The problem Valt solves

Valt revolutionizes the way individuals secure and manage their sensitive data—be it personal passwords, documents, or images. In the digital age, where cyber threats loom large and data breaches are increasingly common, Valt offers a robust, decentralized solution that empowers users with unparalleled security and control over their digital assets.

Key Solutions:

Enhanced Security: By leveraging blockchain technology and decentralized storage (IPFS), Valt ensures that your sensitive data is not compromised, but securely encrypted, splitting and scattering the data pieces across multiple nodes, making unauthorized access practically impossible.
Privacy and Anonymity: With Valt, the privacy of your data is paramount. The unique approach of using a seed image for access, combined with client-side hashing, ensures that your data's security keys never leave your device, offering a level of anonymity unmatched by traditional services.
Ownership and Control: Users have full ownership and control over their data. Thanks to the decentralized nature of blockchain and IPFS, there are no third-party intermediaries. You decide who gets access to your data, without any hidden terms or policies.
Ease of Use: Despite its sophisticated underpinnings, Valt is designed with a user-friendly interface that makes securing data as simple as uploading a photo. This accessibility means anyone can take advantage of blockchain security without needing technical expertise.
Recovery and Accessibility: The use of a seed image for vault access simplifies login processes & your unique image acts as a recoverable key, accessible only to you.
In essence, Valt addresses the growing need for a secure, private, and user-friendly platform for data storage. It mitigates the risks associated with centralized data storage models, making it an essential tool for anyone looking to safeguard their digital information in today's interconnected, yet perilous, digital landscape.

Challenges we ran into

While developing Valt, we encountered several challenges that tested our resolve and innovation. One of the significant hurdles was integrating the Anon Aadhar system as a fallback mechanism for users who might lose their seed image. The complexity arose from ensuring this feature complied with stringent privacy standards while providing a secure, verifiable backup access method. The integration required meticulous attention to anonymizing data to uphold our commitment to user privacy, which was both a technical and ethical challenge.

Another issue we faced was with Arweave and its compute engine. Our aim was to utilize Arweave for its permanent storage capabilities came with the challenge of adapting our application to work seamlessly with its compute functions. The setup and integration process revealed intricacies in handling data retrieval and storage operations efficiently, especially given our application's unique requirements for data fragmentation and encryption. Adjusting our approach to fit within Arweave's operational paradigms without compromising on performance or security took considerable effort and ingenuity.

Furthermore, we found that all packages to uintract with IPFS were deprecated. This unexpected discovery meant we had to search for alternative packages or update and customize the existing ones to ensure compatibility with our system. This not only required additional time but also introduced risks related to stability and support for these packages moving forward.

Additionally, while implementing client-side encryption and hashing, we had to ensure that the process was efficient enough not to detract from the user experience. Balancing security with usability presented a unique challenge, as heavy cryptographic operations can be resource-intensive and potentially slow down the application on less powerful devices.