{"id":26269,"date":"2015-07-09T02:51:17","date_gmt":"2015-07-09T02:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci027cfe7850112697"},"modified":"2015-07-09T02:51:17","modified_gmt":"2015-07-09T02:51:17","slug":"mit-media-lab-project-enigma-enables-blockchain-based-encrypted-data-storage-1436392277","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/business\/mit-media-lab-project-enigma-enables-blockchain-based-encrypted-data-storage-1436392277","title":{"rendered":"MIT Media Lab Project Enigma Enables Blockchain-Based Encrypted Data Storage"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Over the last few months, renowned global organizations and financial establishments have proposed<\/a> designs, or at least have attempted to implement Bitcoin\u2019s blockchain technology, to encrypt sensitive data or to settle transactions without the association of third-party institutions such as banks.<\/p>\n

Continuing the global trend, the MIT Media Lab and two Bitcoin entrepreneurs have developed a prototype of an encryption system<\/a> called Enigma. Enigma is a Bitcoin blockchain-based encryption system that enables untrusted and anonymous computers to share sensitive information with a third party without putting the data at risk of hacking attacks and breaches.<\/p>\n

The system will be able to prevent shared information from being surveilled by government entities or law enforcement, as it can only be decrypted by the holder of the decryption keys.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can see it as a black box,\u201d explained Guy Zyskind, one of the developers of Enigma and an MIT Media Lab graduate researcher. \u201cYou send whatever data you want, and it runs in the black box and only returns the result. The actual data is never revealed, neither to the outside nor to the computers running the computations inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a way, Enigma\u2019s techniques and properties resemble a few features of Bitcoin\u2019s decentralized network infrastructure. Enigma encrypts data by disassociating it into several components, and by randomly segregating it to hundreds of computers in the Enigma network, also known as nodes. Then, each node runs calculations on its assigned block of data, until a user merges the results to decrypt a block.<\/p>\n

The mathematical algorithms are designed by the developers of Enigma, and the nodes execute calculations only on the blocks of data that it is assigned to.<\/p>\n

The ownership of data, or chunks of information, is then stored as metadata in the Bitcoin blockchain, which prevents the ledger of ownership from being forged or altered.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can take my age, this one piece of data, and split it into pieces, and give it to 10 people,\u201d says Zyskind. \u201cIf you ask each one of those persons, they have only a random chunk. Only by combining enough of those pieces can they decrypt the original data.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Enigma\u2019s Encryption System Can Bring<\/strong><\/p>\n

If Enigma\u2019s encryption system works out flawlessly like the developers promise, it would create a whole different ecosystem where private databases can be hosted without threats from third-party entities, such as governments or law enforcement trying to surveil the information.<\/p>\n

While cloud databases and platforms such as Dropbox and even Facebook are obligated<\/a> or often forced to pass on sensitive data at governments\u2019 will, the same cannot be done for Enigma\u2019s cloud services, because the data simply cannot be revealed without the decryption keys which only its owners hold and control.<\/p>\n

Enigma would also allow users to safely share all kinds of information with companies without any risks of releasing sensitive data. \u201cNo one wants to give their data to some company when you don\u2019t know what they\u2018ll do with it,\u201d explained Oz Nathan, Enigma\u2019s co-creator. \u201cBut if you have guaranteed privacy, data analysis can be a lot more powerful. People will actually be willing to share more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo Security<\/a>\/Photopin<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the last few months, renowned global organizations and financial establishments have proposed designs, or at least have attempted to implement Bitcoin\u2019s blockchain technology, to encrypt sensitive data or to settle transactions without the association of third-party institutions such as banks. Continuing the global trend, the MIT Media Lab and two Bitcoin entrepreneurs have developed a prototype […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3551,"featured_media":26270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[402,3259,3314],"class_list":{"0":"post-26269","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-data","9":"tag-mit","10":"tag-mit-media-lab"},"author_data":{"id":3551,"name":"Joseph Young","nicename":"joseph-young","avatar_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/1629529456084-1-96x96.jpg"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/mit-media-lab-project-enigma-enables-blockchain-based-encrypted-data-storage.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3551"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}