Enormous data is produced each day in this technological age. This data requires a place to securely store them for future reuse or for distribution. The need for third-party storage facilities thus becomes a billion dollar business.
For example, one of the most popular internet facilities for sharing information are websites. Almost every project online has a website. In order to exist online and be accessible, websites need a facility to store their data. This gave way for web hosting services today. Another internet service that makes massive use of storage are email services. Other digital tools or services that require a place to securely keep data includes social media platforms, file sharing services and many others.
The huge data storage need on digital platforms gave rise to the most popular data storage business today called cloud servers. Operators of cloud servers are usually the big tech businesses who offer users the opportunity to rent a space on their server machines online to store data. Cloud servers are online data storage services that allow individuals to virtually store data usually on shared servers across the globe.
Billions of websites today, images, videos and other types of digital data are stored in the cloud and maintained by the companies running and maintaining the servers. There are many of them in this space. But the biggest companies running cloud storage include Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP). While these cloud storage companies provide a very useful service to the digital space, there are certain major drawbacks which is why blockchain storage is a worthy alternative to cloud storage. Consider the following reasons.
Blockchain technology offers a far superior competition to cloud services and users should be aware of the great possibilities in store. Consider a comparison of two important elements of data storage in the cloud and blockchain: Data ownership and security.
Data stored in a cloud server with full custody handed over to them service provider comes with a risk of unauthorized monetization. These big tech companies are all fully into digital advertising. So once sensitive personal data is handed over to the them for storage, they often share the data with partners that might run targeted ads based on such data.
When data is shared with third-parties in this way, they expose the owner to unsolicited commercials and intrusive ads. The user might become a target for digital advertising which they unknowingly subscribed for just by making use of the cloud service.
Even if the cloud storage provider is not into digital ads, sharing user data with third parties often leads to exposing them to other risks. For example the data might get into the hands of criminals and that could expose the owner to risks of identity theft or even physical targeting. In essence, data ownership in cloud servers is custodial. Users relinquish their right to full control of their data, exposing them to the inherent risks therein.
Blockchain technology when used for data storage is the best way to let users own and control their data without a third-party interference. The concept of sovereign ownership of data is fully applied to blockchains where users retain their private keys. These private keys do not have copies retained by any server admin. Instead, the user owns the keys and thus owns full control and ownership of the data.
Data storage on a blockchain is thus non-custodial. That means rights to full ownership, control and use of the data is reserved for the user.
Hacking is a major data security threat in cloud servers today. hackers continue to get tougher and try to break into systems. Data stored in a server is simply a waiting time bomb for hackers. If they are able to crack the security codes which they often do, hackers could get away with so much data.
Apart from hacking, bad actors within the organization might start acting in a malicious way by making use of data in an unauthorized fashion. Internal staff with insider information of the server technology could be compromised from the outside and start handing over stored data to some unauthorized persons. When this happens, data security is greatly compromised.
Another single point o failure could arise from the failure of data storage servers or other facilities. These machines are made by humans and are prone to breaking down. Human error and other lapses could all contribute to a malfunctioning hardware. These could cause massive outages that could result in data leaks or losses.
One of the security features of blockchains is cryptography. Each block of data in the network contains identifying elements that is linked to the next block. Altering any data in the chain, makes it invalid and thus not validated in the chain. This feature is used to maintain the originality of data in a blockchain, ensuring that consensus is reached before data is added to the blockchain. Cryptography secures data in a blockchain by making sure that each data in the chain, is not tampered with by any third-parties.
Another security feature of blockchain technology is encryption through the use of public and private keys. Each of these keys is only owned by the data owner. The key give access to the data based on its function. Public keys could be shared to others by the owner to allow them access publicly available data on the chain. But the private key gives users access to data only the owner could view.
To see data on the blockchain, the user must login securely using a private key. Hence, this is a secure way to lock out unauthorized persons from accessing data stored on the blockchain. Hence, data security is guaranteed on the blockchain.
Could servers are still the most popular type of data storage now. But the emergence of blockchains have given them a serious competition. Data ownership and security are superior on the blockchain and in the cloud. If you thus have a data storage need, you could choose a blockchain or the cloud.
