The Use Of Blockchain to Improve Document Encryption and Management.

In a digital world, as more and more of our private, personal, and sensitive information are being stored and transmitted online, the issues surrounding the protection of digital data, such as those in a database from prying eyes and unwanted actions of unauthorised users can no longer be ignored.

Established corporations, the likes of Target Corp, Adobe, and Lazada have had major data breaches over the last few years affecting tens of millions of users. Although the types of breaches are different, the financial and technical impacts are always the same.

One thing is clear. The existing document security and monitoring measures are not perfectly sufficient. It brings us to the question: What can organisations and individuals do to keep data secure and the users in control of their own data?

Basic Encryption Won’t Ever Succeed, Here’s Why:

The existing symmetric encryption technology feature minor yet noticeable gaps when it comes to possible incidences at the point of cloud connectivity, namely leakages, insider access to the storage, or data transfer interventions. This happens for reasons related to both the solution and the users.

A User Problem?

When encrypting documents with own passwords, users tend to set weak ones or repeat them, because remembering many complex passwords is impossible. Later, to give access to someone else, these passwords are sent via unprotected channels, such as messaging apps or email.

Is This Also The Provider‘s Fault?

On the other hand, when data is encrypted in the cloud, it happens on the server side, which exposes the information to service providers. In most cases, it is stored in the encrypted form only at REST (when it is not used) and is then decrypted before any operation with this data is performed.

Organisations have recently come to the realisation that they are missing an important piece of infrastructure technology for the dissemination of documents that would protect the data end-to-end and keep it encrypted throughout its whole existence, while remaining understandable to non-technical trained internal members and completely user-friendly and trusted by it’s users.

Using Blockchain for End-to-End Encryption of Documents.

Blockchain technology has been one of the major technological discoveries of this century. Bitcoin — A household name and the first Blockchain application to ever exist, allows a network of users to perform transactions without needing the trust of anyone on the network, or a third party. In the Bitcoin Blockchain every onchain data is encrypted, and nobody can tamper with the records without everyone else noticing immediately.

Applying the same principle to digital documents, there are several ways that a Blockchain can be used in a distributed document management software. What Caliber Technology has done is apply a highly secure form of encryption called public key encryption to digital files (e.g., PDF) so that only the sender and intended recipient can access it. The use of public key encryption is important because it enables the sender and receiver of the information to have full control over the data without having to give up any personal information like names or email addresses to trusted third parties.

Using a blockchain as a communication medium have various advantages:

1. Instead of handing your raw and unencrypted documents to a company like Amazon or Microsoft, you distribute it across a network of people all over the world so that nobody can read or tamper with anyone else’s sensitive data.
2. Should there be any changes to the document, a new block is added and the revised document is synchronized throughout the network within 10 seconds. As more changes are made, new blocks are added, forming a chain. In the same way, the blockchain is both an audit trail and a version tracking system. Each block represents an earlier version of the document, enabling anyone to backtrack to see what was changed.

The key value of end-to-end encryption technology in document management platform created by Caliber Technology lays in the use of a hybrid data storage vis-a-vis fully decentralised storage which makes the solution flexible and justifiable for use by both organisations and individual users. While the documents are encrypted with Curve25519 algorithm, the keys are safely stored and documents signed locally, driving out the need to sacrifice cloud sharing and collaboration in the name of safety.

How does the platform work?

The platform is composed of a set of application programming interface (API) that allows developer access to the Coalculus blockchain Proof-of-stake consensus and embeds various services such as document encryption and decryption on the local device and works across third-party applications such as roundcube and gmail. The platform encrypt documents individually and locally on the PC. They’ll remain encrypted even when transferred to a shared folder or the cloud. This allows the user to share or send encrypted documents so only the intended users can read them.

Caliber Technologies intend to use this document platform to help organisations, as well as governments, to keep sensitive documents safe and secure. Caliber software experts have presented to the Coalculus Team a brief technical roadmap for the gradual rollout of the project — tentatively named encrypted blockchain mailing address (eBmA).

A quick look at the eBmA Roadmap:

Jan 2021:
Launched eBmA Enterprise Chain

Mar 2021:
Launch eBmA Registration Portal

Apr 2021:
Launch eBmA Mobile App

May 2021:
Launch eBmA encryption Web App

Aug 2021:
Launch eBmA platform for users to Send and Received encrypted PDF Files

Nov 2021:
Launch Roundcube Webmail Integration with eBmA Web App

Feb 2022:
Launch Digital Signature

May 2022:
Launch Digital Certificate

Aug 2022:
Launch eBmA Add-on for Gmail

Nov 2022:
Launch eBmA Add-in for Outlook

We look forward to witnessing the transformation of the eBmA encrypted document ecosystem as the project progresses. Write to us to let us know your comments about this article.

About Caliber Technologies

Caliber Technology is an established software development company for 20 years providing comprehensive advisory and product development with an expert team of business-oriented and experienced professionals who can work as your external CTOs. It makes your product development quicker, more sustainable and you don’t need to invest time and assets on building an in-house tech team.

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Thank you and best regards,
Team Coalculus
March 31, 2021