Geeq Data FAQS

Geeq Data harnesses elements of blockchain to introduce a more comprehensive, cost-effective, reliable, and neutral set of assurances than has ever been possible. It does so, in essence, by cutting through the red tape and creating a permanent, easily searchable record of attestations for data.

In doing so, Geeq Data reduces the need for coordination, creates a record for provenance, divides the work of record-keeping, and creates a resource that is readily available to anyone with permission to access it.

Geeq Data is bringing you the power to certify your own documents and data. It is an attestation service that shows how Geeq’s blockchain technology provides solutions to problems that arise when responsibility for data integrity falls through the cracks or there aren’t enough resources to authenticate and verify every piece of data manually.

Data integrity is an issue that can cost businesses as much as 25% of revenue. As cybersecurity attacks worsen, even redundant backups may become useless if you do not have confidence the data are unchanged. With Geeq Data’s provable security, it is possible to identify which backups have been contaminated, which ones have data integrity, and how to narrow the scope of any necessary recovery efforts.

Lines of responsibility for data ownership also are becoming harder to maintain as the volume of data increases and interactions grow exponentially. Miscommunications or mishandling of data responsibilities can be the sources of rifts at work, breaches of privacy, liability, and worse. Geeq Data introduces clarity to those situations in a highly efficient and non-intrusive way.

As an individual, trying to trace data integrity and track down who is responsible for which data can be overwhelming. Too often it feels like you are lost and on your own, not knowing who to contact, how to find them, or when they might help you.

The purpose of Geeq Data is to make it simple for people to point to the same entry for a piece of data so that everyone can get on the same page. It is easier to make a plan, settle a dispute, and prevent confusion if everyone involved knows where to start.

Geeq Data is a webapp that gives you the ability to certify your own data. In this version, the webapp supports documents in .pdf format and images in .jpg format up to 8 MB. The formats that Geeq Data accepts have little to do with the blockchain and more to do with the front end of the app.

To the blockchains themselves, it does not matter what the original data look like, so the Geeq Data app itself is completely generic. The size limit we’ve imposed in the Testing Framework is arbitrary and purely for convenience.

Of course, Geeq’s strength is to provide the technology. Different users are welcome to customize their own displays, write their own apps, and integrate the technology into their own dashboards. This testing framework is to show how that process would work as well as test the technology itself.

What is a blockchain-based web app?

The app is a piece of software that takes the information you enter, formats it, asks for your cryptographic signature, and sends it as a transaction to a node in the Geeq Data’s blockchain network.

There are Geeq blockchains involved on the back end. Geeq’s blockchain technology provides especially strong security guarantees. That means when transactions are validated by a Geeq-native app like Geeq Data, users can check independently (more formally, they can prove) whether the data they have in front of them is the same data that was previously submitted.

To summarize, the Geeq Data app provides a reliable, fast, and easily accessible way to submit and self-certify the transactions you send to the Geeq Data blockchains.

It is worth noting that Geeq Data does not depend on smart contracts. It works on the streamlined logic already built into the basic code. Building Geeq-native apps means the code and processes are standardized, predictable, efficient and far more secure, because smart contracts tend to open up new attack vectors and are vulnerable to exploits.

How will Geeq Data improve your life?

Traditionally, in order to prove something to someone who might not trust you, you’d need to find a witness (such as a notary public or government official) to corroborate your claim and certify you are who you say you are. You’d need to bring your identification and take the time to meet someone physically. The entire process could be stressful, time-consuming and expensive. If you find out afterwards that you need a new piece of information, you would have to go through the entire process again.

When a business goes through an audit, has to comply with regulations, or enters legal discovery, the disruption to the business can be even more time-consuming and costly. It is always better to have your official documents organized so the integrity of your data is easy to establish and clear lines of responsibility are already in place. Geeq Data is a new tool that helps enterprises to organize or automate supporting documentation in real time, easily, in a way that gives you the ability to find and prove your claims at any time in the future.

Then, there are the problems that have gone unresolved because this entire process has been too difficult to incorporate into our daily routines. How many times have you let things go because it was too hard to produce credible proof for your point of view? For example, have you ever let a client underpay you even though you knew she was wrong, because it’s her word against yours and you didn’t want to lose her business? Have you ever watched a boss or colleague make a plan destined for failure, but you knew your enterprise did not collect the evidence that could convince them to change course?

