A Trustworthy Decentralized Internet: An Application of Blockchain

Abstract

The Internet was created as a decentralized and autonomous system of interconnected computer networks used for data exchange across mutually trusted participants. The element technologies on the Internet, such as inter-domain and intra-domain routing and DNS, operated in a distributed manner.  With the development of the Web, the Web has become indispensable in daily life. The existing web applications allow us to form online communities, generate private information, access big data, shop online, pay bills, post photos or videos, and even order groceries. This is what has led to centralization of the Web. This centralization is now controlled by the giant social media platforms that provide it as a service, but the original Internet was not like this. These giant companies realized that the decentralized network’s huge value involves gathering, organizing, and monetizing information through centralized web applications. The centralized Web applications have heralded some major issues, which will likely worsen shortly. This study focuses on these problems and investigates block chain’s potentials for decentralized web architecture capable of improving conventional web services critical features, including autonomous, robust, and secure decentralized processing and traceable trustworthiness in tamper-proof transactions. Finally, we review the decentralized web architecture that circumvents the main Internet gatekeepers and controls our data back from the giant social media companies.