Super Protocol: Transforming Cloud Computing for Web3
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Super Protocol is a confidential cloud computing platform designed to protect data while it is being processed. It is a decentralized platform based on blockchain, meaning it can avoid shortages inherent to centralized services.
In this article, we will introduce Super Protocol and address problems it can solve.
The modern state of cloud computing
Cloud computing is the provision of computing power (servers, storage, databases, networks, and software) over the Internet for rent (as a service). Cloud computing services allow companies and users to expand their computing capabilities. With such services, users can store more information on cloud storages, process more data, and utilize software as a service (SaaS).
As of now, cloud computing is used everywhere: online translators, online games, video communications, navigation services, online libraries, instant payment services, regular emails, disk storage, and much more.
In 2020, the cloud computing market rose to $371.4 billion and it keeps rising even higher. Every year the need for cloud computing increases and even the decentralized Web3 world makes extensive use of cloud computing services. By 2025 the market could grow to $832.1 billion mark, with an average annual growth rate of 17.5%.
At the same time, cloud computing in its current form has certain disadvantages which Super Protocol is meant to eliminate.
The problems of cloud computing
Currently, the lion’s share of the cloud computing market is controlled by a few large corporations: 67% of the market belongs to four companies. This leads to strong centralization of the industry and makes users dependent on the policies of these four companies. When users are forced to rely on centralized services, they may encounter various problems caused by them. For example, there is a case where traffic to a popular website was limited due to modifications in Facebook’s algorithm that ranks articles and content. In other words, just because of policy changes of a single corporation, companies can lose their audience or even their entire business.
Due to users’ dependence on the policies and rules of centralized services, users may be temporarily prevented from trading on crypto platforms. For example, last December traders at a popular crypto exchange dYdX were restricted from using the platform for some time due to a failure at cloud provider AWS (Amazon Web Services). After some time, the exchange even had to admit that the failure was caused by the fact that some of the exchange functionality relied on centralized services.
Data leaks in corporations. In addition to the problems mentioned above, large corporations occasionally experience leaks of customer data. Even multimillion-dollar corporate budgets cannot protect companies from this flaw. Thus, in June 2021 data associated with over 700 million of LinkedIn users was dumped from the website’s database and posted on to a dark web forum. This case affected over 90% of user data on the social network. It could seem impossible for data of such a solid and well-known website to be compromised; however, social media network did not manage to escape data breach nonetheless. Though the company denied accusations of data breach (LinkedIn stated the hacker just violated the terms and conditions of use), 700 million records were listed for sale. This shows that even large companies such as Microsoft are not immune from data leaks.
How Super Protocol solves these problems
Super Protocol is a blockchain-based cloud computing platform. This means that it has no single point of failure and is more resilient than centralized alternatives. If, for example, a node fails, the network will remain operational and still serve users.
In addition to fault tolerance, the protocol cannot be censored and dictated rules and conditions from the outside. All decisions regarding its policies are made in a decentralized way by means of a DAO.
Super Protocol offers solutions for confidential computing which is based on Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) technology. The TEE is an environment where the code executed and the data accessed is isolated and protected in terms of confidentiality. In contrast to traditional data protection methods when data is encrypted only at the stage of storage and transmission, Super Protocol fills this gap and protects data at the stage of processing as well.
Also, TEE prevents another vector of attack, namely, code alteration. It happens when someone injects a malicious piece of code into proprietary systems. At the end of 2021 users of BadgerDAO became victims of such an attack and lost $120M as a result. The use of the TEE guarantees that no unauthorized entities can add, remove, or alter code being executed in the isolated environment.
The use of confidential computing is of greatest importance for decentralized applications as there is a need for trustless communications with third parties. For example, you may somewhat trust large cloud service providers because they have a reputation to maintain but you definitely cannot trust an anonymous network participant. And this is where confidential computing comes into play.
Data encryption during processing makes it nonsensical to steal data at this stage. Even if a hacker compromises data, they won’t be able to make use of it as it’s encrypted. As such, with the proper approach to data encryption at all stages of data lifecycle (storage, transmission and processing), one can ensure complete data protection.
In the future, many Internet platforms and services will use confidential computing. This is evidenced by a report by Everest Group which shows how the confidential computing market will grow during the next five years. There are two scenarios given in the report: according to the pessimistic one, the market will grow at 45% each year, while the optimistic one implies a 95% growth rate. This shows that confidential computing is still a young but rapidly growing market.
The role of Super Protocol in the future of the Internet
Super Protocol is capable of solving multiple problems inherent to cloud computing in its modern state. It can help businesses build their products on top of decentralized platforms without any drawbacks, as opposed to centralized ones. The future of the whole Internet and humanity depends on cloud computing and Super Protocol can elevate the whole Web3 world to the new heights by giving its own powerful cloud computing platform with built-in confidentiality.
