Idea about decentralized storage solutions

[Coleslaw]

Dear all!

In this post I want to share an idea and ask you for your opinion / comments.

So, let’s get straight into it:

Decentralized storage solutions (just like Storj, Filecoin, Siacoin and others) are the next level of cloud storage, which improves security of the stored data of conventional centralized cloud storage (Dropbox, GDrive, iCloud, etc.). The advantages of decentralized storage above centralized storage solutions are the following:

Data is fragmented and distributed to various cloud-based storage devices
- Similar to a torrent network, but this one does not use blockchain technology to ensure the integrity of the data
- Provides great reliability through this dispersion, with traditional cloud-based storage the data is usually in a data center of a provider
- Distribution to different locations ensures that the data is isolated against failures at the center level
- High privacy of the data is ensured, since no one has a complete copy of the data
- Decentralized cloud storage is particularly well-suited for companies since compliance regulations are facilitated.
- Evaluation of data not possible on the individual end device

Using decentralized storage solutions partly solves the stated issues. This happens mainly through the blockchain technology which allows sharding (splitting up data in multiple pieces) and storing these shards on multiple nodes around the world.

But this solution is not as decentralized as people think. Although Node operating requirements are very low at Storj, hosting a Node is in fact an entry barrier and mainly reserved for technical experienced people.

So, what I thought about: Launching a decentralized cloud data storage network with smartphone compatibility. There are roughly 2 billion smartphones in use every day and most of them have plenty of free storage available. So why not incentivize these smartphone users to make some of their free storage available to run such a Node on their smartphone and get rewarded for it (e.g., through issuing a native network token and rewarding nodes with it). Of course, the data coming from running the Node on your smartphone will be stored in a virtual container - separated from your private data.

For sure, there are requirements for the smartphone as well but since every 3rd person has a smartphone, the decentralization aspect of such a network would be huge and sharded data could be duplicated on other nodes, in case one node goes offline (no internet connection, battery died, demage, etc.). So the user will always have access to his data, although some nodes are offline. It's also the case that not every shard is needed to reconstruct the data (only roughly a third of all shards, that’s at least what Storj reports).

Thus, only a few disadvantages remain open:
- According to the GDPR, it must be ensured that no contact data, for example, is replicated in unauthorized applications when private data is used simultaneously with decentralized storage on the mobile device. A black/whitelist or container solution can prevent this.
- Risk with encryption: if the key is lost, the data is irretrievably lost.
- Other apps could be a gateway that can be used for malware.

So this was a short but hopefully understandable idea description. I would love to hear some feedback, let it be concerns, comments, compliments….

Thank you very much and I hope your sleeves won't slide down when washing your hands!

Kind regards!