Seeing the Forest for the Trees: Understanding the YouBase, UnPatient and Healthbank Transatlantic Collaboration
I). YouBase: http://youbase.io (a peer-to-peer data store and
personal information exchange trust layer for a more personal health science)
III). HealthIT TV: Debating the Utility of the Blockchain in Healthcare (Leonard Kish, Michael Dillhyon, Dan Munro: Apr 11, 2016. 25:34 min): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEgljmCA9I0
################################################################################
IV). https://healthbank.coop (6-11-16)
https://www.healthbank.coop/faq/
(6-11-16)
https://healthbank.coop/newsletter-archive (June
2015 to April 2016)
Healthbank receives Global Digital Health 100 Award,
as one of the world’s 100 most innovative digital healthcare companies
(12-10-14)
The Swiss cooperative healthbank has been honored as one of the top 100 digital
healthcare companies in the first Global Digital Health 100 Awards 2014, by The
Journal of mHealth.
Reflecting
the evolving importance of mobile technologies and digital solutions in the
healthcare sector, the Global Digital Health 100 acknowledges the significant
work being carried out by pioneering organizations from around the globe. “This
year has been amazing for digital health” said Matthew Driver, Managing Editor
of the Journal of mHealth. “There are so many great companies producing really
innovative and amazing products that are set to revolutionize healthcare
delivery. We had a very difficult time narrowing the pool and selecting the
final 100. We know that all the 2014 honorees will grow into some amazing
companies that are sure to make an impact.”
The
Award represents 6 months of research by the editorial team at the Journal, who
considered the offerings and innovations from over 1,500 different mobile and
digital health companies worldwide, before selecting the final 100. healthbank CEO Reto
Schegg commented: “healthbank is honored
to be recognized as a top 100 global digital health company, and to be included
with so many highly innovative companies in this fast-growing sector.”
################################################################################
V). Healthbank (A citizen-owned global
health data transaction platform)
Michael Dillhyon
Healthbank Founder
& Member of the Board
Biography:
Michael is the founder of healthbank (in 2012), and served as CEO until July 2014. In 2013, he was the
first Entrepreneur-in-Residence for SystemsX.ch, Switzerland’s largest early
stage life sciences fund, and served as a mentor for the ETH Innovation and
Entrepreneurship Lab. Previously he served as Chairman of Genebio, a bioinformatics
software firm, and sat on the Strategic Advisory Committee for HealthTIES, an
EU-backed consortium of four of Europe’s top biosciences regions. Previous to
his move to Switzerland, Michael co-founded two US-based firms: Netelligent
Corporation and ActiveObjects, where he held the roles of President, Chairman
and CEO respectively.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/healthbank (Michael
Dillhyon LinkedIN Profile)
https://www.healthbank.coop/team/
(Operational Team)https://www.healthbank.coop/team/#BOD (Board of Directors)
https://www.healthbank.coop/team/#advisors (Advisory Board)
https://www.healthbank.coop/team/#partners (Business
Partners)
############################################################################
Unpatients—why patients should own their medical data
Published online (08 September 2015): Nature Biotechnology
33, 921–924 (2015) doi:10.1038/nbt.3340
For
the benefits of digital medicine to be fully realized, we need not only to find
a shared home for personal health data but also to give individuals the
right to own them.
It's
often said that data are the new gold, or the new oil, but they are much more
like a New World distinguished, at least in part, by new maps. Indeed, the
planet is becoming a new world of relationships, descriptive data
and information flows. There are now over 1.5 billion registrants on
Facebook (Menlo Park, CA, USA), and a Swedish startup called Truecaller
(Stockholm) has assembled a phone directory of >1.6 billion human beings,
with the intent of having every person on the planet in its directory. Social
graphs that depict relationships between people and organizations are the new
maps of a connected humanity—maps of people, organizations and many other
dimensions of data that reveal how things are related. As recent examples,
we've seen months of activity data from 22 million Americans and over 250
million nights of sleep data1, 2. Such global data efforts have not
yet reached medicine, but their arrival is both inevitable and imminent.
In
parallel to these social graphs and global data sets, there is an unprecedented and rapidly developing capability to
digitize a human being. Creating the equivalent of a Google medical map
or the medical essence of an individual would integrate multiple layers of phenomic,
physiologic, anatomic, biologic and environmental information3.
