Never, in the history of mankind, has the word “privacy” meant more than it does today.
It’s a hot-button issue in every industry — from tech to politics, human rights to entertainment — and with each technological advancement, it becomes more and more of a glaring issue. Pending net neutrality laws impact people’s security. And as big data becomes increasingly targeted, companies like Apple, Google, Amazon, among others, are continuously challenged with protecting each individual customer while the sum of its parts expands to mammoth proportions.
In a world where digital is becoming part of every aspect of human life, privacy is going to be an issue all parties in power will need to work together to solve.
In 2017, blockchain technology presented itself as a potential solution.
Ever since the dawn of the Internet, we’ve watched what happens when people’s privacy is threatened. It becomes a public event.
One of the first major events that triggered both national and global conversations surrounding privacy was Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks. The public’s perception of what it felt like to be “listened in on” had been largely unsaid up until that point.
From there, dozens upon dozens of following scenarios proved how important it was to start thinking about the implications of big data. The Sony Pictures hack, for example. Or the Target breach that affected 41 million customers.
But this past year, in 2017, blockchain technology finally hit the mainstream with a viable solution. Public ledgers and Smart Contracts could help iron out some of these glaring pain points in industries ranging from pharma to surveillance, freight and logistics to security.
And business leaders and entrepreneurs saw the value, and in December, 2017, over $1B was raised through Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) for blockchain-based platforms.
However, already at the start of 2018, and we’re seeing that the blockchain itself isn’t enough.
The technology is impressive, to say the least. I have written about it frequently because it truly is innovative enough to cause massive disruption to outdated industries, and bring about change in a positive manner.
The challenge, however, is that the cryptocurrencies that are evolving as a result aren’t as “safe” as people think. For example, one of the biggest issues people have with Bitcoin is that while it uses a public ledger (and that solves for one of the issues in the financial world, which is transparency), it also leaves the door open for privacy issues for users.
Especially since cryptocurrencies are still in the unknown as far as regulations go, investigations surrounding coins associated with illegal activities can still be traced — which leaves you, the innocent Bitcoin buyer, exposed to government agencies.
These sorts of privacy issues have already given rise to a whole subsection of cryptocurrencies called privacy coins, which aim to hide the sender, receiver, and transaction amounts.
For example, Boolberry is a digital currency that uses what are called Ring Signatures to hide your transaction data on the blockchain. Unlike Bitcoin, where this data can still be accessed, Boolberry uses a hybrid staking system that requires additional verification. This means any successful attack would require a majority hashrate and coin supply — which is not feasible.
Boolberry also uses what is called Egalitarian Mining (a glaring issue for Bitcoin) which increases transaction efficiency while lowering the amount of CPU and GPU power required for mining. So, as the platform scales, it grows in efficiency — which is something massive blockchain projects struggle wholeheartedly with.
As blockchain projects like Boolberry begin to emerge as privacy solutions, at least from the financial side of things, we can start to imagine how similar scenarios will play out in other industries — think Artificial Intelligence, for example. In order for AI to work for us (not against us), we will need to come up with systems that are both transparent (like the blockchain) but also designed to protect our privacy.
None of us want to live in a world where everything we do is public. But none of us also want to live in a world where we’re unsafe. Which means, as technology continues to evolve (faster and faster), there is more to think about than just the technology.
Morality, too, has to play a role in the conversation.
This article originally appeared on Inc. Magazine.
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