DClaims: A Censorship Resistant Web Annotations System using IPFS and Ethereum

Abstract

The proliferation of unreliable and biased information is a significant\nproblem on the Internet. To assess the credibility of the information retrieved\nfrom news websites and other sources, users often resort to social platforms\nlooking for confirmation with trustworthy parties. However, users may be faced\nwith considerable obstacles posed by the platform provider, who can prevent\naccess to certain content. This paper presents DClaims, a system that provides\na censorship-resistant distributed service for the exchange of information over\nthe Internet using web annotations. DClaims' fully decentralized architecture\nrelies on Inter-Planetary File System (IPFS) and Ethereum blockchain, both of\nwhich offer desirable censorship resistant properties. DClaims is implemented\nas a web annotations browser extension which allows for the classification of\nnews articles, on news websites. From our evaluation of the system, we conclude\nthat a large scale implementation of the system is practical and economically\nviable.\n