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NFT's to combat content theft

· 3 min read
j5s

A New Project Idea​

This blog is going to be a rambling of my thoughts in my journey to learn new software.

The first problem that comes to mind with a blog is content theft. If I write original content I want to make sure unoriginal individuals don't come along and steal it. Cause I know they will, it would be great to have a way to prove I am the original author. NFT's seem like a good use case for this problem.

The solution: After I publish a page I will mint an NFT that will contain:

  • the url of the content
  • the html content of the page in text
  • hash of html text
  • a screenshot of the page

The page will contain a metatag such as:

<meta name="ethereum-address" content="0x1234567890abcdef">

This will be done by a chrome plugin that when activated will look for the meta tag and

  • sign a transaction as that wallet owner
  • create the data (above) and send it to Arweave
  • create the NFT on network (polygon?)

The Parts​

Chrome Extension​

Chrome extensions can be complex in their different environments. From background scripts to popovers it can get messy fast. Ideally i want something like getAlby but would prefer not recreating it all from scratch. Requirements:

  • React
  • typescript
  • e2e tests
  • unit tests
  • prettier

I don't want to build from scratch and know a few exist:

This will be something i can re-use anytime I want a chrome extension. It will be considered done when:

  • clicking the extension opens up a popover that has a button which upon clicking executes javascript on the page
  • has e2e/unit tests
  • Github Actions setup to test/build/deploy the plugin

Web3 Client Integration​

Part two of the work will be building the web3 integration to a network like polygon. This should also exist on its own and be a starting point for future projects. Requirements are:

  • a mint button that
  • copies all html from the page
  • gets the url
  • creates a hash of the text of the page
  • A service to upload content to Arweave and return ID's for NFT
  • mints the NFT using a script

Web3 Solidity Smart Contract​

The chrome extension must interact with the contract to mint the NFT. The contract must have

  • A mint function
  • unique hash for content
  • store the url
  • metadata with links to data on Arweave
  • screenshot
  • html

Integration​

Integrate the web3 client, smart contract into the extension for the full functionality of the project.

Future Steps​

I would like a way for users to validate that the page is the original content. Perhaps some sort of badge / js snippet to place on the page that would show the user the content is original.

Some sort of service that automates dmca notices to websites that steals my content. Perhaps the badge and service could be something I can resell?