EGaaS Digital Ecosystem

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    eGaaS (Electronic Government as a Service) is a digital ecosystem designed to implement the idea of ​​e-government. At the same time, the term “e-government” in eGaaS is not interpreted in a narrow sense, just as an online service for providing services to citizens or a mechanism for automating government activities, but is understood as an integrated digital ecosystem that combines the activities of all areas of the state in a single information space: institutions of power, economics, finance and social sphere . The eGaaS ecosystem includes global registries and software tools for building public, private and public user applications and platforms based on smart contracts.

    The eGaaS ecosystem has a multi-level rights management system for creating and editing registries, contracts, and interfaces. To control access rights to ecosystem elements, special contracts are used - smart laws , due to which the rights control system turns out to be flexibly customizable and, most importantly, allows you to automatically track the transfer of access rights.

    Blockchain technology is used as a software solution for building the eGaaS ecosystem. The main advantages of the blockchain for the implementation of electronic government are:

    • ultimate reliability of data storage, which is achieved using crypto-algorithms and distributed storage of registries,
    • keeping a history of all registry changes with fixing the subjects who had access to the data.

    EGaaS blockchain


    Technically, the eGaaS digital ecosystem is a peer-to-peer network whose nodes are data centers (DPCs), each of which contains a complete copy of the blockchain. The nodes form blocks in turn with a period of not more than a second. Efficiency of an ecosystem can be supported by one node. The remaining nodes provide uninterrupted operation of the network and protection against unauthorized data changes.



    The eGaaS ecosystem, deployed within one state, is closed - access to network resources is possible only for users who have private keys. Which does not exclude the subsequent possibility of including the state network in the international one.

    Registries


    The basis of the ecosystem is the registers of objects involved in legal, financial and economic relations. These are registers of individuals and legal entities, real estate, households, securities, licenses, etc. The most important tool for managing the ecosystem and the applications created on its basis is a multi-level mechanism for managing access rights to registries. Rights controlled:

    • to read, modify and add attributes (columns),
    • to read, modify and add records (lines),
    • for changes to the above rights.

    Rights to access the registers can be granted to individuals (by indicating their id from the person’s register), certain roles (the presence of the person’s id in the post register is controlled), as well as to persons and roles in combination with various conditions. Providing access to registry entries for specific contracts / applications only.





    Thus, by constructing a multi-level system of rights, the separation of competencies between applications of different departments, industries and organizations is implemented.

    Smart contracts


    Following the tradition that has developed in the blockchain community, the eGaaS software modules that provide work with registries are called smart contracts (or simply contracts ). Contracts are structural elements in building applications and platforms. For writing contracts, a scripting language developed for the ecosystem is used with fast compilation into bytecode. The language contains the necessary set of functions for creating registries and performing all types of transactions with entries in them.

    Contracts are functionally complete code fragments providing:

    • receiving input from a user or another contract (data section),
    • analysis of the correctness of the data and verification of the terms of the contract (section conditions)
    • execution of necessary transactions (action section).





    To prevent the execution of contracts that could harm the user (for example, transfer money) without his knowledge, a contract signing mechanism is used. The so-called signed contracts cannot be executed without the obligatory confirmation by the user.

    The description of the contract necessarily includes an indication of the right to change it. The entire history of changes and the launch of contracts is stored on the blockchain.

    Smart laws


    A special role in the eGaaS ecosystem is played by special contracts that define:

    • contract execution conditions,
    • user and contract access to registries,
    • rights to change registries, contracts and interfaces.

    Such contracts, which, in essence, play the role of regulatory documents, are called smart laws . Smart laws contain the conditions and restrictions prescribed by state law.

    The compulsory implementation of smart laws is guaranteed by the use of them as common conditions for access to registries for the ecosystem. Transactions controlled by smart laws cannot be performed by any user application ignoring the restrictions prescribed in the laws (for example, license control, etc.) and / or bypassing the execution of special transactions (for example, making tax deductions).

    If necessary (in case of legal ambiguity), a special condition is included in the smart law requiring a decision by an authorized person with a digital signature confirming the decision.

    To protect the ecosystem from the consequences of errors and vulnerabilities (inevitable in the program code of user applications), a procedure for stopping execution and changing any contracts with ignoring the rights assigned by their authors is provided. These are the so-called exclusive rights granted to certain roles or collegial bodies through special smart laws.



    Interfaces


    To exclude manipulations with the reflection of data on the user side, the interfaces that ensure the operation of smart contracts are also stored on the blockchain. The pages and menus of applications, as well as registries and contracts, have an indication of a smart contract, which sets out the conditions for their change.



    Page templates are created using a set of functions that can be considered as a specialized language for creating interfaces - the eGaaS application template engine. The functions of the template engine are consistent with the language of writing contracts, which greatly simplifies the creation of applications. Template language provides:

    • receiving data from registries,
    • presentation of data in the form of tables and diagrams (with the addition of additional widgets),
    • building data entry forms for contracts,
    • creating a multi-level menu
    • implementation of multilingualism.



    The template language creates interfaces that were originally adapted for applications to run on mobile devices.


    Applications


    The eGaaS ecosystem application is a standalone software solution for performing a specific action or many actions within a certain activity. The application consists of:

    • contracts implementing its functionality,
    • database tables needed to store operational data,
    • pages and menus that provide data entry and display.

    The execution of contracts in the application is launched by user actions, other contracts and access to registry data (for checking access rights).



    The composition of the applications is not fixed and implies the possibility of expansion by adding new contracts, pages and tables.

    EGaaS Software Client


    Writing applications is carried out using the eGaaS software client ( code on gitHub ), which, using system interfaces and editors, provides:

    • Creating tables / registers,
    • Creating and editing contracts
    • Creating and editing pages and menus,
    • Setting and editing conditions for access to tables, contracts, pages and menus,
    • Entering and editing language resources for the implementation of multilingualism.

    The eGaaS software client is also used to access users to applications, ensuring their identification by entering a private key.

    Ecosystem security


    The security of the eGaaS ecosystem is ensured by the previously described mechanisms:

    • use of blockchain technology, which excludes changes to transactions;
    • storage of copies of the blockchain, and, therefore, of all registries, contracts and interfaces on each network node;
    • support for a multilevel system for managing access rights to resources with the help of smart laws containing an exclusive rights mechanism;
    • protection against unauthorized launch of contracts using a special signature;
    • saving interfaces in the blockchain.

    To protect the ecosystem from attacks and overload, a mechanism for paying for resources with tokens is used. Fulfillment of the contract requires the debiting of tokens from the wallet specified during its activation. For end users, working with applications is free (if we are not talking about paid services).

    Conclusion


    The eGaaS digital ecosystem, built on blockchain technology, containing a multi-level and flexibly customizable mechanism for managing access rights to resources based on smart laws, is a modern tool for implementing e-government and the digital economy, both in a single country and at the interstate level.

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