To The Table of The Lannister

Proposal to develop a decentralized cloud storage platform using blockchain

Bitcoin has been a very hot topic in the world of currency in the recent years and its impact on the economy and our society grows rapidly as well. However, the key technology behind it, the blockchain, has much more potentials and adaption than just a distributed ledger of cryptocurrency.

Blockchain can also be implemented in many other fields like decentralized network, smart contracts, nonprofit organizations and so on. Its essential effect is to change the trust model of our modern society. Therefore, I propose to start a research project to develop a decentralized cloud storage platform which can guarantee security, privacy and data control while traditional cloud storage service is available.

This decentralized cloud storage platform will have significant impact on the way people store their files, and with our current knowledge and understanding of blockchain technology and support from you and the entire Steemjet community, I firmly believe our goal is achievable.

In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin, defined an electronic coin as a chain
of digital signatures. The data structure behind Bitcoin is a chain of blocks where each block records a transaction made by a user and every block contains a signature of hash of public key of next owner and previous transaction. And all the transaction data can be inspected on the main chain of the blockchain. Besides, a proof-of-work system with a distributed timestamp server on a peer-to-peer basis has been implemented to make sure that the block cannot be changed retroactively without the alteration of all following blocks and the collusion of the network.

Thus, as long as majority of the nodes are honest, the blockchain structure can deliver authenticity, security and notarization and a trusted third party can be excluded in transactions.

All these characteristics of blockchain indicate that blockchain can be suitably adapted into application of cloud file storage. Nowadays, cloud file storage has become one of the most popular way to store files in our daily life.

Software such as Dropbox, Google Drive or One Drive are providing convenient platforms for people to upload their photos, documents, video, and music files.

However, while it is simple to upload and share files on the cloud, the security, privacy and data control might be a problem. While you put the files on their cloud service, you are essentially putting your files completely under their control. That means they have 100 percent access to the files which might be involved with your privacy and personal data and they have ability to sell your data and files to other merchants. Therefore, I believe we can combine cloud storage with authenticity and security of blockchain to solve these privacy and security concern for users.

In this project, my research group will develop a blockchain based peer-to-peer distributed cloud storage platform. Specifically, our blockchain structure will not the same as that implemented in Bitcoin which every transaction can be inspected on the main chain of the blockchain.

Instead, we will implement a “private” blockchain which protects users’ data from others and even the developers of the platform. In our implementation, we will combine two core technologies, on-chain privacy and verification algorithm to achieve our goal. The on-chain privacy will ensure the data of each node is cryptographically hidden from the public and can only be accessed by those with the user’s private key. That means, even us, the developers of this platform cannot access the content of user’s files without a required key.

Meanwhile, we will also use the other core algorithm, verification algorithm, to ensure our file system is working properly even without directly inspecting files on the chain. The verification algorithm will periodically check the integrity and availability of a file cryptographically and track user’s activity whenever a user makes change to a file so that we can always know the correct status of
files on the chain. Thus, with these two core technologies, we only need to check files
cryptographically instead of knowing its content and the files are only accessible to users with correct key.

To verify the result of our experiment, we will make our cloud file storage platform available to the entire steemjet community. This platform will be provided as a convenient tool to help individuals manage their study materials, projects and even personal files. We will distribute a survey of satisfaction of our platform by email to every users per year.

Especially we will emphasize on the protection of users’ privacy on the files and the comparison of our platform with popular cloud storage platforms like Dropbox, Google Drive, etc. Then we will present the results of surveys in different aspects in a report to show the advantages and shortcomings of our platform.

Our research project will require significant resources and best researchers in the field to
complete. I am forming a team with around 5 core scholars (professors) and 15 programmers.

Each scholar is proficient at algorithm, distributed systems and networking things. And each programmer is good at web development, server maintenance and database management. The duty of a scholar will be to lead three programmers as his or her assistants and we will hold weekly meetings to ensure our progress are compatible and satisfied. In addition, we will work with the Steemjet technical department. This project may take 6 months to one year to be completed depending on the funding.

As stated earlier, the result of our research project will significantly influence the way
people store their files. People will no longer be afraid of their files being accessed or used by unauthorized entities. More profoundly, it shows how the blockchain technology can be adapted into different aspects of our society and how much potentials blockchain possessed to changeand improve our world. Therefore, I once again propose this research project to be approved by you sir @dimimp.

@samexycool
#sf1