4thTech 2.0 Update, Crucial Adoption Leap Forward (January 2021)

For the past four months, we have been working on a major 4thTech update that has finally reached its finalisation. The new update is called the 4thTech 2.0 and brings impressive new functionalities packed in a modern minimalistic design; (1) the 4thTech staging wallet extension overgone a complete rework and is now supporting Google Chrome and Mozilla browsers; (2) the UI staging & white-label platform codebase has been rewritten in Vue 3.0, while the interface is now completely redesigned, capturing minimalistic modern design and new features; (3) additional Polkadot Substrate Edgeware protocol support was added, for the users to choose from when exchanging dMails from wallet to wallet; (4) new tokenization model allows dMail transaction fee payments in native chain tokens (i.e. ETH, EDG…), and; (5) off-chain data repository service has been upgraded, enabling users to store exchanged data files and dMails for up to seven days.

“4thTech 2.0 refers to a set of system upgrades that will make 4thTech more user-friendly, more interoperable and at the end more overall adoptable.”

Intro to 4thTech

Build as a Web3 infrastructure technology occupying L1, protocol, SDK and encryption layers, the project aims to; (1) enable permissionless multi-chain (i.e. 20+ L1) communication standard that enables 1000s of dMail & dChat dApps to evolve on Web3, via TypeScript/JavaScript SDKs & White-labels, while its core Web3 primitive; one message = one L1 transaction utilises L1s security to enable immutable E2EE W2W on-chain communication; (2) develop dMail & dChat communication-specific L1; (3) contribute to the next Web3 adoption wave, and; (5) pioneer the future of encrypted, immutable and decentralized on-chain communication.

💡 More on 4thTech

UI Platform 2.0

The 4thTech UI serves as an onboarding hub accessed by the staging or white-label users via Web3 wallet (i.e. FOURwaL). It connects and hosts all the 4thTech protocols and services in one ecosystem, giving the user all-in-one access to:

• The 4thTech UX.509-to-Web3 digital identity (i.e. dID);
• multi-chain W2W E2EE data exchange (i.e. dMail);
• on-chain data verification (i.e. dNotary);

As a part of the 2.0 update, the 4thTech user client web platform codebase is being rewritten in the latest Vue 3.0. Vue is a progressive framework for building user interfaces. Unlike other monolithic frameworks, Vue is designed from the ground up to be incrementally adoptable. The core library is focused on the view layer only and is easy to pick up and integrate with other libraries or existing projects [1]. The 2.0 update also brings a modern minimalistic design style that emphasises simplicity with simple yet effective navigation and application system.

[1] https://v3.vuejs.org/guide/introduction.html

Adding Substrate Edgeware to 4thTech Multi-blockchain Support

4thTech was first deployed on Ethereum’s main chain already in 2018. With the second-chain deployment on SI-Chain (i.e. HashNet protocol) in July 2020, 4thTech established its multi-chain status. The 4thTech 2.0 update adds new protocol support and enables Polkadot interoperability in the form of Edgeware Substrate. Edgeware is a high-performance, self-upgrading WASM smart contract platform, in the Polkadot ecosystem. It is a Substrate based blockchain built using the Rust programming language. Smart contracts are written in Ink! programming language. Ink! is a Rust-based eDSL for writing Wasm smart contracts specifically for the Contracts module. It is designed for correctness, conciseness and efficiency. Due to Polkadot’s ability to bridge blockchains, 4thTech compatibility with Polkadot plays a vital role in future cross-chain interoperability. 4thTech’s Polkadot deployment enables future interaction like dMail exchange with external networks like Ethereum.

💡More on Edgeware Substrate

There are several strategic advantages to multi-blockchain application interoperability; (1) the option to choose based on the network transaction price; (2) the option to choose based on the transaction speed; (3) the option to choose based on the network governance; (4) the option to choose based on the network congestion; (5) the option to choose based on the network interoperability; (6) the option to choose based on the network immutability, and (7) the option to choose based on the network infrastructure type.

Transaction Tokenization Model

The 4thTech 2.0 introduces a new tokenization model, that allows users to execute dMail transaction payments in native chain tokens (i.e. ETH, EDG…) of the selected blockchain.

Data Repository & the 2.0 Update

A database is an organized collection of data, stored and accessed electronically. The 4thTech system contains three databases; (1) MySQL database: storing user first name, last name, tax number (i.e. the data needed for digital identity verification using X.509 digital identity certificate standard), platform settings, user wallets, RSA public key for data file encryption. MySQL database is protected with a firewall. Data exchanges are protected with an HTTPS connection. In the case of a user request, it is possible to delete any user-related data: (2) local or cloud file repository: storing encrypted data files. In the case of a user request, it is possible to delete any user-related data; (3) blockchain: storing data file URLs (links), data file content hash (SHA-256), timestamp of the sent data files, timestamp of the received data files.

4thTech utilizes advanced encryption standards (i.e. AES), with a combination of RSA encryption and Secure hash algorithm 256 (i.e. SHA 256) to secure immutable blockchain dMail exchange. The dMails and their attachments are encrypted with a symmetric algorithm (i.e. AES), as the asymmetric algorithm (i.e. RSA) is used to encrypt the symmetric key and initialization vector (i.e. IV) with the public key of the receiver. This design does not allow an attacker to infer relationships between segments of the encrypted message. We don’t keep a backup of exchange dMails so once they are deleted, it is no longer possible to download them.

Conclusion

Further update news will follow when this comprehensive update starts to roll out in Q1 2021. Disclaimer: as we are dealing with experimental technology slight delays may occur, the exact release date can not be announced.

Disclaimer

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