MaidSafe invented the technology that lets someone log into a decentralised network securely without requiring the involvement of a third party. The testnets we have released are the only place in the world today that you can see this in action.

Invented by MaidSafe, this is the process by which any file to be stored in the Network is first broken into chunks, hashed, and then encrypted. These chunks are then themselves encrypted using the hash of another chunk from the same file.

Ensures that the Network can scale by managing the responsibilities and locations of each node without requiring any human intervention. This also acts as a security measure to ensure that an attacker cannot choose their location or responsibilities.

Ensures that a message can be sent between nodes in different Disjoint Sections. Each message contains signatures of the members of the Disjoint Sections and is verified using these signatures.

Each node on the Safe Network is given an age by the Network itself. The node age increments every time that a node moves between Disjoint Sections, with only the most senior (Elders) entitled to vote.

Dig into the detail in the RFC, and join the discussion on the forum.

Ensures messages are sent and signed in such a way that lets nodes rely on the contents of each message despite having no previous relationship with the sender. This solves a problem faced by many existing blockchain-based projects and is essential when you have a Network that will autonomously move nodes around as required.

Ensures that all sent messages will be successfully delivered to their destinations, even when some nodes responsible for the delivery are failing.

Software that lets computers communicate in an encrypted manner on the Safe Network. The software provides the infrastructure for messages to travel whilst the Routing layer of the Network sets the rules about which directions those messages can travel in.

Safe Network Tokens are the incentive mechanism that encourages individuals to provide the computing resources that the Network requires: storage, broadband, and CPU resources.

Individuals who choose to supply the resources that the Network requires have the opportunity to be rewarded with Safe Network Tokens. This work ensures that the Network rewards those who provide it with valuable resources.

Decentralised data storage is a key element of the Safe Network. This enables nodes to participate regardless of the resources they offer.

Public data refers to content that is published (made available) for everyone such as websites, blogs, or research papers. For such public content, it becomes important to retain a history of changes. History must not be allowed to be tampered with and the public data must remain forever. Private data is data that is not desired to be made public such as personal data or organisations’ data stored on the network

There are many times when a user will require to create Immutable Data to store private content. As long as this content is not published (made available for others) this will be deleteable by the data owner only.

Spam includes nodes attempting to carry out activities that they shouldn’t or valid activities at a scale that is intended to choke the Network. The Network should be able to withstand a reasonable volume of such attacks.

The Network will have the ability to upgrade itself in order to allow features and improvements to disseminate throughout the Network. The upgrades must be done in a way such that they don’t cause harm to the Network.

This is an important stage in the evolution of the Network as it means that new software can then continue to be rolled out onto the existing Network without disrupting the existing functionality.