Why Decentralization is the Only Way to Prevent Cybersecurity Breaches?
1/ A decentralized network is built by people, where individuals function as nodes within the network.
2/ There is no central server that stores data in a single location; instead, all data is distributed across random devices/nodes within the decentralized network.
3/ Data can only be decrypted using a unique private key specific to each user.
4/ Messages are sent with end-to-end encryption (E2EE) within a peer-to-peer (P2P) decentralized network, bypassing the need for a central server, unlike centralized platforms such as Telegram or WhatsApp.
The absence of a central server translates to no centralized data storage, which in turn means no potential entry point for hackers to exploit and compromise data, thus preventing data breaches.
Three decentralized tool that I tried:
- SimpleX:
- Simply a decentralized messaging tool, safer than Session
- Nostr:
- Fully decentralized social platform
- Full of spam, hard to use compares to mastodom.
- WireMin:
- Not open sourced (if they are open sourced, it will be my top choice.)
- A combination of mastodon and Session
For me censorship and ads are the reasons pushed me away from centralized social platforms
Absolutely, me too. I was making the point that encryption is about protecting communications and data, not about network architecture.
It is possible to construct a centralized system that is completely safe against censorship and user profiling.
It is not possible to construct a network that eliminates ads, since anyone with access to the network can either inject ads or spam users who have published addresses. Those ads might not be targeted based on user profiles, but they will still be ads.
Even if you have mechanisms to punish bad actors, it will always be a game of whack-a-mole.
If you utilize any form of filtering, you will still always have false positives and false negatives.
The only ways to stop ads is through strong enforcement of legislation or through contractual agreements.
Enforcement of legislation would require proving that the ad was placed by the people offering the goods or services instead of someone trying to harm that business. If communications are being properly protected, that could be impossible.
Contractual agreements will likely require both centralization and paid service.
All we can ever really do otherwise is to spin up new networks when existing ones become unusable. That is where decentralization (and data ownership!) has much to offer. When it is inexpensive (both financially and with regard to their social graphs) for people to isolate undesirable nodes, create new networks, and migrate to new networks, it becomes more difficult and more expensive for advertisers to follow people around and maintain connections to multiple networks as they are created and die off. That can push the returns on ads too low to justify.