The team here at MEDIA Protocol are deeply committed to creating a more direct, transparent and secure ecosystem for content creators, publishers, and consumers through the revolutionary application of blockchain technology. We’re here to connect the worlds of marketing and technology for everyone’s benefit.

We’ve got love for both worlds, but from our own experience we know that they can sometimes feel, literally, worlds apart. So we’re committed, not just to connecting them, but to creating a common understanding between them.

This series of articles aims to explain the ins and outs of blockchain security to help everyone — the marketeers, the technologists, and the content consumers — understand the principles behind this game-changing technology.

We want to help educate by demystifying the potential applications of blockchain technology. Most importantly, we feel it’s vital to highlight and clarify the security elements of blockchain; how it safeguards data, enables open and transparent record-keeping and ensures secure digital transactions.

Strap in, and welcome to the MEDIA Protocol Blockchain Education Programme.

Part 4 — How Blockchain Ensures That No-One Can Impersonate The Owner Of An Address

Blockchain ensures the identity of the person making a transaction using secure cryptography — the straightforward system of pairing a public key with a private key. These take the form of alphanumeric codes: the private is always 32 bytes, and the public is always 65 bytes (33 bytes if compressed).

Details of every transaction are retained permanently, giving historical data that verifies the user’s identity. This means that parties on both sides of a transaction can be sure of the other’s integrity.

Who Has The Public And Private Keys?

The public key is broadcast to anyone on the network — stored on the distributed ledger in the same way as other transactions.

The private key is available only to one individual user, and as such should never be broadcast or shared.

Rather than exchange or apply these directly each time, a speedier method is to map the data of the public key to a hash.

Hashes are data strings of a fixed size and a one-way function that cannot readily be reversed.

No matter how big or small the data input is, the output will always have a fixed length. This is handy when large amounts of data are involved in transactions. Effectively, Hashing translates data, no matter how large or small, into a single output of a standard length.

So instead of having to recall massive amounts of data, the user only needs to remember the hash. Users then simply digitally sign the hash value generated, making for even quicker and easier transactions.

This also keeps the transfer of information confidential and verifies the identity of the signatory in one.

How Do I Use My Private Key?

Each person can use their private key to create a wallet, or as a form of digital signature for transactions. By signing a transaction through the private key, the originator can be authenticated as genuine. This ensures that the person who makes the transaction is definitely the person who owns that private key.

When used to create a wallet in an app, such as CryptoCatnip, the details of the private key are kept secure by fingerprint recognition, Face ID, or the user’s password. Two-step authentication is required for maximum security.

A device wallet is accessible only from that device, and if lost the access will be lost with it.

Users are therefore urged to connect to an existing wallet, to maintain continuity of access to their funds.

How Does This Prevent Impersonation?

The private key is used to encrypt all transactions that the user is party to.

Those transactions can then be decrypted, and thus authenticated, by anyone with the public key.

It is very nearly impossible to fake transactions without knowledge of that private key.

Sure, with an algorithm it’s easy to generate the Public key from any Private key, but trying to do that in reverse would require computational power beyond that of anything currently in existence. Unless of course, you know of a computer somewhere that can do the required 40000000000000000000000000000000 years of calculating any faster, according to Leon Di of @WeTrust.

As long as it is kept secret, there should be no way for anyone else to pass themselves off as the owner of that key.

What Does This Mean For MEDIA Protocol?

Using our app, CryptoCatnip, the user can create a wallet to store their private key. That key is known only to the authorised owner, and every transaction made from their wallet will be digitally signed to verify their identity.

This means no one else can impersonate a user. Only the person who owns that private key can present to the blockchain with that identity.

The wallet and its key are kept secure by the device containing the app: be it password, keycode, fingerprint recognition or Face ID.

Both parties can be sure that any transactions made using MEDIA Protocol are transparent and public. The use of Public and Private keys on the blockchain ensures that you only transact with the person or entity that you expect and intend to transact with.

No one else.

Read All Parts In Our Blockchain Education Programme:

Part 1 — Blockchain: Is It Secure?

Part 2 — How Does Blockchain Apply To Cyber Security?

Part 3 — How Does Blockchain Create Transparency?

Part 4 — How Blockchain Ensures That No-One Can Impersonate The Owner Of An Address (This article above)

Part 5 — Coming Soon

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Website: www.mediaprotocol.org

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Medium: https://medium.com/@mediaprotocolsm

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