Future Use Cases for Blockhain Technology: Distributed Email Services

In this day and age, most consumers use email addresses on a daily basis. However, it has to be said that most of these email addresses are associated with a certain centralized provider. Internet service providers have their own email address extension, Google has one as well, and there are the university and high school email addresses as well. Yet in the end, all of them are centralized services, and the blockchain can change all of that.

Also read: Future Use Cases for Blockchain Technology: Copyright Registration

Centralized Email Address Services Prone To Government Intrusion

Regardless of which email provider a consumer uses today, all of these services are centralized in their very own way. Let’s take internet service provider mailboxes, for example, which are complementary when signing a contract with one of these companies. They offer a handful of free mailboxes to the customer, but there are strings attached that are not known to the end user most of the time.

The first issue arises in terms of the mailbox belonging to the internet service provider itself, which means they will log any and all activity occurring with those specific email addresses. For most consumers, this is not something to worry about, as they have nothing to hide. But the fact that ISPs can spy on everyday communication is a worrying fact to say the last.

Secondly, all of these internet service providers have to answer to the government of their respective country. Assuming the government would ask the ISP to turn over all information on their users, including logs of certain mailboxes, there is nothing that can be done about it. Major companies, including ISPs, have to comply with government regulation, which is a particular worry for centralized services.

But even if the consumer would pick a different email provider, they are still not out of the woods. Even popular mail services such as Google’s Gmail are subject to regulation and privacy intrusion, both from the company itself and government officials around the world. Centralized services are not safe, nor secure, and should be avoided whenever possible.

Unfortunately for the everyday email user, the number of options is fairly limited outside of using centralized services. Granted, there are offshore email providers that operate in areas where there is no governmental influence from other nations. Then again, using such a service is usually associated with criminals, terrorists, and people who have something to hide in general.

Blockchain Technology to Create Decentralized Email Service?

A solution to the problem of centralized email providers might just be around the corner. Blockchain technology, the same that powers the Bitcoin network is quite versatile in terms of what can be achieved. In fact, there are thousands of possible applications for blockchain technology outside of the financial ecosystem.

Creating a decentralized distributed email service is one of those examples. The blockchain uses wallet addresses to identify Bitcoin users on the network, and the same ideology could be applied to email services. Issuing email addresses over the blockchain, and using the underlying technology to ensure communication, could create a whole new paradigm of online communication.

Unlike centralized email service providers such as Google or an ISP, email communication over the blockchain is not subject to governmental influence. There is no centralized server farm to take control of in order to gain access to personal records, as the entire system is decentralized and controlled by the individual users and network nodes.

Granted, it will take quite some time until such a system will be developed and made available to the public. But when Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin, the underlying thought has always been to push adoption of blockchain technology for all kinds of different use cases. And if Bitcoin itself can benefit from that stimulated growth, all the better.

What are your thoughts on using blockchain technology for email communication? Let us know in the comments below!

Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Gmail

Future Use Cases for Blockchain Technology: Digital ID Verification

The number of use cases for blockchain technology is nearly limitless, but there are certain aspects of life that could, and perhaps even should, benefit from this wave of innovation sooner rather than later. One of the more interesting use cases for blockchain technology is digital ID verification, which makes the entire online experience more user-friendly for the everyday consumer.

Also read: Verification Procedures Ruin Online Shopping Experience, Blockchain-Based Solution To The Rescue?

Trusting Third Parties With ID Verification Is A Bad Idea

Society has evolved in various directions over the past few years, and both online and mobile experiences are playing an ever-increasing role in our lives. That being said, most of customer internet usage still takes place near a computer, and most services and platforms being used do not scale properly on mobile just yet.

But there is a certain drawback to most of the features and platforms consumers use on a daily basis: they all need some form of verification or registration before they can be used properly. One thing that has become clear is that using just a username and password to access any service is far from sufficient these days.

Two-factor authentication is an additional step in the right direction of providing customer security, but that only protects the login part of the experience. The major problem lies with the services that require users to submit some form of verification to confirm their identity, both in the Bitcoin space and outside of the realm of digital currency platforms.

Consumers are forced to submit documents - such as an ID scan, copy of passport and even a copy of a credit card - to third party services for verification purposes. All of these documents are then stored on centralized servers, where they become a favorable target for hackers and hoodlums. For the end consumer, Identity theft is a serious problem, especially since the Internet became more and more popular.

Luckily for all parties involved, there is a solution around the corner that could solve all of the above problems while still ensuring security for both business and customers alike. Issuing identity verification through blockchain technology allows consumers to verify their identity while there is no centralized storage of identity documents involved.

Blockchain-Issued ID Verification Has Lots of Potential

Using a digital token issued on the blockchain to perform identity verification sounds simple in theory, but is a lot harder to pull off in the real world. Granted, the technology is there to be used, and it shouldn’t take a team of skilled developers too long to create a blockchain token representing a user’s identity.

In terms of using this token, the user would send that token to the service or company they are using and sign off on the transfer with their private key. Doing so would allow the customer to keep the information confidential, rather than relying on a third-party service or platform to store that data. All of the information associated with that token would only be visible for the sender and intended recipient.

To provide an additional layer of security, an oracle or escrow-type service could be implemented, where a computer verifies the customer’s identity by getting access to the ID token. Once the identity has been checked, that token is then sent back to the owner, and the business or platform is notified of a successful user verification procedure.

In a way, blockchain-based verification would bypass the need for centralized services, additional storage capacity and it could even remove the human element from the verification procedure altogether. However, there is still a lot of research to be done on how this solution could be tackled in a secure manner for all parties.

What are your thoughts on using blockchain technology for verification procedures? Let us know in the comments below!

Images courtesy of Shutterstock