Hopr: Reducing security risks from decentralized metadata

"Moving to a New Stage of Privacy Protection: Reducing Security Risks from Decentralized Metadata by Hopr"

Original source: ASCENDEX   Institute of

Entering the era of big data on the Internet, users not only enjoy the convenience brought by digitization, but also face the problem of data privacy protection. Imagine going about your daily life, if everything you do from the moment you wake up in the morning until you go to bed at night is permanently recorded and archived in the form of a data file. Then this file containing a series of personal information such as basic information, pictures, text and location may be exposed to the whole big data network and face the risk of data leakage and hacker attack all the time.

As digitization penetrates into every corner of our lives, the line between public and private space is becoming increasingly blurred. Is the ubiquitous data information providing convenience for people or sacrificing the original right to personal privacy?

The need to protect data privacy is urgent

There have been many cases of privacy data breaches. In 2016, Uber was hit by a cyber attack that compromised user data, including users' full names, email addresses and phone numbers.

In 2018, the "data gate" incident on Facebook was exposed. Also in 2018, the user data of a chain hotel owned by Huazhu Group was suspected to have been leaked, and about 500 million pieces of data were packaged and sold by sellers.

In 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union came into force and issued a series of regulations that organizations must comply with in order to protect users' privacy.

California the California consumer privacy act (CCPA), the data safety "(draft) in our country, the personal information protection act (draft), and other typical laws and regulations, strict requirements for privacy protection in the process of data using, for example, do not allow the data from local, and do not allow unauthorized use of personal data and so on.

Although privacy issues in a broad sense have indeed received a certain degree of market attention, personal "metadata" outside the current regulatory framework of the law still cannot be fully protected.

Web 3.0 Metadata Privacy Age

Encryption of data is a key part of privacy protection, but it is not enough to protect data. In the new digital age of Web 3.0, metadata protection needs to be paid more attention, because metadata is a critical and fundamental part of decentralized financial transactions.

Metadata is a set of data generated by an action on the Internet, such as visiting a website, using an application, or sending a message.

Metadata records information such as who sent the data (in the form of an IP address), where they were sent (another IP), when, and how much data was sent. In short, it's "data about data."

The metadata itself doesn't carry much information, but there are dozens of pieces of metadata generated for every online interaction, and almost all of them are public or easily traceable. If someone collects enough metadata, even with end-to-end network encryption, it can be spliced to get a clear picture of a user's habits and scope of activity.

Just because you can't see the inside of the package, as shown in the picture below, doesn't mean you can't know exactly what's inside.

Think of the transmission of metadata as the mailing of a letter. Although the contents are sealed in an envelope, they need to be addressed clearly on the envelope to reach their destination. This means that anyone can read the address information and write down where the envelope went, the size of the envelope, and when it was mailed.

Over time, a database of this information can be built up and tracked, all without even opening an envelope.

Further, if you can see which stores a user is shopping at, which apps he or she is using, and to whom he or she is sending a message, you don't really need to know the full details of the content of a user's message or the purchase to deduce more personal information.

The metadata in the common connection is so ingrained in the way the Web 3.0 era works that there is no simple solution to protect it. The only way to protect it is to adopt an entirely new way of transferring data, which is what HOPR is doing.

What is a HOPR

Hopr is a protocol that allows users to run peer-to-peer private network nodes that can send data across the network without exposing metadata. Metadata can be described as who sent and received the data, when it was sent, how much data was sent, where the data was sent, and so on. Hopr can not only ensure the encryption of information content, but also guarantee the identity privacy of sender and receiver.

Hopr provides a way for people, companies, and devices to exchange information online in complete privacy. Users who communicate and conduct transactions using Hopr or applications and services running on the Hopr platform will be protected from privacy and no one will be able to access the data that users are sharing. Who is sending or receiving data and even how much data is being sent.

On the other hand. HOPR  It is a fully decentralized protocol with high transparency and trustability and no need to rely on third parties. This also means that data is not locked into a service and control of the data.

Hopr is run by and for users. Anyone can help maintain a Hopr network by relayed data through a Hopr node, whether on a computer or as a standalone device plugged into a router.

Hopr provides a good incentive mechanism, which means that every running node and token holder will receive Hopr tokens in return.

HOPR has two major technology architectures

Hopr provides privacy by forwarding messages through different relay nodes connected to the network. These messages use the Sphinx package format to avoid leaking any data about their content, sender, or receiver.

From the perspective of technical architecture, Hopr is divided into messaging layer and payment layer. The messaging layer is used for information and node encryption, and the payment layer is used for node reward.

消息传递层

The messaging layer is responsible for handling data transmission throughout the Hopr network, packets are "active" through the network and mixed at each stage of information transmission, and Hopr's proof-of-relay mechanism ensures that the data arrives at its destination without anyone knowing the identity of the sender and receiver or the full path the data took.

