Researchers from several institutes worldwide recently developed Quarks, a new, decentralized messaging network based on blockchain technology. Their proposed system could overcome the limitations of most commonly used messaging platforms, allowing users to retain control over their personal data and other information they share online.
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I don’t think you get it. With a distributed ledger your username could be unique. sorta like the digital art pieces. So if your instance goes down you register at another one with your token and it recognizes you and associates you with everything it conceivably can (some stuff may only have been saved on the instance which is gone). So if the new instance has magazines you interacted with it should still be able to see comments as yours and such.
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tree burning is bitcoin specific implementation. distributed ledger does not rely on processing power being wasted for no good reason. Believe me I don’t like bitcoin or its ilk but am fine with grid coin for example. pgp keys are for authentication and don’t store information. distributed ledger is not for authentication its for just like it sounds. keeping a ledger.
The blockchain Is not public. It can only be accessed by nodes whose members are in the channel.
I’m curious whether without a blockchain there is a solution that (a) allows users to access all their encrypted messages even if any individual server goes down, (b) preserves a record of all communications/edits, and © is resistant to record tampering by a malicious server admin.
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Storing client side isn’t good enough, your records could be lost or destroyed. That’s why people use Gmail.
And it’s not just third parties, what about untrusted recipients? For example, how do you prove you sent someone a message on a decentralized system?
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Even if it’s encrypted, it can be lost or destroyed if it’s stored client side.
I know what identity keys are, but they don’t solve the problem. If someone says they didn’t receive your message, the best way to prove you successfully sent it is to use a distributed ledger.
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That doesn’t solve the problem. If you don’t get a read receipt, then you can’t prove you sent the message. And if the recipient doesn’t want you to be able to prove you sent a message, they can disable sending read receipts.
This sort of system is not meant for your use case. It is not meant for memes or other things nobody cares about. It is meant for people who need an auditable permanent copy of their communication.
For example, businesses sending orders, contracts, etc to each other. Or lawyers sending documents to each other. They need systems that are private, not susceptible to central server failure, yet nevertheless auditable in case of an untrustworthy recipient.
If a lawyer sends a time-sensitive letter to opposing counsel, the recipient must not be able to claim, “You did not send it to me on time”. Blockchain is a good solution for such needs.
Did you read the paper? This isn’t Bitcoin. The metadata is not available to the public.
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So, federation across channel participants, but with blockchain instead of a “shared database”?
Yes, that sounds like their goal.
Blockchain is used to prevent a malicious participant from altering/corrupting records.