Why would health data be something you want decentralized?
The only possible usecase I can think of for that is someone who has unique info that an emergency room would need. At that point, a medical alert bracelet would be the way to communicate that. Otherwise, I want to know exactly who has my medical information. That’s super sensitive info
Alright it’s early so I’m not structure this so much, but here’s my cypherpunk argument
So, a decentralized ID system could be implemented by having a microchip implanted in the heart. The measured signals are more unique than your fingerprint, and if someone stole it, they’d have to kill you by ripping it out of your heart.
But no one can trust a single company or government to make such a chip and not abuse that very rich health data which you can infer emotional states with. So instead a standard is developed so other people can develop the device independently.
But decentralization goes beyond just manufacturing of the device itself, but also in governance of the data it collects. It doesn’t matter if your data is encrypted on the way to a single corporations servers, they still own the data.
Furthermore, fully homomorphic encryption could be used to perform operations on encrypted data without ever decrypting it (unless you decrypt it with the keys from your microchip)
So decentralization and FHE can remove the element of human trust from both monitoring health and establishing an identity system. While being transparent but also keeping your personal information hidden. For me, trusting humans is a security flaw. If that element of trust can be automated away, it should be.
The problem has always been can you trust the people automating. With Blockchain, you can trust the servers are running the code that’s been agreed upon by the node operators and miners. With FHE, the data processed by the miners stays anonymous, and if you need to display that data say to a doctor, you have the ability to retrieve your encrypted data from a decentralized database (no one wants to manage their own data, like how most people don’t manage their own Lemmy instance)
Anyone can splinter off and change the code, but if its incompatible they’re isolated on their own network. Kind of like if sublemmy instances content moderation policy is incompatible with others, they get defederated
Why would health data be something you want decentralized?
The only possible usecase I can think of for that is someone who has unique info that an emergency room would need. At that point, a medical alert bracelet would be the way to communicate that. Otherwise, I want to know exactly who has my medical information. That’s super sensitive info
Alright it’s early so I’m not structure this so much, but here’s my cypherpunk argument
So, a decentralized ID system could be implemented by having a microchip implanted in the heart. The measured signals are more unique than your fingerprint, and if someone stole it, they’d have to kill you by ripping it out of your heart.
But no one can trust a single company or government to make such a chip and not abuse that very rich health data which you can infer emotional states with. So instead a standard is developed so other people can develop the device independently.
But decentralization goes beyond just manufacturing of the device itself, but also in governance of the data it collects. It doesn’t matter if your data is encrypted on the way to a single corporations servers, they still own the data.
Furthermore, fully homomorphic encryption could be used to perform operations on encrypted data without ever decrypting it (unless you decrypt it with the keys from your microchip)
So decentralization and FHE can remove the element of human trust from both monitoring health and establishing an identity system. While being transparent but also keeping your personal information hidden. For me, trusting humans is a security flaw. If that element of trust can be automated away, it should be.
The problem has always been can you trust the people automating. With Blockchain, you can trust the servers are running the code that’s been agreed upon by the node operators and miners. With FHE, the data processed by the miners stays anonymous, and if you need to display that data say to a doctor, you have the ability to retrieve your encrypted data from a decentralized database (no one wants to manage their own data, like how most people don’t manage their own Lemmy instance)
Anyone can splinter off and change the code, but if its incompatible they’re isolated on their own network. Kind of like if sublemmy instances content moderation policy is incompatible with others, they get defederated