Data sovereignty isĀ the idea that all types of data are subject to the laws and governance structures of the nation or state where it is collected.
Sovereign data could practically change the internet. Digital sovereignty hasĀ to do with individual people owning and profiting from their data.
Usually, through corporations that profit off data, sensitive user information is taken without consent and sold for profit.
When we think about the internet, we think about applications that run on data and have databases, feeds, and user tables to store all types of data.
The majority of the information on the internet is on specific database servers (usually different for different applications) that are designed to protect data and host it as what is often called a āproprietary resourceā. These databases basically act as trusted middlemen
The web has rapidly evolved into a more open-source, composable, and collaborative ecosystem (seen by the trend ofĀ open source softwareĀ made possible by Git's distributed version control - I wrote on this a few days ago here). The same principles of open source have not yet been applied to content and data.
Open-source principles can be applied to content to allow data to be shared with organizations and across different applications. Getting to this stage of open-source content transfer means that flexibility, scalability, and composability have to be of the highest value.
Open sourcing the content layer for applications means that it needs to be deployed to a public environment where files can be stored and states can be tracked. Of course, others should also be able to easily access this content.
Many Web3 protocols have made waves in decentralized file storage. As a universal file system for the decentralized web,Ā IPFS is extremely flexible with naming and routing. For storage disks, durable persistence networks like Filecoin and Arweave ensures that the content represented in IPFS files is kept available
These Web3 protocols perform well for storing static files, but on their own they donāt have the computation and state management capacity for more advanced database-like features like mutability, version control, access control, and programmable logic.
CeramicĀ is a cool project that allows static files to be composed into higher-order mutable data structures. They can be programmed to behave in any way. And itās resulting state is stored and replicated across nodes.
Its design lets people create and build on existing data without needing to trust a centralized server, integrate one-off APIs, or have concerns about the state information being incorrect.
Ceramic smart documents move beyond databases and static files - they literally turn files into dynamic objects and provide a permalink that never changes yet itās able to give verifiable versions and allow users to update the files permissionlessly.
Each individual file can have programmable logic and a capability set to allow you to define the rules that govern what constitutes a new version or an update.
Ceramic is really fascinating to me because it signals a shift in how we can change, build on and interact with on-chain applications. This opens up the possibilities to unlimited collaboration and composability which takes the open-source movement to a new level where we can literally change and build on on chain data in a secure way.
Learn more š
ceramic
building on ceramic
eth denver ceramic
Iām trying to build a writing habit by writing here every day about things I learn in web3, blockchain, crypto, etc. If you find errors in my understanding or would just like to talk, it would be most appreciated if youād reach out @_anyasingh