Decentralized technology is a decentralization of power”
The network has more and more weight in our daily lives. For people socialized in digital environments, day-to-day life is not understood outside the internet, mobile applications, streaming or instant messaging services. In this context, preserving one’s own data, the digital identity of each person, becomes increasingly complicated. Data, Uniswap clone as sovereign digital identity expert Àlex Puig explains , is a commodity, but it shouldn’t be.
The CTO of Caelum Labs proposes, in this sense, a model based on the blockchain of decentralized management of data — from users, but also from companies of all sizes and public administration. A model, in short, in which only each user, each organization and entity, has access to their own identity, based on collective, open, auditable and public service technologies. “You don’t have to think so much about profit,” says Puig, “as about solving problems.”
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How does your decentralized identity proposal operate?
It is necessary to understand, to begin with, that nobody knows very well what we mean by identity. When we talk about digital identity, in fact, we have about 80 — or none, in fact, because we don’t control them! What we have proposed is, in reality, to create local ecosystems. We give digital identity in a controlled way to each user within an ecosystem, each with its own blockchain. Each user controls their own data. From here, it is easy to generate a wallet system where each user has tokens to demonstrate, without giving any data, that they have access to many services — and among them they have no idea, because it is the user who absolutely controls their identity.
The idea, in short, is to create an internet in which instead of data traveling, programs travel. If I ask for insurance, the company asks me for some data, I send all the data, analyze it, and tell me yes or no. They analyze us from top to bottom. In our proposal, the insurer sends us a certified program that runs on my phone with my data — all my data. And my data does not come out of this application, it only comes out yes or no. In this case, the insurer never receives my data, only the answer as to whether the data fits or not.
Do the possibilities offered by advances such as decentralized technology make us need greater digital security?
When you deal with a centralized unit, you contact a server and there is only one layer of security, which is yours with the server. This layer, already now, is not being done quite well. With decentralized technologies, this security layer that we are no longer doing well is still necessary, the difference is that now there are more players involved. Therefore, this layer of security and privacy has to be shared, that is, you need standards. Everyone needs to work in the same language.
Yes, new forms of security are needed, but with traditional systems it is still not a solved problem. Even today we have many security problems. Technology is advancing much faster than most large companies are capable of assuming. In fact, when I look at the identification systems of most companies, they are completely obsolete. Even in banking.
Blockchain technology is already working on it. When I have a token , for example, I can use it with any company, for any product. The point is that security falls on the user, because he is the one who has the information, not the company. The user has to learn to protect his information, because many times the company, for its part, overprotects it to the detriment of the usability of the applications. This has to change. decentralized exchange script is the best option when it comes to security.
What responsibility do administrations have in this lack of awareness regarding digital security?
A lot. In fact, the public administration also does not have anywhere near the best technology available, but they will not comment on it because they will not throw stones at their own roof. The new ID, for example, uses the same chip as the one on Estonian identification documents. When the system had a security breach, there was a real national drama, and the prime minister had to go out and explain. We don’t even know here. We have a cultural problem here.
“Decentralization is the best option in terms of security”
It is also true that the cost of adapting companies and institutions to new technologies is very high, because they have a lot of obsolete technology. In fact, we estimate that more than half of the technology in a large bank today is more than 30 years old. And, furthermore, the technicians who are dedicated to these technologies, do not want to work with a bank — not because we hate them, despite the fact that many do, but because they work with technologies that are so obsolete that we would get bored. They leave no room for innovation. decentralized exchange development Big organizations are always too late. Less Facebook, which is evil.
Could the technological advances that today are produced outside these large organizations eventually drag them to renew themselves?
10 years ago I would have told you yes, but right now I have a hard time seeing it. In large companies, large organizations, even the administration, there is a lack of common strategic objectives. Each department, each part of the institution, goes to its own. There is no awareness of joint improvement. And it’s a shame, because you could work with open software, in which the improvements could be applied to everyone, very accessible, auditable. But this does not happen.