Applications on The Blockchain (Part 3)

Since there is a lot to cover, we’ll be covering the Civic application, which is responsible for creating diverse ecoysystems of identity fraud protection by making use of something called DIDs (Decentralized Identifiers) solely responsible for creating a decentralized format for identities to be managed by significant users especially for the long-term. The process of Civic involves having a friendly user interface for those to control their own interactions which acts as data to be sustained under a specific blockchain protocol, at which various public institutions that take place in the government as well as health care can manage personal information with patients and clients by getting a hold of a digital passport.

Like any other means of verifying identity, digital passports which work under VCs (Verifiable Credentials) function as a way to incorporate trust into those establishing network connections within the blockchain mainframe with a particular ID that can withhold the validation of such activity to prevent security intrusions against identity on all ends of the spectrum. If you’ve read our article about making use of a blockchain wallet, it can be carefully realized that the same way your identity can be protected offline through cold storages, hot storages have an ever-developing solution that can assist with reassuring careful management of resources by a specific identity, under verifiable conditions.

Second to having VCs supported by DIDs, another essential input that is given as a responsibility amongst users themselves is having the skillset in managing cryptographic keys that may allow them to access such as applications and platforms. In simple terms, the connection to self-sovereignty over identifiable data usages by the user is solely relied on PII (personally identifiable information). Since private keys thanks to errors in application development and code defects within smart contracts are major loopholes for hackers, as explained in detail in the article below this one, it must be carefully admired that cryptographic keys must me made use of in order to sustain PII over a long period of time. For a more detailed explanation, in special instances where a short address attack takes place so that hackers may either try to invade a node or create a fake identity at which their address is shorter than the 20-byte string of data it usually takes over, cryptographic keys are an algorithmic encryption method assuring that any string of data within a public or private address assigned to any set of users cannot be altered manually and is to be purely randomized, especially when major exchanges under ERC-20 take place (a standard that is generally used to help operate smart contracts under Ethereum cryptocurrencies function).

Altogether, Civic alongside the helpful resources of these keys establish a way for users to manage their PII with VCs and DIDs under a specific interface as a reliable application for those seeking to make sure they’re not victims of common attacks. In addition to this, relating back to the digital passport itself which is the be-all of identity protection in any instance that doesn’t just take place within the blockchain, generally speaking, digital held passport identities work under a system called SSI. This simply stands for ‘Single system image’, at which a large set of machines responsible for managing data especially in the realm of digital assets, cryptograms, and currencies altogether appear to be on one system which is what the passport itself partially represents. This essentially helps with the process making sure nodes are balanced with migration, so that certain progress such as exchanges can be saved or validified from one particular node to another. As the IOTA (Internet of Things) method has been mentioned in our previous article about cybersecurity, an average SSI system can have a major contribution to this verification system, especially when there’s a high traffic of smart contracts taking place within the network. Altogether, the digital passport is the most important part of the cycle in making sure applications such as Civic can create a secure platform similar to that of cold storages (a way to use a blockchain wallet offline to manage financial data), in order to help any user manage their own data without major organizations looking over it themselves.

Relating to the topic of trust, which is the sole reason why smart contracts under a default blockchain format exists, other applications also create reassurance for different branches of identity protection that doesn’t just have to do with PII management. One of these is a platform by the name of Shyft, which next to the private user, is personalized for major businesses that can utilized the application in sourcing their own data across a blockchain network with the use of a ‘credibility score’, at which their trustworthiness relies on how much of their organization has not be detected for any kind of fraud under the verification process that the system puts the business through. Similar to Civic, Shyft works under a distinct established protocol by the name of Veriscope which functions by making use of smart contracts to create a layer within the Ethereum network of identities by using a proof-of-authority (PoA) system, so that businesses and/or users can safely disclose customer data when holding, keeping, converting or selling virtual assets. To avoid further complicating the explanation of this process, this entire cycle is prioritized under VASPs (virtual asset service providers), which is what an average business or user must verify themselves as being to securely manage this data as before mentioned under the Finacal Action Task Force (FATF) policy. This is a policy that is a major key in running an organization with clients under the blockchain, regardless of what the brand may represent, and is what the Shyft platform works under to make sure businesses operate under such conditions. On a side note, FATF existed far before blockchain technology took place, establishing in 1989 by the G7 summit to combat illegal activities such as money laundering by creating measures that can eventually take place for digital security as well.

Since the topic of Ethereum is a major example for the average blockchain network largely capable of using these security methods, it is important to mention one parallel that so to speak directly combines a blockchain wallet with identity protection, and that is called a daemon wallet. Referring once more back to our previous article, the ‘race attack’ which is a way for hackers to steal digital assets within a smart contract by sending cryptocurrency in exchange for the asset, that doesn’t get confirmed by the user leading to the transaction being proved invalid and sending the paid money back to the buyer, the daemon wallet combats this by making use of a software called Enjin in order to make sure that any sort of transaction linked directly to an Ethereum address can sign and confirm anything that is given in exchange for another asset or cryptocurrency, in order to avoid any mistakes where something has not been directly confirmed only to lead to another race attack led by the hacker themselves. How does this relate to identity protection? Next to the fact that this combats another major branch of hacking methods by a hacker, the Enjin software manages the exchanges, or the act of holding and keeping digital assets like an average business would be doing with customer data, by functioning within the Enjin Platform Identity that the daemon wallet is closely linked with in order to make sure ETH addresses are not caught up in confusion and are carefully initiated when the marketplace is finalizing and verifying multiple transactions at once. Next to users themselves, some cryptocurrencies out there try to work under Enjin to make sure there is 100% verification in exchanges, one of these being a well-known cryptocurrency called XMR (also known by the name Montero).

If you’ve made it this far into the article, a lot of the applications and terminology supported by them, links to one particular sign of how Web 3.0 will change how an average person interacts with their data, by creating a decentralized information plaza for businesses and potential users in the mainframe to make use of applications that can fully validate and streamline the intentions they have with their products under the circumstances at which control by larger organizations do not take their place, as many have done so already in the Web 2.0 space.