Bandwidth is the new tool to fight hackers
By: Mohit Mamoria
Tags: Economics, Business, Ideas, Technology, Bitcoin

I am often asked, “How is blockchain different from the other p2p networks that have existed long before?”

To this, my answer is, “Technically, nothing. Economically, everything.”

As soon as the words leave my mouth, a weird expression turns up on their face. I enjoy it for a minute before I start explaining what I meant.

Blockchain is not a new technology

“Every once in a while, a new technology, an old problem, and a big idea turn into an innovation.” — Dean Kamen

Before you start sending me hate emails, allow me to explain myself.

Every moving part of the blockchain has existed independently for a long time. We had peer-to-peer networks and cryptography long before blockchain came into the picture. A blockchain is just an arrangement of these technologies. If you are an engineer, you will not find anything new technically in the blockchain protocol.

The difference is that, this time, we have found a way to attach value to the cryptographic and peer-to-peer aspect of the network. Through cryptography and distributed consensus, we can now send virtual money, and we can also exchange value through tokens attached to objects of value.

The economic side of the blockchain makes it different from any other peer-to-peer network.

A decentralized protocol like blockchain is made up of tens of thousands of computers, wherein each of them contributes to the network through distributed authentication, verification and consensus. In return, these nodes are rewarded for their contribution.

As an added resiliency feature, if one computer goes down, the network stays up. If two computers go down, the network stays up. The network stays available until the last computer is standing.

When a tree falls down in a forest, the forest doesn’t cease to exist.

Blockchain is immutable economically, not technically.

What does this have to do with bandwidth?

“Nothing happens, and nothing happens, and then everything happens.” — Fay Weldon

Which brings us to my main point.

The other side of distributed tech — the “bad” side of it — is that malicious hackers have long been using networks of zombie computers or botnets to execute traffic-based attacks in the form of distributed denial-of-service or DDoS attacks.

The attacks do not come from a single computer that one can simply block, but rather from thousands of devices — usually compromised zombie computers — spread throughout the world. This makes it nearly impossible to track and block all of them.

In October 2016, Dyn, a company that controls an enormous part of the internet’s DNS infrastructure, was hit by the largest DDoS attack the world had ever seen. Over 1.2 Tbps of malicious connections brought down this cornerstone of the internet. Sites including Twitter, Netflix, Reddit, and CNN were all completely shut down for an entire day. Billions of dollars were lost because of that attack.

Blockchain startups like Filecoin and Siacoin have revolutionized hard disk sharing and monetization to create a Dropbox killer. Golem allow users to “donate” their spare computation power to allow others to get access to a distributed and collective powerful supercomputer.

Now, comes bandwidth.