Welcome to DabbaFlow!

DabbaFlow is a way to share files in a secure, decentralised and web3 way. It combines an encryption layer (powered by proxy re-encryption) with a data transfer layer to give you a secure way to share files and data streams. It is part of the CoLearn ecosystem. This will be an ecosystem of products around machine learning and AI which will enable secure data monetization, selling of machine learning models and training of AI.

Why do we need DabbaFlow?

Data transfers are essential to running a business in the digital age, however this has led to new challenges. There has been an exponential increase in data shared online, arising from remote collaboration and an unprecedented surge in emerging startups. All of which has posed significant data breach risks to individuals and companies where valuable data is constantly being exposed to security and privacy threats. The results have been devastating for business reputation. Research has shown that up to a third of customers in retail, finance and healthcare will stop doing business with organisations that have been breached.

The advantage of DabbaFlow is that it is decentralised, so it does not have centralised points of failure. In a centralised system if the main server is compromised then this affects the whole system. DabbaFlow runs on the fetch.ai blockchain which is spread over many nodes so there is no single point of failure. The storage layer that underpins DabbaFlow, IPFS, is similarly decentralised.

Another advantage is that there is a publicly verifiable record of data having been shared. Because the data is sharing is recorded on the blockchain the sender cannot claim to have sent something that they haven't, and the receiver cannot claim they haven't received something when they have.

How it works

To find out how to use DabbaFlow see the tutorial here.

There is an explainer video here or the tech deep-dive here

The short version

DabbaFlow is powered by a cryptography scheme called proxy re-encryption.

There are proxies that are able to make keys for other people to decrypt files. You give the proxy the ability to make a key for your data for the person you want to share with. But the proxy isn't able to make a key for themselves.

All of this is co-ordinated by a smart contract, so it is fully decentralised and there is a public record on the blockchain. Because the data sharing is recorded on the blockchain the sender cannot claim to have sent something that they haven't, and the receiver cannot claim they haven't received something when they have. Also, you can see when the receiver has generated their keys; this is like a read receipt on an email.

Limits on version one

Version one is a beta version that is running on the Fetch.ai Dorado testnet. This means that all transactions are essentially free because they use testfet which can be acquired from the Dorado faucet. Limitations of the first version are that all files will be deleted at midnight GMT, and the maximum file upload size is 5MB. All the proxies are currently run by Fetch.ai, but in version two you will be able to run your own proxies and gain yield.

There is also only one option for file storage (which is IPFS) at the moment. Future versions will support other storage layers such as Filecoin and Arweave. There will also be support for data streams, e.g. price feeds, and a developer command-line interface.