Efficient and Secure Distributed Data Storage and Retrieval Using Interplanetary File System and Blockchain

• Published in: Future internet Vol. 16; no. 3; p. 98
• Main Authors: Bin Saif, Muhammad, Migliorini, Sara, Spoto, Fausto
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.03.2024
• Subjects: Access control; Algorithms; Availability; Blockchain; Computer storage device industry; Confidentiality; Cryptography; Data integrity; Data retrieval; Data storage; data traceability; decentralized storage; Efficiency; Information retrieval; Information storage and retrieval; Internet; IPFS; Privacy
• ISSN: 1999-5903; 1999-5903
• DOI: 10.3390/fi16030098

Blockchain technology has been successfully applied in recent years to promote the immutability, traceability, and authenticity of previously collected and stored data. However, the amount of data stored in the blockchain is usually limited for economic and technological issues. Namely, the blockchain usually stores only a fingerprint of data, such as the hash of data, while full, raw information is stored off-chain. This is generally enough to guarantee immutability and traceability, but misses to support another important property, that is, data availability. This is particularly true when a traditional, centralized database is chosen for off-chain storage. For this reason, many proposals try to properly combine blockchain with decentralized IPFS storage. However, the storage of data on IPFS could pose some privacy problems. This paper proposes a solution that properly combines blockchain, IPFS, and encryption techniques to guarantee immutability, traceability, availability, and data privacy.