—In the second decade of the twenty-first century, blockchain is considered one of the most popular computer technologies. Blockchain is a zero-trust network, making it a potent tool for various services provided that people are ready to believe and invest in it. In the Ethereum world, the blockchain runs on smart contracts, self-executing applications that come at the cost of security. As technology is used increasingly, Election is facing new issues of trust and management. Therefore, E-voting systems are increasingly acceptable because they are more accurate, reliable, practical, and secure. This research purpose is to propose a decentralized elections application based on Ethereum; the application was developed using the Truffle development framework. The actions of the software were written into an Ethereum smart contract, which was then deployed on the Ethereum network. A web interface had been used to read the user's vote before it was broadcast to the Ethereum network through the web3.js API. The ganache was utilized as the Ethereum client. Metalmark was used as a wallet on a website, and the remix was used to deploy the smart contract on the main network, the results of implementing the proposed system show that the cost of each transaction is not stable, its increases with the increase the network load, and the throughput ends up at 14 transactions per second.
Victoria Neumann, Gail Davidge, Mike Harding, James A. Cunningham · 9 authors
In recent years, researchers have begun to explore the use of Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT), also known as blockchain, in health data sharing contexts. However, there is a significant lack of research that examines public attitudes towards the use of this technology. In this paper, we begin to address this issue and present results from a series of focus groups which explored public views and concerns about engaging with new models of personal health data sharing in the UK. We found that participants were broadly in favour of a shift towards new decentralised models of data sharing. Retaining 'proof' of health information stored about patients and the capacity to provide permanent audit trails, enabled by immutable and transparent properties of DLT, were regarded as particularly valuable for our participants and prospective data custodians. Participants also identified other potential benefits such as supporting people to become more health data literate and enabling patients to make informed decisions about how their data was shared and with whom. However, participants also voiced concerns about the potential to further exacerbate existing health and digital inequalities. Participants were also apprehensive about the removal of intermediaries in the design of personal health informatics systems.
Md Ahmad, Gautami Tripathi, Farheen Siddiqui, Mohammad Afshar Alam · 7 authors
The overwhelming popularity of technology-based solutions and innovations to address day-to-day processes has significantly contributed to the emergence of smart cities. where millions of interconnected devices and sensors generate and share huge volumes of data. The easy and high availability of rich personal and public data generated in these digitalized and automated ecosystems renders smart cities vulnerable to intrinsic and extrinsic security breaches. Today, with fast-developing technologies, the classical username and password approaches are no longer adequate to secure valuable data and information from cyberattacks. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) can provide an effective solution to minimize the security challenges associated with legacy single-factor authentication systems (both online and offline). This paper identifies and discusses the role and need of MFA for securing the smart city ecosystem. The paper begins by describing the notion of smart cities and the associated security threats and privacy issues. The paper further provides a detailed description of how MFA can be used for securing various smart city entities and services. A new concept of blockchain-based multi-factor authentication named "BAuth-ZKP" for securing smart city transactions is presented in the paper. The concept focuses on developing smart contracts between the participating entities within the smart city and performing the transactions with zero knowledge proof (ZKP)-based authentication in a secure and privacy-preserved manner. Finally, the future prospects, developments, and scope of using MFA in smart city ecosystem are discussed.
With the growing use of digital technologies, the vision of a predictive, preventive and personalised healthcare system, commonly termed healthcare 4.0, is becoming tangible. However, the manifestation of healthcare 4.0 relies on empowering patients as active stakeholders of the healthcare system and transforming traditionally siloed data repositories into accessible ones. Combining blockchain-like distributed technology and Airbnb-like sharing economy model, this paper proposes a digital health data marketplace (DHDM) through which patients, as the data producer, can sell their health data to data consumers like medical practitioners, researchers, policymakers and machine learning algorithm developers without compromising privacy and security. In conjunction with the Welsh Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Databank, a traditional centralised and siloed data repository, DHDM was evaluated in a simulated environment to understand the technical feasibility, regulation compliance and, most importantly, the impact of such marketplace on healthcare 4.0 transformation.
