Research pick: Photo-sharing blockchain - "A photo-sharing social network based on blockchain technology"

A new photo-sharing social network based on the blockchain could enhance the authenticity and credibility of data as well as precluding data tampering, according to research published in the International Journal of Technology Management.

Blockchain is the technology that famously underpins digital cryptocurrencies. Fundamentally, the blockchain is simply a ledger, a digital record of transactions. It is an open system that does not require a trusted third party as all transactions are logged in an immutable distributed public ledger that requires no central repository of data, it is entirely decentralized.

Jiang Duan, Li Kang, and Zhi Chen of The Blockchain Research Center of China at the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in Chengdu and Tao Peng and Yifeng Wang Chengdu 9Broad Technology Co. Ltd also in Chengdu, suggest that some people are reluctant still to adopt certain social networking and social media technologies because of privacy and provenance concerns. They have developed a blockchain approach that addresses many of these concerns.

Given how many people billions of people currently use social networks and how many more might if given improved security and privacy there is obvious pressure for the development of such technology. There are an estimated 5 billion accounts on the well-known centralized social networks at the moment, which represents connectivity among a large proportion of the world’s population.

The team’s new blockchain consensus algorithm supports fast and frequent transactions and improves efficiency in a way that was not possible previously. Moreover, it is highly scalable and so should cope well with the vast numbers of potential users that are online. The system allows a user to claim and control ownership of their images and to putatively be rewarded financially for their use.

Duan, J., Kang, L., Chen, Z., Peng, T. and Wang, Y. (2020) ‘A photo-sharing social network based on blockchain technology’, Int. J. Technology Management, Vol. 84, Nos. 1/2, pp.70–85.