Just about everything that makes a human tick can now be quantified like never
before, by means of sensors, sequencing, laboratory tests and scans. Recently,
it has been shown that a single drop of blood could be used to reveal the
virome of an individual's exposure, uncovering not only which viruses the
person was exposed to but when4, 5, for just $25.
This exemplifies our newfound and accelerated ability to capture and analyze
human data, which most of us could not even fathom a few years ago.
Such
medically relevant data from an individual is not a one-off gathering. Rather
than simply falling under the definition of 'big data', the data can be, and
often are, obtained longitudinally, over the course of a lifetime, fulfilling
the idea of 'long data'. Furthermore, such data are contextualized, often in
real time in a person's real world. Enabled by mobile technology, an external 'wisdom of the body'
(in contrast to Walter Cannon's classically described autoregulation,
homeostasis, in his book Wisdom of the Body6) can be developed, with feedback of
integrated data to the individual (Fig. 1). Soon enough, virtual medical
assistants will emerge that incorporate machine learning about a person, and
could include everything medical, as well as the person's lifestyle, behavior,
social network, finances and how they are interrelated. Quickly, one can
imagine that, just from a watch that collects blood pressure with every
heartbeat, terabytes of data can and will be generated on an individual basis.
Much of the data will fall into the category of patient-generated data and will ultimately eclipse the
amount of data captured today in clinical electronic medical records.
Figure 1: The medical data ownership engine.
(See original article)
Each
individual gets direct feedback of her/his own generated data through biosensors,
physical examination tools, laboratory and imaging tests,
comprising a new 'external' wisdom of the body. Such data are fed into the
flywheel of the engine and eventually, when there are enough individuals
amassed into a big medicine resource, there is a breakthrough to form a valuable
medical knowledge resource. That, too, provides external feedback to the
individual for optimal prevention and medical treatment.
“This is a unique moment where we may be able
to provide for personal control
and, at the same time, create a
global knowledge medical resource.”
Yet
currently there is no 'home' for such data over time, at either the individual
or the population level. Although there are early proposals for how some of it
could be bundled with one's electronic medical record7, it seems unlikely this will occur,
in the United States at least, given the landscape of balkanized health records
and multiple providers of care for each person. Ironically, we're looking at
the prospect of a new, high-definition picture of individual human beings,
and at the same time for that person's data to be homeless, dispersed and
inaccessible. Where the data live will determine the maps we can create and
the directions we can go in with health, both as individuals and as a society.
We propose here that the key step
to liberating personal health data and realizing their true potential in human
research and clinical practice is the
provision of data management systems that give individuals the right to own
their own data. The technological advances developed for evolving
digital currency systems, which allow individuals to hold and secure digital
assets without a central authority, are being used to create new digital
property systems, including personal medical data property.
Whatever the means, it is critical for individuals to seize ownership of their
data in order for the real benefits of a new, data-driven high-definition era
of medicine to be actualized.
Data, data, everywhere and nowhere:
Today,
in the United States, health data live in a plethora of places, from electronic
health record (EHR) systems, insurance claims databases, siloed personal health
apps, research and clinical trial databases, imaging files and lots of paper.
Although seemingly everywhere, any true semblance of an overarching
organization or standardization of medical data are lacking, whether at the
individual or societal level. Health data are, categorically, quite difficult
to move from one place to another, and there are few to no incentives for
sharing, a situation that leads to extensive data hoarding. In the United
States, despite $30 billion in incentives to get data
flowing, the problem of health data locked into proprietary EHR systems is so
bad that the US Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT recently
released a report on 'information blocking', a term unique to the US healthcare
system8.
Even
worse than not being able to get to the data, disorganization and balkanization
contribute to poor outcomes and death.
According the US Department of Health and Human Services (Washington, DC, USA),
an estimated 20% of preventable medical errors are due to the lack of
immediate access to health information9. Of the estimated 400,000 preventable
medical errors leading to death in the United States annually, we can project
that 80,000 people die every year (or 220 per day) because of the lack of
needed access to medical information.
Furthermore,
the US legal framework is constructed
in a manner to block individuals from accessing their own medical data—in 49 of the 50 states in
America, these
data are owned by doctors and hospitals10. This ownership model is an outgrowth
of an entrenched paternalism: the medical community's belief that patients are
unable to handle or deal with their data. Rigorous studies have proven just the
opposite11; patients are fully capable of
possessing and managing their own data, a capability that not only increases
their sense of well-being but also enhances bonding with their physician12. Meanwhile, the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), defined in the pre-internet era,
has largely become an excuse not to share with anyone, including patients. It's
time to recognize we are in a new era, where patients have the tools and incentives
to do much more.
