| | OCTOBER 20199server) from the user's location. It further extends the digital files or video in the format that will offer an the optimal viewing experience on the end-user's device.CDNs moreover have a range of solutions to ensure that con-tent is not illegally downloaded or accessed. Still, they are barely able to contain the digital threat as the IT dynamics are too broad to fix every single vulnerability that exists or might eventually pop-up. On the other hand, that re-maining vulnerability is all that a cybercriminal needs. For instance, Netflix, which is known to tout its competency in antipiracy, itself fell prey to pirating back in 2016. It was only when two security re-searchers discovered the vulnera-bility in Chrome Browsers that en-abled cybercriminals to copy the decrypted feed as it plays, or when the feed is transferred to a video player for streaming. The vulnera-bility was eventually fixed. But the catch is that there might be thou-sands of such vulnerabilities that exist and arise in our burgeoning IT infrastructure.Nowadays, digital piracy plat-forms are moving away from the traditional download-based ap-proach. They are now upping their game with online streaming of pirated content, much like people are moving away from iTunes to digital streaming platforms like Spotify. Additionally, they are using advanced technologies to source pirated content. So, when the digital pirates are becom-ing more advanced and sophis-ticated, how can we battle these new-age pirates? The answer is simple: Blockchain.Further Encrypting the En-crypted: How Blockchain can make a Difference in Content DeliveryBlockchain is a distributed-ledger technology that is deemed im-penetrable. This is because every change made to the blockchain gets registered in the form of a block and is verified with all other stakeholders. For the uninitiated, blockchain stores information ­ transactional one or otherwise ­ in a long chain of blocks. Any new in-formation, including an alteration in the existing information (that a cybercriminal does through cyber-attacks), is added to a subsequent block without changing (or modi-fying) the existing chain of blocks (or the existing information). By design, the previous blocks cannot be changed in a blockchain, which directly eliminates chances of data falsification.This encrypted information is then relayed to all stakeholders of the blockchain and any subsequent change is only accepted after mu-tual verification. Since a block-chain is a distributed system, it en-sures that a minor stakeholder in the network ­ say a Digital Rights Management (DRM) solutions pro-vider or a malicious insider or a cy-berattacker ­ cannot directly or in-directly manipulate the CDN or its content delivery. This prevents pi-racy of content via vulnerabilities that exist in the IT infrastructure irrespective of where the content travels. This leads to a win-win sit-uation for all stakeholders.Primarily, a blockchain-based CDN guarantees that user privacy remains intact with virtual identity representation. Secondly, it reduc-es the expense of content produc-ers by eliminating the leakage of content, thereby providing superi-or value for money to their legit-imate viewers. Lastly, it creates a public and unassailable database, which can further be used to maxi-mize the service efficiency.Key TakeawaysThe next logical step in the do-main is blockchain-based CDNs that have an immutable infrastruc-ture, which not only provides the desired security, but also ensures that the content producers receive a Return on Investment (ROI) that they deserve, perhaps get-ting a step ahead in the game of digital piracy. BLOCKCHAIN-BASED CDNS THAT HAVE AN IMMUTABLE INFRASTRUCTURE NOT ONLY PROVIDE THE DESIRED SECURITY, BUT ALSO ENSURES THAT THE CONTENT PRODUCERS RECEIVE THE ROI THEY DESERVEAshwin Rao
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