How can blockchain powered mobile operating systems save users from surveillance by Big Tech?
In the extreme case of censorship from regulators across all crypto, I want to imagine how equipped we will need to be to continue our operations with our different crypto applications. A huge percentage of crypto users carry out their activities through a mobile phone. In fact, the more mobile friendly an app is, the more people are likely to use it.
Then it occurred to me that in the face of extreme censorship, mobile devices will play a vital role. Most of our mobile devices are powered with centralized operating systems, Android, iOS, Symbian, Windows, Blackberry, etc. they are all susceptible to compromise. Imagine the case where regulators clamp down on mobile O.S providers and the operating systems are upgraded to shadow ban crypto related applications.
For a lot of crypto people, that’s bye bye crypto. For me though, it’ll take a lot more than that. Interestingly for someone like me, the apps I interact with 90% of the time are decentralized mobile apps, they exist online rather than in the phone, besides mobile wallets. Hives mobile wallet is in the cloud, I’m not sure why we can’t have Trust wallet too in the same way, perhaps because apps like Trust wallet have to do with cryptos from several chains.
It all shows how early we still are in this space and how far we have to go. Lately, I’ve started to see Satoshis dream of decentralization in a different light, contrary to what most think, Satoshis dream doesn’t end in Bitcoin, in fact Bitcoin was just one piece of the pie, every tool involved in giving humans freedom from the clutches of the failed system through decentralization is Satoshis dream.
A lot of attention is presently concentrated on building bridges and interoperability across different chains and quite rightly so as this is where we are in the moment, but in the extreme case of clamp downs, a lot of applications will cease to exist. Hive is one of the most untouchable Blockchains, so it passes on its “untouchableness” to every application built on top of it.
Hive has been battle tested with real life situation when Justin Sun tried to take over the technology, in the end he got Steem and from it came Hive, the censorship resistant fork. The level of security and untouchableness of Hive should be replicated across all crypto.
For a blockchain to serve as the provider or host of a mobile operating system, it means the Blockchain has to be capable of being written on in the most common programming languages so that the operating system itself will be able to host an alternative to 99% of the apps used on the common mobile operating systems. In this way, anyone can develop apps on top of it and anyone can go into the App Store to pick and use the variety offered.
By this, the transition of people from centralized mobile operating systems to decentralized systems will be seamless as the same services provided on both platforms will be similar. Again, we already see this happening on Hive in the sense of the applications that have been built on it, even though most aren’t built to serve as alternatives to existing mobile apps.
However, Hive is not designed to replace existing operating systems, as its existence is solely based on the availability of the internet. Imagine not being able to use your mobile phone because there’s no internet, if we are going to strip off existing operating systems from mobile devices and replace them with new ones, these are things we need to consider.
Blockchains like Ethereum also have a host of basic mobile applications that exist on the Ethereum network. Likewise other chains like Blockstack but none of them have the ability to power mobile applications. Imagine turning on your mobile phone and what you see is “Powered by Ethereum” or something.
Perhaps the most ideal way to overhaul the existing OS inside a mobile phone will be by replacing it with the new upon installing. It will be able to format the entire phone and yet still work with basic functions like calling, camera, contacts, messages and other day to day applications on the phone.
If this is successful, it means humans have just unlocked another level of decentralization and security, applications like Trustwallet will be built to be compatible with these decentralized operating systems rather than on the ones susceptible to being censored.
Who will be the first to do this? Or is there already one? Or maybe nothing here makes sense, there are chances that censorship will never get this far, so there won’t be any need to take these measures. So let me know what you think in the comment
Thanks for reading.
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CalyxOS, GrapheneOS offer the most secure and censorship resistant Mobile Operating Systems