Block Chain-Based Secure Document Sharing

The Blockchain-Based Secure Document Sharing project offers a decentralized approach to secure, transparent, and efficient document sharing, resolving the weaknesses of conventional centralized systems. Utilizing Ethereum blockchain, smart contracts, and the Inter Planetary File System (IPFS), the system provides immutability, strong access control, and auditability. Smart contracts handle document ownership, versioning, and permissioned sharing, while IPFS facilitates decentralized storage of encrypted files, with content identifiers being stored on-chain for integrity checks. The frontend, implemented in React with Web3.js integration, has a user-friendly interface for wallet management, document upload, and secure sharing using protected routes and Bootstrap to make it responsive. The backend, implemented with Express.js, performs file upload through Multer and emulates IPFS interaction, with a plan to fully integrate IPFS. Local development is done using Ganache and Truffle to test and deploy the blockchain. Key features are tamper-proof audit trails, attribute-based access control, and real-time global accessibility, making the system ideal for industries such as healthcare, finance, and education. Scalability and reliability challenges such as IPFS integration, Web3 provider error handling, and contract address configuration are being tackled to make the system scalable and reliable. Through blockchain's immutability coupled with IPFS's decentralized storage, this project presents a safe and affordable substitute to centralized document storage systems, while promoting compliance and trust as it simplifies collaboration. Planned for the future include layer-2 scalability solutions as well as wider testing to improve production readiness.