Companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc. currently have the power. They provide conveniences that the world has come to rely on, but at a steep price – our personal data.
I can’t be the only one who clicks “Accept”, without even thinking, just wanting to quickly clear the lengthy legalese from my screen and move on to more pressing matters – like shopping. Not only do companies store all sorts of personal information about us, but they use it to build a complete profile on each of us – our demographics, economic status, hobbies and habits, etc. A 2014 article was written in Forbes titled “Privacy is Completely and Utterly Dead, And We Killed It” (1) – I do not disagree.
The questions we now need to ask ourselves is… Can we take the power back? Can we restore privacy in our lives while remaining connected to all the modern conveniences we’ve come to depend on?
Holochain (2) has ambitiously set out to help us do just that by empowering the world with a peer-to-peer network with autonomy built right in to the architecture and protocols. There are a multitude of blockchain applications out there that utilize distributed technology, of which I am a great fan, but this is an entirely different animal. Holochain is a decentralized platform on which unlimited applications can be built and run.
Currently, most development support comes from Holo (3). Powered by Holochain technology, Holo is building out the first large-scale use of Holochain: a cloud based market for Holochain applications (dubbed hApps).
hApps won’t need to interact with corporate servers at all, which means the big corporations won’t be able to obtain, aggregate (or sell) users’ data. Any kind of app that one can imagine – social media, shopping, productivity, games, search apps – they’re all fair game. A distributed app store for hApps is in the works; in the meantime, some can be found and installed from here (4).
For the expert techies, or anyone interested in taking a deep dive into the the technical specifications and algorithms which make up the Holochain platform, you can find the most recently updated whitepaper on Holochain here (5) on Github. The Holo green paper can be found here (6).
I try to keep my posts short and sweet, but I do urge you check out the links within to do your own research – I think you’ll like what you see.
Imagining a world in which I don’t have to fret about my (now 4 year old) daughter’s personal information being sold to the highest bidder – now that is a dream worth dreaming, and one I hope to see come true.
Thanks for reading! I’ll see you around the blockchain (and hopefully around the Holochain someday soon)! ;)
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2014/08/19/privacy-is-completely-and-utterly-dead-and-we-killed-it/#32a534f931a7
- https://holochain.org/
- https://holo.host/
- https://github.com/holochain/apps
- https://github.com/holochain/holochain-proto/blob/whitepaper/holochain.pdf
- https://files.holo.host/2018/03/Holo-Green-Paper.pdf