This decentralization movement is gaining in scope and impacting many industries. Uberization is unstoppable and we certain about it. The data storage market is being largely influenced by the trend. The Cointelegraph interviewed James Prestwich, who is a co-founder of Storj. Storj is an open source platform for cloud storage that cannot be censored, monitored, or experience downtime. Prestwich discussed his views on the current trend of decentralization and how Storj plays a role in this revolution. He also addressed some of the security concerns that come with this trend.
Uber for data storage
Where do you see the trend of sharing computing power, hard drive space and bandwidth going further?
Prestwich points out that the projects attempting to create a platform for sharing computing power are undertaking a difficult task.
He explains:
“There’s no efficient proof for arbitrary computations. This indicates that if you are skeptical of the person carrying out the computation, you cannot have faith in the outcome. Some problems, such as Proof of Work, Equihash, or sorting a list, have results that can be checked much more easily than they can be created. Most problems cannot be conclusively proven. If you’re paying someone to do work for you, you want them to give you the right answer. So there’s a trust problem there.”
We are still a few years away from seeing supercomputers working, but distributed storage is already here.
He continues:
“Storj is real, and it works. Computing is likely still a few years out. Even though there has been some progress made with application-specific tools, a lot more work needs to be done before distributed computing can be considered secure. Storage is really the low-hanging fruit here. It’s expensive, necessary everywhere and easy to verify. There is no need to trust either Storj or Sia as both use auditing schemes that confirm a file is being stored.
Storj is the first cloud storage that uses Blockchain technology and cryptography for extra security. Originally, it was a platform that allowed crowdsourced data storage through P2P. The Storj team was hoping to build a service that was similar to what already existed but that was faster, cheaper, and more secure.
In this way, men are seeking to create a service that is ten times faster and fifty percent less expensive than existing cloud storage solutions. You can get it by using parallel downloads.
Prestwich explained to Cointelegraph:
” Storj uses a similar approach to BitTorrent rather than having one large file downloaded. The file is downloaded in pieces from different farmers at the same time, and it is put back together while it is being downloaded. If multiple people are delivering shards to you at once, they can upload faster than you can download.
Users get faster service as a result, but sometimes slow farmers can cause a problem. After some time, Storj has gotten good at spotting slow farmers and fixing the way files are shared so that everyone can get the speed they want. In order to solve this problem, Storj has hired a full-time data scientist, with plans to add more people to the team in the near future.
Storj review: Snapshot
Storj is extremely generous in giving new users up to 150GB of free storage. The price you pay for using the paid version of this service depends on how much storage space and bandwidth you need, but it is still cheaper than what most other cloud storage providers charge.
Because the system is decentralized, you get high-level security, protection against server failures, and quick download speeds from any location. Storj is also open-source, which is good for users who are worried about security.
Security breaches are inevitable: how to minimize the consequences
Since there have been many recent instances of data leaks and security breaches, the question of how to keep stored data private and secure is now important. If data is stored in a decentralized way, how can we be sure that the devices used for storing data are safe from hacking? Prestwich explained to Cointelegraph:
” Storj is not a system for protecting your data like a fortress, it is a newer system that is designed to work well with other systems. Storj works whether or not the farming nodes are secure. This means that even if a hacker were to get into one of the nodes, they would not be able to access the data. The data is encrypted in order to protect it from entering the network. No one can read the text without the encryption key.
The Storj platform breaks data into small pieces, called shards, before sending it out to people who rent out space on their hard drives (or farmers). each shard goes to a different node. it is already hard enough to find all the shards, even if someone possesses the key. Duplicate shards are created using a process called Reed-Solomon erasure coding, which means that even if a few shards are lost, the file can still be retrieved and new shards created. Storj is trying to make data secure even if many nodes used for farming are compromised. Developers are preparing for climate change now because they think it is inevitable.
ICO industry has exploded
Storj is a decentralized cloud storage platform that was started as an open source project in 2014. The platform was launched with a crowd sale, which allows users to buy or sell storage space on the network. The Storj token can be used to buy and sell space within the Storj network. The SJCX token allowed users to purchase storage and bandwidth, as well as get paid for renting out hard drives and bandwidth. Storj managed to raise half a million dollars through a crowd sale. This kickstarted the project and launched Storj Labs Inc, a company built on top of the Storj platform to provide additional services and support. The ICO industry has undergone significant changes since its inception, becoming more established and refined. Prestwich believes that the ICO industry has seen significant growth in recent years. He explains:
” We were one of the first companies to have a token sale, and the cryptocurrency market was much smaller then. Some projects that only have a white paper and an explainer video have been able to raise millions of dollars in a short amount of time, which is fascinating to see. We are hoping for some major successes to come out of this, but it will likely be awhile before any real results come in.
