Distributed File Storage using Blockchain

Abstract

As we technologically progress, it is becoming extremely common for both businesses and individuals to use cloud storage services like Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud and Amazon for storing their files. These services offer them the convenience of storing and retrieving their files from anywhere in the world using the Internet at relatively low costs, but they have introduced their own security and privacy issues because of the way these files storage systems are implemented. Most file storage services store the users’ files without properly  securing  or encrypting them. Those that do, in most cases, have full read-access to the files internally. This has raised serious privacy concerns, especially during the massive Dropbox hack in 2012 which affected more than 68 million account holders [1], and the iCloud leak in 2014 [2].In this paper, the author draws inspiration from the Blockchain distributed ledger technology, the Sia crypto currency and various file distribution protocols to explore blockchain as an alternative strategy for file storage that offers security, privacy and reliability. For implementation, we look towards the powerful BEAM Virtual Machine, offering process supervision, node distribution and a strong Actor model based message-passing system out of the box. We designed and implemented a basic prototype of the suggested strategy, and discussed the results and the challenges of the approach.

 Keywords: blockchain, encryption, compression, security, node distribution.