As far as the Internet is concerned one of the most significant hot-button issues has got to be the issue of privacy and restrictions. Currently, everyone seems to have an opinion over the prospect of providing restrictions and keeping other people from having access to some portions of the Internet-technology which, ideally, should have been for us all.
While some people believe that censorship is the best way to ensure that a lot of people don’t get exposed to the Dark Web and all the dangers that it holds, there are those who see censorship as a different form of control.
Those who make up the latter group believe that by giving governments the access and ability to censor parts of the Internet, they can systematically control what people see and how their opinions are held.
Keep in mind that the Internet has grown from being something that we all used to get ideas and opinions to being a technology that now has some far-reaching effects on our society and the world at large.
Although proponents of the censorship belief are strong on their case, those who believe that it should be disallowed can actually point to certain areas of the world to show just how governments and central authorities use their power and lord their superiority over their citizens.
Take a country like China for example; the Communist Party has done its fair share to control what people see and believe over the Internet, with most of the country’s media outlets not being controlled by the state.
Now, there are threats that the Party could control the access that people have to the Internet as well.
Of course, China isn’t the only one. The United Nations has ruled that freedom of online access is a basic human right, but a lot of authoritarian governments would definitely not have that.
To be fair, this censorship culture has spilled from being just about governments to becoming a huge part of the popular business culture now.
There are several apps that are being shielded from people based on their locations and IP addresses, as most of the app manufacturers chose to restrict access for some reason or the other.
Netflix, Spotify, Tidal, and a host of other popular apps are selectively available (if available at all) to a lot of countries on the African continent, and the list goes on and on.
VPNs and the needs of the information age
Essentially, this was why Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) were created. The technology was created in the 1990s, just in time for the dot com boom of the early 2000s.
As expected, the increase in the ubiquity of the Internet and the increasing interconnectivity of the world has led to a sharp increase in the adoption of VPNs.
Several people will prefer to have easy access to several other countries and the type of content that their Internet-using counterparts get, and due to that, VPNs have exploded in adoption.
Currently, analysts have forecasted that the market for VPNs should be valued at $35.7 billion by the end of 2022. For a technology that was just built a little over 20 years ago, this is definitely not bad at all.
Sadly, just as it is with pretty much every form of technology, VPNs have also been plagued with a lot of issues concerning their propensity to become centralized. The most significant of these issues is the fact that data could be logged as it passes through a VPN tunnel. People get VPNs to conceal their identities and access restricted parts of the Internet, but when their data begins to run across VPN tunnels, there is a probability of administrators getting through information to give away the identity and location of users. When this happens, you might as well just log on to the restricted platform with your location all open.
In addition to that, centralized VPNs have also started to suffer from the same information lapses that some of the big tech companies are beginning to suffer. With these networks, it is possible that personal information gets stolen and sold to third parties, thus exposing your data to people you never wanted to have it. An inadvertent VPN leak could also expose your DNS name and IP address.
Tachyon: applying blockchain technology to security
At this point, it is becoming clearer and clearer that censorship-resistance will only be ensured when the Internet users are left to control their own data and what they do with it. For this reason, many have touted the possibility of enabling the World Wide Web with blockchain technology.
In the world of benefits that blockchain technology brings, security has to be one of the most significant. The concept of decentralization makes this possible, so no single party controls everything that has to do with the network. This way, you get to decide what will be done with your data and how it will be used; not centralized Internet companies, and in a way, not even the VPNs
This is why Tachyon is stepping in. the blockchain protocol has been building a lot of hype these days, and for the very best of reasons; it is fast, stable, and decentralized, essentially being able to bring us one step closer to the perfect Internet; one where data is in the hands of the users.
The designers of this protocol are of the belief that the Internet protocol is one of the major contributors to the present issues of centralized VPN systems. So, they have gone on to restructure the entire TCP/IP protocol stack. Essentially, Tachyon is able to solve a wide array of problems; those which have currently plagued the centralized VPN services, and those which currently face the TCP/IP structure of the Internet.
With the right speed and scalability, the Tachyon protocol is able to help ensure the right type of privacy and censorship-resistance, while also providing support for the new form of Internet and its applications.
Tachyon combined Point-to-Point Protocol and blockchain technology to enhance the collaboration between Peer-to-peer networks. This means that there is absolutely no need for a central server, and thanks to the concept of decentralization, true censorship-resistance can be achieved.
Tachyon also ensures security, thanks to the use of the Tachyon Security Protocol. This protocol combines several hash algorithms to ensure that communication channels stay optimal. The network also stimulates communication protocols, thus concealing real data and preventing unwanted leaks.
Finally, the Tachyon protocol is in the process of implementing an open peer-to-peer network that will allow nodes to provide services to each other. The protocol already has a native currency- the IPX token- that runs on the V SYSTEMS blockchain.