Researchers from several institutes worldwide recently developed Quarks, a new, decentralized messaging network based on blockchain technology. Their proposed system could overcome the limitations of most commonly used messaging platforms, allowing users to retain control over their personal data and other information they share online.
The blockchain Is not public. It can only be accessed by nodes whose members are in the channel.
I’m curious whether without a blockchain there is a solution that (a) allows users to access all their encrypted messages even if any individual server goes down, (b) preserves a record of all communications/edits, and © is resistant to record tampering by a malicious server admin.
Yeah it’s called storing things client side lol.
Also the whole point of encryption is that it can’t be tampered with by a middle man. We’ve accomplished all of that already.
Storing client side isn’t good enough, your records could be lost or destroyed. That’s why people use Gmail.
And it’s not just third parties, what about untrusted recipients? For example, how do you prove you sent someone a message on a decentralized system?
you can store things encrypted
also do you know what identity keys are? We’ve solved that decades ago with pgp keys lol
Even if it’s encrypted, it can be lost or destroyed if it’s stored client side.
I know what identity keys are, but they don’t solve the problem. If someone says they didn’t receive your message, the best way to prove you successfully sent it is to use a distributed ledger.
So, federation across channel participants, but with blockchain instead of a “shared database”?
Yes, that sounds like their goal.
Blockchain is used to prevent a malicious participant from altering/corrupting records.