US telecom giant Verizon uses blockchain for digital rights management

Recently, Verizon , a multi-billion dollar communications company in New Jersey, USA, is testing the use of blockchain technology as a digital copyright protection platform to store unchangeable data.

According to reports from Reuters and Business Insider , Verizon has filed several patents for blockchain products in the past three years, all of which focus on the development of using a cryptographic blockchain platform to store a series of passwords associated with specific digital content or data.

The crypto blockchain platform is designed specifically for data-driven businesses like Verizon that handle sensitive data and operations. Users are assigned a unique password or private key to move data across the peer-to-peer network.

For example, Verizon users are required to submit a series of information or necessary data to create a user record. Verizon then uses this information to create an account for the user to use their services.

Essentially, a password is assigned to a user's record at one time. This means that a password can be assigned to a user's account, another password can be assigned to a user's address, and so on. If a change is made, a new password is generated and the previous data or password is wiped out.

"Furthermore, the term of the key is valid for the second user or any subsequent user. Therefore, if access rights to a particular digital content are associated with a rental period, the user can continue to transfer access rights to other users during the rental period," the company 's May patent filing stated .

If Verizon needs to transfer a specific record or data to a new user, the original owner of the data is required to use the relevant password to migrate the information. Then the new user will get a new password to protect the information.

Once this blockchain digital rights management platform is integrated into Verizon’s core IT systems, the company will be able to significantly reduce the costs of centralized databases and servers used to record this information.

As a telecommunications company, Verizon is required by local and international regulations to provide law enforcement or government agencies with access to sensitive user data. Regardless of the company's ethics or principles, Verizon is required by law to provide this data in any case.

For an enterprise managing hundreds of millions of messages, it can cost millions of dollars just to maintain and protect their servers and databases. In addition, the company needs to hire employees to manually verify and authorize the transfer of data, even basic information processing, such as migrating an email or home address to another account.

Suppose that Bob, a Verizon customer, has moved his address to the address where Alice used to live. Alice then moved to Bob's old address. Both Alice and Bob now need to contact Verizon to change their billing addresses. When Verizon receives the request, an employee needs to access a centralized server to manually modify the data and then notify Alice and Bob that the data modification has been completed securely.

Such a simple operation costs a lot. For a large enterprise, it is impractical and inefficient to spend millions on a simple modification of the database.

However, in a blockchain platform, Alice and Bob will be able to modify their data using their respective passwords. Once the modification is made, it will be broadcasted to the entire network and the Verizon team will also be notified.

Instead of manually verifying every modification in the database, Verizon can simply detect unusual changes or transactions on the network through a third party, which will greatly reduce their costs.