Handling user profiles in Ethereum DApps

Question

I'm in the process of creating an Ethereum DApp. The DApp consists of users who have associated data like email, name, and a profile picture. I would like to store the contents of the user within IPFS as a JSON object and reference this on the chain using the IPFS hash. How could I go about associating this data with a particular user? In the sense, that subsequent interactions with the DApp connect the user with the data stored in IPFS. Is this done using the user's account hash with a password of some sort?

For example, user A is interested in using the DApp and so, provides his or her email, name, and profile picture. Then any subsequent interaction with the DApp, like a comment or post would link this user to the respective user data in IPFS.

Any suggestions or adjustments to this way of modeling users would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

(P.S. I come from the traditional web/mobile app world so I'm just getting accustomed to modeling things using smart contracts. So I apologize in advance if this is a simple or ill-structured question.)

Answer 1

The fact that users can build ZERO click login using Ethereum, makes this blockchain platform a masterpiece. When the user’s web3.eth.accounts[0] is established, there is no hiding the fact that a user controls the private key of that particular account address. Thus, the validity of a user can be guaranteed. 

Now coming onto your question. For using IPFS as a database, you need to keep in mind the following things. 

For User Signup: 

• Sign up user data is collected in a JSON object.

• Then create a file and write that JSON object to that file. 

• Pass that file on to IPFS and get the file has (the IPFS file location)

• Store that hash in an Ethereum based contract that associates the user’s account with the IPFS file hash. 

For User Validation: 

• When users visit the website, web3js gets the active Ethereum account

• Read the user contract and identify the associated IPFS hash. 

• Get the file from IPFS and read the JSON object

• Extract data from a JSON object and display the same to the user. 

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