The blockchain in four ways could make the Internet safer, fairer and more creative

The Internet is unique in that it has no control, administration or central authority. He gave everyone who has access a platform to express their views and exchange ideas with others instantly. But in recent years, Internet services such as search engines and social media platforms have been increasingly provided by a small number of very large technology companies.

At first glance, companies such as Google and Facebook claim to provide a free service to all their users. But in practice, they collect huge amounts of personal data and sell it to third parties for profit. They can do this every time you connect to social media, ask a question about a search engine, or store files on a cloud service. The Internet is slowly turning into something like the current financial system, which centrally monitors all transactions and uses that data to predict what people will buy in the future.

This type of surveillance has enormous consequences for the privacy of ordinary citizens around the world. The Bitcoin digital currency, which appeared on the Internet in 2008, sought to break the influence of large private organizations on what we do online. The researchers had finally solved one of the biggest concerns regarding digital currencies: they needed centralized control from the companies that were exploiting them, in the same way that traditional currencies are controlled by a bank.

The central idea of ​​the Bitcoin system is to make all the participants in the system, collectively, the bank. To do this, blockchains are used. Blockchains are distributed inviolable ledgers, which can record all transactions performed within a network. The general ledger is distributed in the sense that a synchronized copy of the blockchain is kept by each of the network participants and tamper-proof in that each of the transactions in the general ledger is locked using a strong encryption technique called hashing .

More than a decade after the emergence of this technology, we are just beginning to touch its potential. The people doing this research may have forgotten one of its most useful applications: improve the internet for anyone who uses it.

Help eliminate hatred

In order to use Internet-based services such as social media, e-mail, and cloud data storage, users must authenticate with the service provider. To do this, simply create a username and pbadword and create an account with the provider. But for now, there is no way to verify the identity of the user. Anyone can create an account on platforms such as Facebook and use it to spread fake news and hate without fear of never being identified or caught.

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Our idea is to deliver to each citizen a digital certificate by first verifying their identity. An organization such as your workplace, university or school knows your identity and can issue you a certificate. If other organizations acted in the same way towards their members, we could place these certificates in a publicly accessible blockchain and create a global protected record of the identity of each Internet user.

Since there was no way to identify users with their digital certificate, social media accounts could be linked to real people. A school can create social media groups that can only be accessed if a student is badigned a certificate, which prevents the group from being infiltrated by strangers.

Never forget a pbadword again

A user can request a one-time pbadword (OTP) for Facebook by clicking on an icon on their mobile phone. Facebook would then check the user's digital certificate on the blockchain and return an opt-in to their phone. The OTP will be encrypted so that it can be seen by anyone other than the recipient. The user would then connect to the service with the help of his user name and OTP, eliminating the need to remember pbadwords. The OTP changes with each connection and is transmitted encrypted on your phone. So it's much harder to guess or steal a pbadword.

Vote with your phone

People are often too busy or unwilling to go to a polling station on election day. An Internet voting system could change that. Digital currencies such as Zerocash are entirely anonymous and can be located in the blockchain, making them the basic ingredients of a voting system. Everyone can review the blockchain and confirm that a particular token has been transferred between two parties without revealing their identity.

Each candidate could receive a digital wallet and each eligible voter a token. Voters throw their tokens into their favorite candidate's wallet with the help of their mobile phone. If the total number of chips in the portfolios is less than or equal to the number issued, you have a valid poll and the candidate with the highest number of chips is declared the winner.

More technology companies selling your data

People use search engines every day, but it allows companies such as Google to gather trends, create profiles, and sell this valuable information to marketing companies. If Internet users used a digital currency to micropay – perhaps a hundredth of a cent – for each search query made, search firms would have less incentive to sell their personal data. Even if one person did a hundred searches a day, it would pay only one cent – a small price to pay for privacy.

Blockchain technology was originally a way to anonymize online transactions, but it would be a shame if it stopped there. The more researchers, like me, think about its potential, the more exciting possibilities appear.