p2Box

What is P2Box

P2Box is a peer to peer file transfer protocol that leverages IPFT to transfer files between interconnected nodes.

Inspiration

We wanted to explore the current challenges of cyber security in the banking industry. We wanted to come up with unique solutions that would aid banks in their push to modernise. One of the major problems between banks is that there is no secure way to transfer files between branches of the banks. Certain sensitive client information is still transferred using paper. That is where P2Box comes in. P2Box creates a sub network of nodes between different branches so that branches can communicate with each other in a decentralised manner.

How is it secure:

P2Box leverages a decentralised network of nodes that is accessible from the internet. The way we make it secure is that we ensure the nodes only are accessible behind corporate authentication a bank may use. Once Logged in using their corporate credentials, users can finally get access to the P2Box page for their branch. After they upload their file to the node, the user will receive a unique hash. This file is now only accessible using the unique hash. The user can then communicate the hash to their recipient by a more secure means such as a voice call using company phones so that only the recipient knows the information. The recipient can then use the hash to gain access to the files. The hash will expire in 30 mins and then the files will no longer be accessible.

How We Built it

We primarily relied on python and JavaScript to build our product. We used the python library Flask to set up the routing for our web app and create routes to upload data to the nodes. We set up nodes using Digital Ocean. They were Ubuntu servers primarily responsible for hosting files.

Challenges

One of the major challenges was setting up the servers on digital ocean and configuring them to behave as IPFS nodes. Another major challenge was creating a web app and setting up routes to communicate with the nodes.

What’s next for P2Box:

Our original vision was to create a node with a block chain database to store the files so that they would be immutable and could not be corrupted. Unfortunately due to time constraints we could not complete that portion.