on the internet. Innovation and technological advancements would accelerate further at an exponential rate. Human values and emotions would find its deserving place on the internet.

So, is the idea of Privacy and Freedom on the internet still a failed notion? At the moment, it probably is. But with its values, vision, mission, people and technology, Mainframe may change the internet, if not the world, as we know today, forever.