In
contrast to the legal and technical difficulty an individual faces to obtain
all his or her own medical data is the
relative ease with which hackers have managed to breach ~100 million patient
records in the first half of 2015 (ref. 13; Fig. 2). The larger the set of data, the
more attractive it becomes as a target for hacking. On the other hand, not
even 10% of Americans have attempted to access their EHRs, let alone
found that information in a format that was interpretable14. Clearly, a new solution is needed.
Figure 2: The timeline for electronic
medical data hacks in the United States of over 1 million individuals. (See orignal article)
The
graphic does not include a large number of hacks in this time period <1
million individuals.
The need for outright data ownership:
In no other walk of life does an
individual pay for a service but not own what they have bought. Yet in medicine this has been
tolerated for as long as there has been a paper record, dating back hundreds of
years, despite the fact that the patient has a vested interest in the uses of
that information—it is he or she whose health is on the line. In the coming
years, for many individuals, this issue will be further exacerbated—massive patient-generated data sets
will be flowing through their mobile devices, which they own. At present,
no system for integrating such data between apps exists. Anticipating this
important unmet need, we feel the time is ripe to develop
such a platform that brings together all of an individual's data—
·
traditional
doctor-ordered laboratory tests, scans,
·
visits
and
·
patient-generated
data.
Historically,
the concepts of property and democratization—spreading decision-making and
knowledge—are deeply intertwined. Property and happiness were inextricably
linked in 1776; the US Declaration of Independence's declaration of our
rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is thought to derive
from John Locke's writings on the right to “life, liberty and property.”
And property rights were a driving force of the revolution. A patient-centered medical revolution will also require new rights.
A platform that captures all of a patient's data cannot simply be accessible to
patients; it needs to be owned and therefore controlled by the individuals who
contribute to it.
Yet
a common refrain among governmental healthcare leaders is, “it's not about
ownership of data, it's about access and control”15. Such a construct also overlooks one
of the oldest rules of law. The phrase “possession
is nine-tenths of the law” arose because it is relatively easy to
enforce ownership rights if one has possession of something, but difficult to
enforce otherwise. The same is true
with data. Simply put, if you don't have possession, you will have to
ask permission and be granted access. A person cannot maintain true control when
data live on someone else's server. A recent article entitled “The future of
the web looks a lot like bitcoin” perhaps summarized it best: “We don't
own our data; we just visit it from time to time”16.
Let's not underestimate the economic
value of ownership.
For traditional (nondigital) forms of property, clear ownership enabled by
networks of trust has been argued to be the greatest difference between first
world and developing world economies. Property drives the flow of commerce.
Transactions become trusted when ownership is clear and networks are created to
link seekers and sellers of assets, leading to a greater number of transactions
and greater transparency. According to economist Hernando de Soto, “The moment
Westerners were able to focus on the title of a house and not just the house
itself, they achieved a huge advantage over the rest of humanity.” The data on
the ownership of the house, and a network to enable transfer of and use of
assets, creates more flow of transactions and better economics. To create a
health data economy, we need to provide the same trust and increased
flow.
We
continue to see the same principles play out in the most successful platforms
of this era of the internet. Similar mechanisms are playing out with Uber (San Francisco, CA, USA)
and Airbnb (San Francisco),
now multibillion companies that have simply enabled platforms for what are
initially 'surplus resources' of car transportation and shelter, respectively,
and now have created economies of their own. In the case of Airbnb, some areas
are being revitalized with tourists in towns where sleeping accommodations were
previously inadequate. An emergent system more responsive to individual
needs has arisen.
And
we suggest the same can and will be true with health data. It's not so much about the data; it's about the
ownership of the data. Without ownership, there can be no trusted exchange.
What we have now is like trying to create an Uber without knowing who owns the
cars or an Airbnb without an owner of the homes. It's common to hear how our
health system should be 'patient-centered', but without clear rights around how
it can be used, shared and leveraged by the individual, it cannot reach its
full potential. To build a truly thriving health data
economy, we need to harness the power of data
ownership.
