Source: Phala Trusted Network
Phala gets another Grant! Phala’s pilot product Web3 Analytics[1] (W3A) has been awarded a Web3 Foundation award, the second Web3 Foundation award for the Phala team.
W3A is the first decentralized data analysis tool that utilizes Phala confidential Smart contracts to isolate data collection and analysis, thereby addressing the root causes of leaks and abuses caused by poor data migration and storage. W3A beta Demo has been released, you can get the beta link immediately by replying to W3A at Phala Trusted Network.
What problem is W3A trying to solve?
While more and more developers and eco-builders are jumping on the Web3 bandwagon, we seem to have overlooked the fact that we are still designing and developing products using the data analytics tools of the Web2 era. Every day, we are fueling an industry of data collection and data trafficking by choice.
In an August 2019 article titled “Corporate Pain: The Huge Aftermath of Data Breaches” [2], the authors noted that once a data breach occurs (and is made public), a company spends an average of $3.92 million on PUBLIC relations and related aftermath. Logically, the money should go to all users who were exposed; But the number of users receiving compensation is a fraction of the number of leaks.
“The scale and impact of data breaches can no longer be explained simply by ‘poor storage’ — they are already out of control.”
— Statistics on Network Security, Data Leakage and Economic Loss in bank Card Industry [3]
Data is property. It should be like property that can be licensed, inherited, traceable and leased, not collected for free and taken for granted.
W3A: Black box for data analysis
W3A is a decentralized version of Google Analytics, designed to give users full control over their data and authorization. W3A integrates web privacy performance checks, custom data analytics, custom analytics panels and other features that can be accessed with just a dozen lines of code. Based on Phala’s TEE[4] confidential smart contract, W3A can isolate the process of data collection and data analysis and only output the analysis results to the authorized third party, fundamentally solving the problems of disclosure and abuse caused by data migration and data hosting.
In W3A, user data is encrypted end-to-end between the back end and the client. The encrypted data is stored in a decentralized storage network, and the decryption key is held only by the smart contract and the user. This also means that users can undo or delete data they don’t want uploaded at any time.
User raw data can only be read by smart contract, and will not be transmitted to TEE without permission. At the same time, the analysis results performed according to the algorithm are output to the data analysis panel, thus achieving “data analysis without leakage.”
Once a data lease agreement is created (provider and user), the blockchain automatically records the agreement and its fees, and the provider can see its revenue in real time.
To sum up, W3A has the following characteristics:
- Automated, customized, two-end data analysis and event detection
- The developer side has its own visual data analysis panel
- Decentralized data management terminal, users have 100% data control
- Built-in data rental market, data can be monetized
“In a nutshell, we are addressing the issue of decentralized and off-chain management of user data.”
— Lin Tung, CEO of Phala
Data rental market
Data rental plaza is one of the main features of W3A. Here, you can rent other people’s data or rent your own data to others. The former consumes PHA, the latter earns PHA. As a user, you can upload algorithms for custom data analysis and use purposes.
There are only 4 steps to complete a data lease transaction:
- Data users upload code explaining how they will use the data. W3A will translate the developer’s code in readable statements to the data provider.
- The data provider authorizes and agrees to “lend” its data to the user.
- Authorized data and algorithms are executed within TEE.
- TEE relayed the analysis results. The consumer receives the analysis results and the data provider receives the PHA. The lease is closed.
Development plan
Development of W3A began in Q1 2020. Over the past six months, the Phala team has achieved:
- Secure Data Encryption SDK[5]
- Smart Contract for User Data Privacy Protection [6]
- A number of positions
These features can be implemented and played millions of times faster than MPC (Multi-Party Secure Computing) solutions.
Over the next three months, the Phala team will continue to refine product features and prepare for a public beta. Early W3A developers will receive substantial PHA rewards as a welcome to the Trusted world of Web3. :p
Polkadot Ecology and W3A
Phala’s confidential smart contract, developed based on Substrate[7], naturally supports cross-chain and has good interoperability.
The Phala team has been in close contact with the Polkadot team:
Phala received her first prize from the Web3 Foundation in September 2019;
Phala attended the Sub0.1 Substrate Developer Conference in Berlin in December 2019.
In January 2020, Phala became one of the first to join Substrate Builders;
…
Substrate is built with many convenient modules, such as network, consensus, storage, mempool, etc. This allowed Phala to focus more on its own product, rather than building complex and tedious development from scratch. We hope Phala’s confidential smart contracts will benefit the entire Web 3 ecosystem, while Polkadot’s XCMP, SPREE and other interoperability technologies are clearly indispensable. Substrate engineers have given Phala a lot of support in setting up the light validation client in TEE. Thank them. 🙂
Phala will participate in the Kusama[8] slot auction and become one of the Kusama parallel chains when the mainnet is launched. Phala will demonstrate the value of Polkadot cross-chain technology at Kusama.
In the near future, Phala will also become Polkdot parallel chain, a privacy protection infrastructure in the Web3 era, radiating more and broader blockchain ecosystem with excellent computing power performance of contract-level parallelization.
About Phala
Phala Network is a parallel chain of privacy computing on Boca. Based on the poW-like economic incentive mode, it releases the privacy computing power of numerous cpus to apply to boca parallel chain, and then serves Defi, data service and other applications on Boca. Phala based apps pLibra and Web3 Analytics have received Web3 Foundation awards. In March 2020, Phala became one of the first projects to join the Substrate Builders Program. In July 2020, Phala was named “New Raw power of Privacy Computing” by the computing power think tank.
Reference
[1] Web3 Analytics: W3a.phala.network
[2] the pain of enterprise: data leak problems arising from the huge cost “: www.pandasecurity.com/mediacenter…
[3] the network security, data breaches in the bank card industry and economic loss statistics: digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcon…
[4] the TEE: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truste…
[5] Secure data encryption SDK: github.com/Phala-Netwo…
[6] Smart Contract for User Data Privacy Protection: github.com/Phala-Netwo…
[7] Substrate: substrate.io/
[8] Kusama: kusama.network/