Use HOPR  The transmitted messages are embedded in the Sphinx packet format, which provably hides the relationship between the sender and the receiver. These messages are sent through the HOPR  Peer-to-peer connections between nodes create network layer transport. At the bottom level, the Hopr node is allowed to become a repeater and receive an intermediate Hopr token.  

Image Credit: HOPR Official Information

Pay layer

Users who pass data through the running node are rewarded with Hopr tokens, and this is what the payment layer handles. In order to process transactions, Hopr node operators need to pledge assets and, upon successful data relay, will have the opportunity to receive bills for Hopr tokens, which can be settled when the payment channel is closed and used within the network as a means of payment for requesting services from other Hopr nodes.

The two-tier design of the payment layer and the messaging layer is designed to ensure that payments are not linked to a single piece of information, as this is a common way for metadata to leak through the blockchain. By distinguishing between the messaging layer and the payment layer, Hopr can provide privacy without being used as a privacy token.

Image Credit: HOPR Official Information

Financing background: Support from Binance incubator

In July 2020, Binance Labs announced a lead investment ina privacy and data protection platform. HOPR  $1 million seed round, which also included Focus Labs, Spark Digital Capital, and Caballeros Capital.

This was Binance Labs' first investment in 2020 at the time, and Binance's second support for the Hopr project, after Binance Incubator announced a total of $45,000 in funding to three blockchain startups, including Hopr, in April 2019. These three projects became the first members of the Binance Labs Fellowship.

Team background

Hopr's traditional association as a recognized legal entity in the Swiss jurisdiction was combined with the purpose of the decentralized self-governing organization (DAO), resulting in decentralized community-supported governance (Decengov). Hopr is headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland.

Hopr co-founder Dr. SebastianBurgel, who drafted DLT (distributed ledger technology) laws in Switzerland, leads a diverse Hopr team that includes award-winning blockchain hackers and Silicon Valley veterans.

Sebastian majored in bioelectronics during his doctoral study and graduated from ETH Zurich, Switzerland. He has a solid scientific foundation. Sebastian has a great influence in Switzerland and served as the CTO of Validity Labs in Switzerland.

Robert Kiel, another Hopr founder, is a distributed application developer at Validity Labs AG. He earned a master's degree from the University of IT Security Technology in Darmstadt, Germany.

Other members of the Hopr team have in-depth research on blockchain, smart contracts, and other distributed technologies.

Actively explore Ethereum, Poka and other different public chain ecology

Hopr is actively exploring scalable networks in addition to the Ethereum mainnet. In 2019, Hopr received Grant support from the Web 3 Foundation and built a payment layer based on Substrate's Hopr in the Poca ecosystem. For a time, the Boca Eco Community attracted a lot of attention.

In addition, Hopr plans to run test networks on side chains such as Matic, Binance Smart Chain, and Ropsten.

In September 2020, Hopr announced an Ethereum side chain. xDai  The public incentive test network "Santis" was published for its hybrid network, and a new token XHOPR was released in the test network. Hopr stressed that XHopr is not the ultimate Hopr token and is only used to test the network and has no value, but there will be a participation reward.

Hopr plans to support the developer community through APIs, SDKs, developer documentation, and tools, as well as bringing the first applications available to non-developers online.

Token economic model

HOPR   The token is Hopr, and the total supply is 1 billion tokens. The token distribution is as follows:

· 公开发行：8.50% 

· Pledge node reward: 25%& NBSP;

· Project award: 6%& NBSP;

· Project Fund: 25%& NBSP;

· Early Investors: 16.5%& NBSP;

· Team and consultants: 18.5%& NBSP;  

· HOPR Network Governance Vault: 25.5%& NBSP;  

Image Credit: HOPR Official Information

After the project is launched, the actual Hopr supply will be 130 million, with many token allocation classes to be gradually released over four years.

The application of Hopr token mainly covers the functions of paying transaction fees, pledging token running nodes and governance voting.

Users can make payments using Hopr tokens to send data privately and securely over the Hopr network. Node operators can pledge Hopr tokens to nodes in return for a reward for transferring data. In addition, the Hopr token will give community members voting rights in the Hopr DAO that will be launched in late 2021.

Image Credit: HOPR Official Information

According to the announcement of Summit Ascendex (a3dx. IO) trading platform, Ascendex will launch its privacy and data protection platform Hopr token Hopr at 21:00 on July 1, Beijing time, and open Hopr /USDT, and the cash withdrawal is open. After the launch of the Ascendex trading platform, the liquidity of Hopr will be further enhanced and benefit the ecology at the same time.

summary

Defi is now an integral part of cryptography, and financial, data, and decentralized networks need a new foundation for privacy. Hopr is working to build a Layer0 privacy infrastructure for Web 3.0 to enable it to transfer information securely and reliably, ensuring that everyone has control over their privacy, data, and identity at all times.

Billions of gigabytes of data are currently being sent every hour, and that number is only going to grow. In the medium to long term, as metadata privacy becomes more important, the market demand for Hopr's technology will increase.

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