Of
course, data are different from physical assets. Data can be easily copied yet
become more, not less, valuable when shared, aggregated and analyzed. But like
physical assets, medical data sharing can be likened to the 'tragedy of the commons', where individuals acting
independently and rationally according to each's self-interest behave contrary
to the best interests of the whole group by depleting or hoarding some common
resource. Still, some of the same mechanisms can be used to enable the exchange
of health data in the same way platforms and ownership enable the exchange of
real world assets.
Health data are certainly another kind
of 'surplus resource';
it's not currently creating much value without ownership and a
platform to facilitate exchange. Yet if such a system were enabled, it
would allow sharing and transactions of data globally in a more adaptive
fashion. Each party would have an incentive to join as each could make their
own proprietary data more valuable by contributing and receiving other's
contributions.
Patients are already motivated to
contribute. Polls
consistently show 80% of consumers
are eager to share their medical information, provided its privacy
and security can be assured17. The ability to share the rich granular data from each
individual to create a global resource leads to a flywheel effect (Fig. 1). Two feedback loops are engendered
by the medical data ownership engine: the external wisdom of the
individual's body and the wisdom of the population participants.
Data matching the 'nearest neighbor' Google medical map from the population to
the individual provides a potentially valuable knowledge resource for improved
prevention and treatment—a resource that heretofore has not existed but is now
eminently attainable. If we can amalgamate more than a billion members for a
social network or a global phone directory, surely this, too, can be
achieved—if we can override the obstacles.
Are
personal data, in particular biological data, forms of property to be bought
and sold? Should they be? Since the late twentieth century prominent legal
scholars have been mostly divided into two
camps regarding 'propertization' of personal data:
·
entirely
for it, mostly from a techno-libertarian perspective or
·
entirely
against it, fearing for privacy and human dignity.
Finding
common ground between these two perspectives has been historically challenging.
One reason, we submit, is because the solutions have not been in place to
easily facilitate both trade and privacy. Through
the efforts of a nonprofit, social benefit organization (http://unpatient.org/), we have proposed a technological
solution:
·
that
allows biomedical data to be shared and traded as property at a very granular
level, but that
·
retains
the privacy and security necessary for human dignity and in compliance with
existing regulations.
For
health data to have a real home owned by its rightful owner, they need to be:
·
first,
accessible anywhere and always available to the originator;
·
second,
controlled by the person they came from or their agent;
·
third,
unique and verifiable as belonging to a real person;
·
fourth,
privacy-enabled;
·
fifth,
secure;
·
sixth,
independent of any third party; and
·
finally,
able to solve the data provenance problem, that is, when, where and from whom
the data came.
An
ideal digital ownership system would:
·
foster
better trust in the accuracy of data;
·
connect
people to facilitate enhanced sharing, anonymity and security;
·
create
a single system of exchange,
·
standard
methods of exchange and
·
better
metadata to assess the value of a piece of information; and
·
finally,
enable ways for all involved to benefit from sharing so as to maximize sharing
and value.
Where to go from here:
How could we transition to a new model and construct such a system? Bitcoin's underlying technology
points to ways to enable digital property on a global platform. Bitcoins are
bits of digital property ('coins' are a ledger of transactions, a shared
database of who owns what at a given point in time). Ownership is enabled by
network consensus. Although there are certainly negative impressions about
bitcoin, its digital ownership model creates a shared, agreed-upon record of
data. Using and repurposing of the block chain, wallets and 'proof
of work' components are already being adapted for multiple forms of data
that are beginning to look like a global, distributed data ownership store. A worldwide health data graph enabled by
health data ownership may not be far behind16.*
*Peck, M.E. The
future of the web looks a lot like bitcoin. Spectrum IEEE (1 July;
accessed 2 July 2015). http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/the-future-of-the-web-looks-a-lot-like-bitcoin
Once
the infrastructure is built with clients and nodes for such a data network,
transferring secure health data could be as easy as sending an e-mail is today.
When an individual wants to receive an element of their record, the data sender
sends it to the individual's public address or public key (which could be
displayed as a QR code on a smart phone). It would then be signed by the
sender's private key and could be opened only with the individual's private key.
Different
health data structures could be accommodated within different wallet address
structures. The creation of a new global infrastructure for data, accessible
through Bitcoin wallet addresses, or something like them, has the potential to
provide a universal patient
identification mechanism, which separates personal information from
health data as each data element can exist and be trusted independently.
