Media Foundation & Solow: Decentralized Web Stack is underway
Today, we’re excited to share that we’ve partnered with Solow to help us in our mission to democratize Web Services. We’re experiencing a new paradigm shift since blockchain technology and decentralized organizations bring new job opportunities and boost innovations. And empowered communities are the main drivers of this change.
In Latin America, a significant community triggering this shift is Solow. They are committed to training people, creating job opportunities, and educating hundreds on topics like Bitcoin, Ethereum, stablecoins, finances, blockchain, and more.
In this sense, we believe Solow is the ideal framework for teaching & discussing Web3 infrastructure and web decentralization.
In one of the last conversations with Solow's community, we introduced several notions related to the field of the CDNs, such as their meaning, functionality, and powerful impact on the ecosystem. You can read the full interview here.
– What is a content delivery network (CDN), and why is it needed?
Users who consume content on the internet are constantly –and without noticing– interacting with a CDN. What is a CDN? In simple words, a CDN is the last-mile delivery of the internet. For example, when people consume “.jpgs” from a browser, they give an order to the content distribution network.
When the CDN receives the request, it sends that “.jpg” file from the closest node according to its location. Finally, the “.jpg” loads in the browser.
The CDN looks for the user’s request in the closest node to his location, making the download and response time faster. A CDN aims at speeding up web applications and APIs to ensure a flawless user experience.
In the early Internet days, this technology was not available. As a result, the users suffered from bad latency, resulting in poor and limited experiences as they had no choice but to request the content directly from far away servers.
As time went by, CDNs started to gain significant popularity and, eventually, new developments –which nowadays are unquestionably part of user experience.
I experienced this revolution first-hand as I started using the Internet in 1995 and witnessed the stack’s evolution. To this day, such an event still seems incredible to me.
– What types of CDNs are currently being used?
Nowadays, it is widespread to see this service provided by centralized companies, which have complete power over everything we interact with through browsers.
Crypto projects’ front-ends, websites, and APIs are accelerated with centralized CDNs. This is a considerable risk because the stack depends on large corporations & centralized entities.
Media Network offers the same acceleration services but uses the blockchain to prevent dangers, such as deplatforming or social engineering attacks. Anyone can implement Media’s Legacy dCDN; it’s permissionless, and no KYC is needed.
– What is the benefit of using a dCDN over a CDN?
Centralized CDN providers have tech support agents and customer service individuals who can access accounts and tamper with the resources.
Additionally, developers with poor OpSec can jeopardize a project as hackers could gain access to their devices or even fool these support agents with social engineering attacks.
Once they’re in, they can change the information of a project’s front ends or APIs. They can create a fake front end to redirect users to a different smart contract and steal their funds. Users do not know this is a malicious front end; once they connect their wallet, all their money is gone.
Crypto projects’ front-ends, websites, and APIs are accelerated with centralized CDNs. This is a considerable risk because the stack depends on large corporations & centralized entities.
Above that, compromised accounts can also include revealing personal and payment information (KYC).
If these companies (or sometimes 3rd party KYC vendors) get hacked, all this data can easily be leaked and sold. This is especially dangerous for crypto-related people holding their private keys.
Lastly, we know that governments or centralized providers can flag websites or applications as a “threat” to the traditional system and shut them down without prior notice.
There is always a risk of potential deplatforming as the board of directors, the company, or court orders can take down any resource from these centralized networks.
In conclusion, blockchains are way more secure than companies or entities. With Media Network’s dCDN, neither customer service nor technical support can access your resources. No one will ever call the Media Foundation’s offices and ask them to remove resources — only keyholders can.
With all this in mind, a multisig dCDN approach can protect web applications, as most members’ signatures will be required to interact with the network to add, modify or remove dCDN resources.
This feature improves security and shields resources from inside jobs or the social engineering attacks mentioned above.
– Are projects interested in these new technologies? Who can use Media Network Legacy dCDN?
The answer is a definite yes. Currently, many protocols are trying to decentralize each part of their stack. We believe this is a gradual and challenging process and will take time to stop depending on centralized providers, but it is underway.
We see an urgent necessity for projects and protocols within the crypto and Web3 ecosystem to decentralize their stack and stop depending on centralized corporations & big tech companies.
– What is Media Network’s future vision?
Our goal is to create a decentralized and permissionless bandwidth market, allowing anyone to participate as providers or users of the network. The main idea is to enable anyone to join this new marketplace, whether you’re an individual running a server or a centralized CDN provider. These rules are enforced by governance upgradeable smart contracts using the MEDIA to vote for changes.
The emergence of a decentralized content delivery network does not mean centralized CDN providers will be left out of the market. Enterprises and corporations can offer their CDN services through Media Network’s infrastructure. It has an open, censorship-resistant infrastructure and does not require third-party permissions. Present-day CDNs can participate in the marketplace as providers, but the gateway will be anonymous (no KYC) and through MEDIA.
About Media Network
Media Network is a decentralized hub for web services, connecting providers and clients through smart contracts. Anchored on Media Protocol.
Press Contact
marketing@media.foundation