We’ve all had times when we’ve had to make compromises because we didn’t think there was a way to turn those situations around. Well, help has arrived in the form of the Geeq Data app.

Geeq Data reduces the costs of discovering and sharing contemporaneous attestations and it is possible precisely because of the security features of Geeq’s extraordinary blockchain technology. In addition, the app itself is simple to use and easy to access. We hope you will share with us all the ways you might use Geeq Data to improve your life, so we can work to make all of it happen. For everyone.

No. For the purposes of this app (and most blockchain apps), it does not make sense to write large amounts of data to a block. Remember, blockchains are append-only data structures, which means they are always growing. Writing a lot of data to a block can cause blockchain “bloat” which then can lead to a cascade of problems.

First, writing a lot of data to a blockchain can raise significant issues about storage and upkeep. The larger a blockchain gets, the harder it becomes for some nodes to keep copies. If fewer nodes participate in the network, access to services may shrink. We want to avoid all of that.

Also, the actual documents and data exist in more conventional data management systems, such as your file manager. Blockchains are not intended to replace existing data systems that already work well at what they can do.

Blockchain apps like Geeq Data are able to provide new and complementary functions that have not been possible before. Geeq blockchains are ideal for proving you had the data in that exact format, at the time you submitted your transaction to the blockchain. The app simply helps you to use this new technology in ways that users are used to interacting with old technology.

If the data itself is not written to the blockchain, what is?

The Geeq Data app asks you to select and upload a file. The app then uses a hash function to hash the file, which produces a non-invertible 256 bit binary string called a hash digest, regardless of the size of the original file.

Running the same file through the hash function always gives the same string. Running any other file through the hash function, no matter how similar, returns a different string.

Even though the hash digest is discoverable and visible on the Block Explorer, it is essentially impossible to guess the data which generated the hash digest. The only way to know what the hash digest represents is to have the same original document, hash it, and see if the hashes match. In fact, this is a straightforward way for different parties to check whether the document they have matches the one that was submitted officially. Every person can do that independently without consulting anyone else (unless there are permissioning structures in place).

Efficiency matters

A transaction on this version of Geeq Data, including the hash of the file and the metadata, is less than 1 kB (which is very small). Geeq’s developers are producing efficient, straightforward, and highly secure processes. Geeq Data also scales through multiple chains and is quite fast: blocks are written every 10 seconds, all transactions are settled on-chain, and the corresponding application block is appended when the new validation block is appended.

Like labels on file folders, notes on memos, subject headings in emails, variable names and definitions in databases, metadata are used to describe the data you are certifying.

The Geeq Data app provides space for you to add metadata to describe the hash digest of your document. Together, the hash digest and metadata make up what is called the “data payload” of your transaction. When your transaction is validated and included in a block in the app’s Validation Layer Blockchain (VLB), the data payload is written in the corresponding block in the app’s Application Layer Blockchain (ALB).

In summary, applications powered by Geeq are supported by two parallel, simultaneously constructed Geeq chains.

Anyone with permission to use the Block Explorer will be able to search the blockchain. Metadata can make these searches easier.

For the private instance of Geeq Data, released for public testing, the first metadata field was required and the rest are optional. Metadata are entered as strings of characters in the Geeq Data app. Unlike the hash of the document, which never overtly reveals its contents, the metadata will be displayed in the Block Explorer as they were entered in the Geeq Data app.

If the user writes the metadata in cleartext, it will be displayed clearly in the Block Explorer to anyone who finds it. If the user encrypts the metadata, the encrypted metadata still will be visible – however, the only users who will understand what they mean will be those who know how to decrypt them.

The general point of being able to choose how and when to use encryption, even while blockchain tends to make transactions more transparent and visible, is often misunderstood by those who might be afraid of the word “transparency”. Actually, we have many options at our disposal, in this process of developing Geeq’s blockchain applications.

Another way to add privacy is to add permissioning structures that determine who is allowed to send transactions and who is allowed to access the Block Explorer. Geeq offers permissioning structures for its enterprise clients. Partner with us!