Peer-to-peer data stores could provide the mechanism to save any kind of file
type independent of a third party, much like Bitcoin is intended to provide
stores of value independent of any central authority. Peer-to-peer networks of
data would also offer better adaptation and responsiveness to changing
conditions, creating a system that evolves and learns quickly. In addition,
block chain–related technologies could help solve the data-provenance problem
as such systems would provide a record of when and from where a piece of data
came, with a digital signature, creating the potential to visualize a data supply
chain.
There
are already models to achieve individual ownership such as Switzerland's
Healthbank, an entity owned and governed by its citizen members (https://www.healthbank.coop). For no charge, Healthbank empowers
users to store, manage, share and benefit from their personal health
information according to each user's individual needs. It has the intent to
create a global data transaction platform to support medical research. The benefit of using a distributed,
peer-to-peer data store, however, is
that it would not need to be managed or controlled by any third party,
no matter how well intentioned; it
would be controlled by contributors on a truly global scale.
A global resource for hosting and sharing personal health data
would have compelling benefits not only for medical research and treatment
but also for current data hoarders if they choose to adapt. Imagine if
there were minimal storage fees and data management fees, but individual
records were a part of the universal store. Costs for each participant would be
minimized greatly, whereas each element of data, because of the flywheel of
virtuous feedback (Fig. 1), would become more valuable, and
many interoperability problems would no longer belong to the provider and their
vendor. Without supporting and
contributing, current providers and vendors could become the
taxi companies and hoteliers caught fighting for survival as new,
more effective platforms begin to compete.
Conclusions:
We
must begin talking about creating a health data resource in a much broader and
more universal context, controlled by the individuals who supply the data. This
is a unique moment where we may be able to provide for personal control and, at
the same time, create a global knowledge medical resource.
We
have coined the term 'UnPatient' for our new
model of data ownership
as it has the double entendre of the patient subjected to medical
paternalism and information asymmetries, along with the idea that it has
taken far too long to become free to use our medical data as we see fit and to
own it. Without connecting to their medical data, people are unnecessarily
being hurt and dying. Accordingly, we urgently seek to promote ownership of
one's medical data as a civil right and as a pivotal strategy to further
digitize medicine, providing a new resource to potentially help every
individual who willingly participates.
This
is the essence of the benefits of
democratization: shared control provides shared benefits at an
exponential rate. When individuals inform the collective, and the collective
informs the individual, we will have the learning health system we seek.
People
connecting over information to create value and share assets has been the story
of our economy for the past 20 years. So, too, will it be with sharing and
leveraging medical data in the next 20 years.
- Bachman, R. The United States of Fitness. Wall Street Journal (26 May; accessed 5 July 2015). http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/print/WSJ_-D001–20150526.pdf
- O'Brien, J. Can big data help you get a good night's sleep? Fortune (29 June 2015). http://fortune.com/2015/06/29/sleep-data/
- Topol, E.J. Cell 157, 241–253 (2014).
- Xu, G.J. et al. Science 348, aaa0698 (2015).
- HHMI. Your viral infection history from a single drop of blood (4 June; accessed 7 July 2015). http://www.hhmi.org/news/your-viral-infection-history-single-drop-blood
- Cannon, W.B. The Wisdom of the Body (W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, NY, USA, 1932).
- Mandl, D.M., Mandel, J.C. & Kohane, I.S. Cell Syst. 1, 8–13 (2015).
- The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). Report to Congress April 2015: Report on Health Information Blocking. (Health IT, 9 April; accessed 7 July 2015). http://healthit.gov/sites/default/files/reports/info_blocking_040915.pdf
- Fickenscher, K.M. J. Am. Med. Inform. Assoc. 20, 593–594 (2013). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3628072/
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Individual access to medical records: 50 state comparison. Health Information & the Law (24 September 2013; accessed 7 July 2015). http://www.healthinfolaw.org/comparative-analysis/individual-access-medical-records-50-state-comparison.
- Topol, E.J. The Patient Will See You Now (Basic Books; New York, NY, 2015).
- Kish, L. The blockbuster drug of the century: an engaged patient. HL7 Standards. (28 August 2012; accessed 6 July 2015). http://www.hl7standards.com/blog/2012/08/28/drug-of-the-century/
- Collins, K. A quick guide to the worst corporate hack attacks (18 March; accessed 6 July 2015). http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2014-data-breaches/.
