Ruby Protocol — A Cross-Chain Privacy-Centric Data Monetization Framework
Data is the New Oil
Data is the new oil. Every day we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data. 90 percent of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone — and with new devices, sensors and technologies emerging, the data growth rate will likely accelerate even more. All this data would have value for many parties and can be further monetized.
However, the existing internet economic model relies almost exclusively on the monetization of personal data.
The recent scandals involving internet companies mishandling individual data, such as Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, have prompted many individuals to awaken to the fact that in the current internet economy they are the product. With this awareness, many individuals today feel the need to regain control over their data. In fact, we might argue that the recently published privacy regulations, such as GDPR or CCPA, are actually in response to this necessity.
What is Ruby Protocol?
Ruby Protocol is the Privacy-centric Data Monetization Framework for DeFi and Web3.0 Powered by Polkadot.
Ruby Protocol is a data monetization framework based on functional encryption powered by Polkadot. It designs and implements a fine-grained data monetization framework serving as a privacy layer interacting with smart contract platforms. It enables end-to-end encrypted data monetization on public blockchains (e.g. Ethereum, Polkadot) and decentralized data solutions (e.g. IPFS).
The access control policy will be built into the substrate module, and the data monetization transaction will also execute via the Substrate module, which is why this solution is defined as a second-layer/middleware protocol.
How Ruby Protocol Works?
Ruby will design and implement a fine-grained personal data monetization framework, which would serve as a second-layer/middleware protocol interacting with the substrate module. The framework will enable a data owner to enforce a fine-grained access control policy over his/her encrypted private data using functional encryption, and share predefined computation results over the private data with a data purchaser in exchange for economic compensation. The access control policy will be built into the substrate module, and the data monetization transaction will also execute via the Substrate module, which is why this solution is defined as a second-layer/middleware protocol.
The vision of Ruby Network is to achieve a fine-grained user data transaction market. The design of the marketplace needs to realize Fairness, Transparency, Privacy, Security and Regulation. Ruby Data Marketplace structure mainly contains the following 5 parts:
- Functional Encryption: All users’ data will be stored and calculated in Ruby’s fine-grained functional encryption algorithm.
- Data Marketplace: We must propose a solution on how all entities will be involved in the data transactions and deal-making process.
- Data Copyright Protection: In order to make sure the data marketplace is effective, we have to build a data copyright protection mechanism to help ensure the copyright of data owners.
- Data Pricing Model: Data is a unique commodity and how to help data owners make a reasonable pricing and monetization strategy is also important.
- Review System: We want to build a review system to help owners make better choices when buying data from data owners.
Why is Ruby Protocol?
In the Web3.0 Technical Stack Overview below, Ruby lies in the Privacy Layer of Middleware Stack, between Query Layer and Data Storage Layer. Ruby proposes a Fine-Grained Data Marketplace by leveraging the functional encryption algorithm, and users could use any Web3.0 end-user client, like Metamask, to interact with Ruby Data Marketplace.
All the data of users are safely encrypted and stored on the Data storage layer like IPFS. Therefore, Ruby could also be seen as a layer 2 privacy solution for Data Marketplace.
- We propose a novel watermarking technique and Functional Encryption methodology to build a big data marketplace by leveraging the power of blockchain technology and smart contracts, on top of existing watermarking techniques, at a fine-grained level. The proposed system permits crucial operations in big data scenarios, including data collection, aggregation, storage, selling, and purchasing.
- We devise an access control mechanism to ensure that legitimate buyers, on receiving data-seller’s permission, can get access to the target data-piece.
- We introduce a payment system, which will allow data trading between sellers and buyers on a big data marketplace. A review mechanism, with incentivization to buyers, is also put in place to attract more sellers and buyers in the system, and to motivate them to behave honestly.
- We show in detail how our approach overcomes the present challenges in big data watermarking settings, and allows a transparent immutable audit trail for data movement in the big data marketplace.
- Finally, we propose a fine-grained access control policy that will be built into the Substrate module, and the data monetization transaction will also be executed via the Substrate module.
The Competitive Edge
Data privacy is always high on the agenda when it comes to the Crypto community. Since 2015, different projects have been working to improve that in three directions:
- Anonymous currency, represented by Zcash, Monero, etc. They mainly meet the needs of anonymous payment.
- The privacy projects for crypto payment and transactions, represented by Tornado, zkSync, Starkware, Raze Network, etc. They mainly meet the privacy needs of smart contracts.
- Data-based privacy computing projects, represented by Ruby Network, Oasis, and PlatON. They mainly meet the privacy computing needs of the data transaction market.
By comparison, Ruby’s main differentiated advantage lies in proposing a privacy computing solution based on user data attributes for Functional Encryption computing.
Users can have fine-grained control of their data so that data buyers can obtain the computing results while the user’s specific data content remains private.
We are here to build a safe, private, secure and connected environment where you can monetize your data with ease.
References:
- https://docsend.com/view/bby2zmdj2b86yue9
- https://wiki.ruby.io/
- http://cryptowiki.net/index.php?title=Functional_encryption
- https://techjury.net/blog/how-much-data-is-created-every-day/