Adrian Petcu, Bogdan Pahonțu, Mădălin Frunzete, Dan Alexandru Stoichescu
Over the past decade, there has been significant evolution in the security field, specifically in the authentication and authorization part. The standard authentication protocol nowadays is OAuth 2.0-based authentication. This method relies on a third-party authentication service provider with complete control over the users’ data, which it can filter or modify at will. Blockchain and decentralization have generated much interest in recent years, and the decentralized web is considered the next significant improvement in the world wide web (also known as Web 3.0). Web3 authentication, also known as decentralized authentication, allows for the secure and decentralized authentication of users on the web. The use cases for this technology include online marketplaces, social media platforms, and other online communities that require user authentication. The advantages of Web3 authentication include increased security and privacy for users and the ability for users to have more control over their data. The proposed system implementation uses Ethereum as the blockchain and a modern web stack to enhance user interaction and usability. The solution brings benefits both to the private and the public sector, proving that it has the capability of becoming the preferred authentication mechanism for any decentralized web application.
With the spread of mobile devices and the improvement of the mobile service environment, the use of various Internet content providers (ICPs), including content services such as YouTube and video hosting services, has increased significantly. Video content shared in ICP is used for information delivery and issue checking based on accessibility. However, if the content registered and shared in ICP is manipulated through deepfakes and maliciously distributed to cause political attacks or social problems, it can cause a very large negative effect. This study aims to propose a deepfake detection system that detects manipulated video content distributed in video hosting services while ensuring the transparency and objectivity of the detection subject. The detection method of the proposed system is configured through a blockchain and is not dependent on a single ICP, establishing a cooperative system among multiple ICPs and achieving consensus for the common purpose of deepfake detection. In the proposed system, the deep-learning model for detecting deepfakes is independently driven by each ICP, and the results are ensembled through integrated voting. Furthermore, this study proposes a method to supplement the objectivity of integrated voting and the neutrality of the deep-learning model by ensembling collective intelligence-based voting through the participation of ICP users in the integrated voting process and ensuring high accuracy at the same time. Through the proposed system, the accuracy of the deep-learning model is supplemented by utilizing collective intelligence in the blockchain environment, and the creation of a consortium contract environment for common goals between companies with conflicting interests is illuminated.
Mohamed Emish, Hari Kishore Chaparala, Zeyad Kelani, Sean D. Young
Machine learning advancements in healthcare have made data collected through smartphones and wearable devices a vital source of public health and medical insights. While wearable device data helps to monitor, detect, and predict diseases and health conditions, some data owners hesitate to share such sensitive data with companies or researchers due to privacy concerns. Moreover, wearable devices have been recently available as commercial products; thus large, diverse, and representative datasets are not available to most researchers. In this article, we propose an open marketplace where wearable device users securely monetize their wearable device records by sharing data with consumers (e.g., researchers) to make wearable device data more available to healthcare researchers. To secure the data transactions in a privacy-preserving manner, we use a decentralized approach using Blockchain and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). To ensure data originality and integrity with secure validation, our marketplace uses Trusted Execution Environments (TEE) in wearable devices to verify the correctness of health data. The marketplace also allows researchers to train models using Federated Learning with a TEE-backed secure aggregation of data users may not be willing to share. To ensure user participation, we model incentive mechanisms for the Federated Learning-based and anonymized data-sharing approaches using NFTs. We also propose using payment channels and batching to reduce smart contact gas fees and optimize user profits. If widely adopted, we believe that TEE and Blockchain-based incentives will promote the ethical use of machine learning with validated wearable device data in healthcare and improve user participation due to incentives.
शौनक साहू, प्रो. दिनेश कुमार तिवारी, Ankita Ankita, Brunda S P · 5 authors
Abstract: Electronic voting, or e-voting, has been used in various forms since the 1970s. B. Increase efficiency and reduce errors. However, wide adoption of such systems remains a challenge, especially in terms of improving resilience to potential failures. Blockchain is a disruptive technology of our time and promises to improve the overall resilience of electronic voting systems. The democratic system is fundamentally based on the right to vote that Allow individuals within the community to express their opinions. While voter turnout has declined in recent years, concerns about the integrity, security, and accessibility of the current voting system have increased. