Sensio: Development Update
Sensio: Development Update
Hi there!
Today people are spending a lot of time online, and many are worried about their digital privacy and how their data is used. Other creative people find platforms they use are not as user friendly or as inclusive as they would like. Do you fall in these categories?
Good news! At Sensio, we are building software to make the life of creative people easier and protect their work online. We work to make the multimedia market more open, fair, and transparent. We try to cover various aspects from photo editing and uploading, to selling and leasing content and equipment, all while protecting your data and privacy. It’s also worth mentioning the project is fully open-source.
Now, when you’re all caught up on the basics, let’s get down to the techy side of things and hope you can follow along!
So what are you building exactly?
We see Sensio as a digital content tool with extensive provable copyright registration and ownership of digital content and equipment. For you, as a photographer, amateur or professional, it means that you will be able to easily license and sell your creative work, rent and borrow professional equipment, and much more!
All this will be possible through the Sensio Photo application which only has a few more nuts and bolts to screw on! The real magic, however, is happening in the back-end. Sensio Network is the core that enables us to protect you and is the backbone for managing, copyrighting, leasing/selling their equipment and content safely.
Which technologies do you use?
TL;DR check it here: Sensio Development portal
We use a wide range of technologies to reach our goals, so first, we should mention Sensio is run on its own blockchain. Our blockchain was built using a substrate framework with our implementation of Sensio Protocol and Proof generation and verification. This means we custom build our platform to create an infrastructure allowing new versions of copyrights and ownership.
We want to know how digital creators work, what they need, what challenges they have with other applications, and how they think, so we can create a software that will make their life easier and secure. To do that, we defined each component of the blockchain, the workflows for copyright and ownership and finally, we implemented it into our system. So far, so good?
Let’s explain what we’ve done!
How does it work?
The process is a modified approach taken from image forensics domain combined with graph theory (everything is connected) with a touch of blockchain magic to create the verifiable statements where the same data given the same process will always produce the same proof. If you are familiar with the cryptographic hashes, you’ll recognize the approach although we don’t use a single hash, we build a document that represents the data.
Enough of the hard core talks, here is an example:
Leila is a photographer, she took a photo and wants to share it freely but still wants to hold the copyright and prove it was actually her who took the photo, so others do not profit from it.
So, with the current market, many social media platforms strip off the metadata from the photo when you upload. Others can resize it, edit the color, brightness, etc, and then it is no longer really “your photo”, as there’s an alteration that has been made. Copyright for a photo technically exists the moment it is created, but there is no real proof that it is yours making it legally challenging.
Sensio goes beyond that, solving these issues by also verifying your equipment. Once the equipment is verified, the pictures taken with that equipment will not only have a time-stamp but actual ownership verification. Lastly, we set it up so if an alteration is made, we can verify that you are the original owner of that photo.
Verification step by step process:
First, upload the photo that you took with the equipment you want to verify. The first time around we need to verify your equipment, so with the same camera and lens you used to take the uploaded photo, now you will be asked to take a picture of a QR code. Once you see the code on Sensio.Photo web app, just follow the instructions. After the QR code is verified you sign the ownership statement that will be saved on the Sensio Network forever.
Each device has its own unique identifier, so the Sensio platform can even tell two cameras or lenses apart, similar to cars’ VIN numbers. For every subsequent photo that you upload and that contains the verified camera & lens combo Sensio will generate the copyright statement which you need to sign. They will also be saved to the network and be available for verification in the case of any legal issues arising. Isn’t that nifty?! Copyright and protection on a whole new level!
We need to provide verifiable proof for incoming data, so we do that by:
- Using a Rule which is a list of operations we use to calculate pieces of the proof
- Apply the rules to the data set, (photo or camera equipment)
- Take that output and finally create a proof, creating the Proof of Existence (PoE)
Let’s get back to our example, Leila. She now uploads a photo to Sensio platform and it will create the PoE. With her equipment, she takes a picture of the QR code, verifying and claiming the ownership, what we call Proof of Camera and Lens Ownership (PoCLO).
Overall there is a double verification process. The Time Stamp verification for the photo itself, and the identity verification, that connects that specific photo to its equipment and owner. So all that Leila has to do now is claim the copyright which is as simple as signing the generated statement (Proof of Copyright — PoCR). You can visualize the process in the figure below. This not only allows her to sell/lease her digital content and equipment, but we can also identify that this was the original photo no matter how it was rendered or used later on. Now Leila can be worry-free about posting because they cannot steal her digital content!
What else have we done at Sensio?
Well, we have been taking care of the connectivity aspects that are missing. Many photographers like to edit their photos predominantly using Lightroom, and we are pleased to announce that we created a Lightroom Classic plugin, so now if you edit your photo on Lightroom after publishing it to Sensio then share it on social media, it will automatically update to the edited version of the photo!
We still have a ways to go, so our next steps are:
- Finish working on our SDK so developers can be creative and connect to the Sensio.Network with minimal effort (currently Javascript and Typescript)
- Finalize the protocol and algorithm that powers Sensio Network
- Implement the missing operations that are essential in Rule and Proof creation
- Finish the beta version of Sensio.Photo web app, it’s functional but there are some little elements and components we need to finish working on.
We expect to have a beta version to try out in November (would you like to be the first one to try it out? Subscribe to our Newsletter or get in touch! )
I am glad you stayed tuned! I know that was a lot of information, but we are constantly working on simplifying the process and making it more user friendly!
If you have any comments, concerns, wishes, ideas then feel free to drop us a message or follow us to stay tuned!
