Don’t forget our WHY

(Purpose & focus of GeoDB)

Privacy is the utmost concern for any internet user. Online platforms are the places where your privacy is at constant risk. Be it online banking, groceries, clothing stores, or food apps; everyone is mining your data. Most of the time, this happens without your permission. Nevertheless, even if they have your permission (hidden in their long pages of terms and conditions, which honestly none of us pay attention to) you’re not getting anything in return! Houston, are we counting the annoying ads here? Have you ever wondered who does this and how much money they make out of your data?

They are called ‘Data Brokers.’ Data brokers who sell a user’s data to other companies is in itself a 200 billion dollar market. And at the cost of what? Our data and privacy. Your next question would be, how would any company benefit from my data? Data is the new oil they say, which is very accurate in the internet era. Companies mine and sell data for Big data analytics. An analysis shows that the Big data industry volume will touch 100 billion US dollars by 2027.

What is happening at the user’s end in these scenarios?

• Users are not compensated for using their data without their consent.
• Users are at risk of data breach and security threats.
• Users are doomed to believe about the privacy and integrity of their data.

This is where GeoDB comes into the picture — A trendsetter that aims to build a trustful relationship between you and the data-sharing market. The right to privacy is everyone’s need and we at GeoDB, respect that. How does this work? What is GeoDB? How does it compensate a user? And much more is discussed in the subsequent sections.

GeoDB, as a platform, is one of the growing frontiers of Big Data and Blockchain driven organizations. As we discussed earlier, with the enlarging sector of data brokers, a user’s privacy is always at stake. So, GeoDB is a platform where users can choose to share their data and get compensated in return.

We’ll consider an example here to understand better. We have come across the pop-up, ‘Company XYZ wants to know your location.’ Can you guess how much data you’ve generated by tapping that button? Typically, to point to a location, we’ll need parameters like latitude, longitude, timestamp, and other mobile network-related information. Suppose you share this for half a day; our studies show that you roughly generate about 17KB data. Now, imagine this for millions of users over a period of 5 years. The figures would be the following. (Read as 1 million and 100 million users, click on the image to view the source).

Yes! That is the amount of data generated! A total of 12,472,540.14 GB data for 100 million users over a period of 21 years, which would make annual revenue of a whopping $68,403,553,920.

Annual revenue of a whopping $68,403,553,920

All this happens without the data creator’s knowledge and consent to sell their data. GeoDB not only uses authorized user’s data but also compensates for it. With total control to users over their data, keeping their identity anonymous.

How does GeoDB keep the privacy and integrity of data intact, and how does it compensate its users? This is achieved by the decentralization of data. We have a digital data system called ‘Digital Ledger Technology (DLT)’ which stores digital data geographically spread across countries.

However, using a traditional DLT has few shortcomings, such as:

• Storing data in public DLT is a costly affair. For instance, if you consider persisting a single GB data in blockchains of bitcoin, it comes to a sum of $60,000,000,00.
• It does have data transmission capability but lacks storage capability.

GeoDB uses a Hybrid DLT system and a process flow to overcome these.

• It uses a Federated DLT, public DLT, and, most importantly, blockchain DLT to keep a user’s identity anonymous.
• Initially, GeoDB has the total federation and then gradually adds trusted memberships to the federation.
• Data from the participants flow to the system via the Geo installed SDKs in smartphones.
• The data is then checked for quality assurance, trustworthiness, and ownership. This is done by an authorized DLT, and after the process, the reward is calculated by the federation.

Geo-Cash: A handy app to earn and track GEO-tokens.

To keep track of the rewards, we have an app called GeoCash, which can easily be downloaded from the app stores for both Android and iOS devices. Before we jump into a walkthrough of the application, we’ll see how it works.

The app, with the user’s consent, mines the location and other device data of the user anonymously. Rewards are subjected to rules laid down by the federation. Now, how does anyone pay an anonymous person? Here’s where blockchain and cryptocurrency come to picture.

Cryptocurrency is a digital asset of money stored in decentralized ledger systems. Any transfer of these assets will generate a set of encrypted keys. This key will be known only to the person to whom the transfer was intended to. On successful entry of the key, the wallet is updated with the transferred asset. All transactions and balances are recorded on a digital public ledger called a blockchain. Also, note that all transactions that happen are decentralized. In this way, the transactions are kept anonymous.

Here’s a picture that explains the concept of cryptocurrency very well.

It was Bitcoin in 2009 that came up with an open-source cryptocurrency software for the first time. Later, many alt currencies have made their way.

Install the GeoCash app in few simple steps:

1. Download following this link: Downloads.geodb.com
2. After installation, check the privacy terms and click on ‘new wallet’ or ‘load wallet’ in case you have one already.
3. Give a wallet name and set a PIN.
4. This will generate a unique set of private keys(make a note of it). This is how your screen will look like.

1. To set up your account, authorize by adding your Google account(this information is used to assure the participant to be a human — OAuth).

2. After authorizing the permission to share your location, you’re ready to mine & earn GEO!

Conclusion

GeoDB aims to build a bridge of trust and loyalty with you. We, as a Big data system and an organization, believe that we need to give credits to you, the creators of data. To know more about us and the work we do, visit our website
Don't forget to join our growing community on telegram.

See you all again soon!