New tools, partnership with Microsoft and more
Since it started, Storj’s goal has been to change the way data is stored by making a platform where only the data’s owner can access it. Prestwich shared some of the key achievements the team accomplished in the last years:
” Storj is the result of years of hard work and dedication. They have gone through many trials and errors to get to where they are now. We are in competition with well-known companies, and that is a bit intimidating. We lack the tools and brand awareness compared to others. That being said, we’ve come a long way. We designed a novel interactive storage audit protocol. We created a publish/subscribe system that is effective on a peer-to-peer network. We created a distributed network by using very limited resources and storing large amounts of data. We created a high-quality library that can upload and download files in C and used it to create a major integration. We built a SaaS billing platform from scratch. The work we published is available for anyone to use for free.
The developers have made Storj content delivery work in browsers, but they are still working on it. It is available to be tested. Storj has partnered with Microsoft Azure and Heroku to make it easier for developers to deploy Storj tools. Prestwich said the team plans to add more features to these tools and introduce new partnerships and integrations on different platforms.
At the moment, they are working on automating the generation of certificates for farmers, to make it work over TLS, and designing new and expanding existing platform tools.
Prestwich explained:
” We are lagging behind the rest of the object storage industry and will be working hard to catch up. More libraries in more languages. More interfaces. More management options. Ethereum migration and related smart contracts. We are working on some new smart contracts that will improve Storj’s functionality.
Migration to Ethereum
Prestwich said that there have been many discussions among the Storj team and the Counterparty community about the Counterparty platform over the past few months. While a few important aspects were brought to light, including the need to update the Counterparty wallet software, transaction processing times significantly increased due to issues with Bitcoin Blockchain backlogs, as well as an increase in transaction fees. Furthermore, there is ambiguity concerning the future of other components after the multi-sig ceases to work due to Bitcoin making multi-sig transactions non-standard. This is a result of the decision to migrate the token that powers the Storj platform from Counterparty to the Ethereum ERC20 token standard.
As Prestwich shared with Cointelegraph, the use of an Ethereum-based token offers clear solutions to some of the problems:
“Development is extremely active. New features are added on a regular basis, and any bugs are dealt with quickly. While Ethereum fees are currently very low, most transactions are still confirmed within a few minutes. However, there have been occasional delays of up to an hour or more. The ERC20 standard is compatible with a lot of wallets and tools. Ethereum’s smart contract platform can be used to create a more decentralized and reliable storage system. This could provide data services to smart contracts and Dapps. We will be moving SJCX to a new Ethereum-based ERC20 token. We believe that this will serve the Storj ecosystem and its stakeholders better.
Storj is attempting to raise money through a token sale in order to promote awareness of the project, build up the associated community, and create the digital tokens required to use the platform. According to Prestwich, the money generated from the sale will significantly contribute to Storj’s goal of creating an open storage system that is available to everyone and stored on various computers. For more information about the Storj token sale, please visit the Storj website.
Try hard not to use Blockchain
In the current Blockchain revolution, opinions are largely divided. There is a lot of debate about how much impact Blockchain technology will really have. Some people think it is being hyped up too much, while others believe it is not being hyped enough and will end up having a much greater impact than we can imagine. Prestwich explained to Cointelegraph:
“We have some complicated feelings about this. Many of us are interested in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other Blockchains, and we are creating something great with them. Our advice for people considering using Blockchain technology is to try very hard to avoid it. Blockchains are expensive, inefficient, and hard to scale. There is no existing roadmap for blockchain technology, as it is brand new. This lack of a roadmap presents challenges in the technical, legal, and financial arenas. People are still trying to identify their strengths and many endeavors will end in failure because the creators utilized a Blockchain when it wasn’t necessary.
Storj is only using Blockchains for things like payments between machines, provable computing, and trustless interaction because they think those things Blockchains are good at. The team is focused on building a distributed system, and Blockchains are a tool that helps them to achieve that goal. He continues:
“We think that Blockchains will change the world. Many companies claim to eliminate the middleman, but in reality, humans are often just intermediary agents who relay information. They allow for a new generation of machine-to-machine transactions. Entire automated marketplaces trading without human intervention. It’s a long road to get there. And it will be a transition that happens gradually and in stages. But it’s inevitable.”
One doesn’t need to understand Blockchain
Many people believe that the reason Blockchain technology has not been adopted more widely is because it is difficult to understand. Do we need to understand the technology in order to appreciate the benefits? Prestwich shared his opinion:
” One of the things that is well-known about cryptography is that it is not recommended to write your own encryption algorithm. It’s complex and easy to make a subtle mistake. Mathematicians make cryptographic libraries. Developers use libraries without understanding them to serve users. Blockchains are the same way. A group that specializes in a particular area can create tools that developers can use to help users. Most developers will never need to understand this technology.”
In the end, all technology functions in this manner – like plumbing, electricity, physics, and marketing – where users can reap the benefits without even knowing the technology exists.
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