- Beck, M. How to take charge of your medical records. Wall Street Journal. (29 June 2015). http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB12367224787933994021304581064031716335262.
- https://twitter.com/Farzad_MD/status/587233286230945792. Accessed 7 July 2015.
- Peck, M.E. The future of the web looks a lot like bitcoin. Spectrum IEEE (1 July; accessed 2 July 2015). http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/the-future-of-the-web-looks-a-lot-like-bitcoin
- Chu, S. Apple watch release news: survey finds 80 percent of US employees would give health data from wearables to employers. iDigitalTimes (2 February; accessed 7 July 2015). http://www.idigitaltimes.com/apple-watch-release-news-survey-finds-80-percent-us-employees-would-give-health-data-411578
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to J. Robinson, N. DiNiro and D. Maizenberg, members of the UnPatient team, for assistance; US National Institutes of Health grant NIH/NCATS 8 UL1 TR001114 for supporting E.J.T.; M. Miller for preparation; and J. Hightower for assistance with graphics.Author information
Affiliations
1. Leonard J. Kish is at Unpatient.org, Denver, Colorado, USA.
2. Eric J. Topol is at The Scripps Research Institute, and Scripps Health, La Jolla, California, USA.
Competing financial interests: The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Corresponding author: Correspondence to Eric J Topol
################################################################################
VII). Also see: http://YouBase.io (A truly
individual-centric data store for healthcare, owned and controlled by the
individual)
YouBase White Paper
About this book:
(See: https://www.gitbook.com/download/pdf/book/joshrobinson/youbase (19 pages)
By
Josh Robinson
& Leonard Kish (6-1-15)
Abstract
YouBase
enables individuals to create and maintain a personal data store on a
distributed public network, allowing the unprecedented ability to easily
gather, analyze, and share private data for any purpose imaginable. Data is
structured hierarchically so that increasingly identifiable data can be placed
at levels closer to the root, allowing arbitrarily anonymized data to be shared
with whomever is requesting access to it. The data format is flexible, enabling
easy integration with third parties. In addition, read-only or read/write
access can be granted at any node in the tree, allowing the user to tightly
control access to every subtree in the data store. YouBase thus provides the
building blocks for the ultimate peer-to-peer central repository for private
data, enabling individuals, organizations, and the world to make smarter
decisions.
Introduction
Cryptography
combined with distributed applications and databases in peer-to-peer networks
provide the fundamental building blocks required for securing stores of individual-centered
digital property in an open standards-based manner. By using encryption,
digital signatures, digital wallets, and distributed data, ownership of digital
information can be managed in a decentralized store. Such a store will be
simultaneously secure and private, with strong identity services, while also
available anywhere.
Information
and rights to that information will ideally follow an individual as she moves
through various contexts in her daily life, enabled with the ability to provide
trusted, verified identity within those contexts. A longitudinal record could
be created, including consumer-generated application data, with the individual
as the primary controller of access - all independent of a third party.
YouBase
provides an individual-centric security structure that separates personal data
from identity while allowing for secure and structured read and/or write access
to trusted parties on a peer-to-peer data store. This structure provides
several benefits, including:
- a way to securely input, access and share any kind of file or record
- a way to organize authorized access to information into a structured hierarchy
- improved anonymous information sharing that could be used as a public or shared private asset
- information sharing transactions can be to be tied to financial transactions
With
these tools in place, we imagine a world where, rather than storing personal
data, third parties could simply subscribe to data owned and controlled by the
individual.
Implementation
YouBase
introduces a new type of bitcoin HD wallet which uses BIP32 public-private key pair trees and
couples this wallet with persistent peer-to-peer content-addressable key-value
stores, such as IPFS. The new HD wallet implementation is responsible for
maintaining the BIP32 nodes defining the hierarchical
structure, metadata, and pointers to the actual data, as well as managing
permissions and handling encryption/decryption. We propose a distributed hash
table for holding this BIP32 tree metadata as this makes it easier
to access, backup, and sync. The peer-to-peer key-value store is treated as
just that, a dumb key-value store, so technically it could be hosted locally,
on the cloud, or on a peer-to-peer file system such as IPFS. Value would be
maximized using IPFS as data would be public and decentralized.
Updated
a year ago (June 2015):
posted by Bob Coli, MD | 5:46 PM
|
0 comments
