Centralized knowledge networks, ones which can be owned and/or managed by a single entity, have been structurally damaged for years. Why? Single factors of failure. If one entity (or perhaps a few) has entry to a database, then there is just one “level” to compromise to be able to acquire full entry. This can be a significant issue for networks holding delicate knowledge like buyer info, authorities recordsdata, and monetary data, and people with management of infrastructure like energy grids.
Billions of digital data have been stolen in 2024 alone, inflicting an estimated $10 trillion in damages! Notable breaches embrace nearly all of AT&T’s customer information and call logs, half of America’s personal health information, 700 million end-user records from companies using Snowflake, 10 billion unique passwords stored on RockYou24, and Social Security records for 300 million Americans.
Supply: Statista, 2024
This isn’t only a non-public sector situation — governments and essential nationwide infrastructure additionally depend on centralized networks. Notable latest breaches embrace records on 22 million Americans stolen from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, sensitive government communications from multiple U.S. federal agencies, personal biometric data on 1.1 billion Indian citizens, and the ongoing Chinese infiltration of several U.S. internet service providers.
Though a whole bunch of billions of {dollars} are spent every year on cyber safety, knowledge breaches are getting bigger and taking place extra incessantly. It’s grow to be clear that incremental merchandise can not repair these community vulnerabilities — the infrastructure have to be fully rearchitected.
Supply: market.us, 2024
AI magnifies the problem
Current developments in generative AI have made it simpler to automate on a regular basis duties and improve work productiveness. However probably the most helpful and invaluable AI functions require context, i.e. entry to delicate person well being, monetary, and private info. As a result of these AI fashions additionally require large computing energy, they largely can’t run on shopper units (laptop, cell), and as a substitute should entry public cloud networks, like AWS, to course of extra complicated inference requests. Given the intense limitations inherent in centralized networks illustrated earlier, the lack to securely join delicate person knowledge with cloud AI has grow to be a major hurdle for adoption.
Even Apple pointed this out throughout their announcement for Apple Intelligence earlier this yr, stating the necessity to have the ability to enlist assist from bigger, extra complicated fashions within the cloud and how the traditional cloud model isn’t viable anymore.
They title three particular causes:
- Privateness and safety verification: Suppliers’ claims, like not logging person knowledge, typically lack transparency and enforcement. Service updates or infrastructure troubleshooting can inadvertently log delicate knowledge.
- Runtime lacks transparency: Suppliers not often disclose software program particulars, and customers can not confirm if the service runs unmodified or detect adjustments, even with open-source instruments.
- Single level of failure: Directors require high-level entry for upkeep, risking unintended knowledge publicity or abuse by attackers concentrating on these privileged interfaces.
Thankfully, Web3 cloud platforms provide the proper answer.
Blockchain-Orchestrated Confidential Cloud (BOCC)
BOCC networks are like AWS — besides constructed fully on confidential {hardware} and ruled by sensible contracts. Although nonetheless early days, this infrastructure has been in growth for years and is lastly beginning to onboard Web3 tasks and Web2 enterprise prospects. The perfect instance of this structure is Super Protocol, an off-chain enterprise-grade cloud platform managed fully by on-chain sensible contracts and constructed on trustless execution environments (TEEs). These are safe {hardware} enclaves that maintain code and knowledge verifiably confidential and safe.
Supply: Super Protocol
The implications of this expertise tackle all of Apple’s issues famous earlier:
- Privateness and safety verification: With public sensible contracts orchestrating the community, customers can confirm whether or not person knowledge was transported and used as promised.
- Workload and program transparency: The community additionally verifies the work achieved throughout the confidential TEEs, cryptographically proving the right {hardware}, knowledge, and software program have been used, and that the output wasn’t tampered with. This info can also be submitted on-chain for all to audit.
- Single level of failure: Community sources (knowledge, software program, {hardware}) are solely accessible by the proprietor’s non-public key. Subsequently, even when one person is compromised, solely that person’s sources are in danger.
Whereas cloud AI represents an infinite alternative for Web3 to disrupt, BOCCs will be utilized to any kind of centralized knowledge community (energy grid, digital voting infrastructure, army IT, and so on.), to supply superior and verifiable privateness and safety, with out sacrificing efficiency or latency. Our digital infrastructure has by no means been extra weak, however blockchain-orchestration can repair it.
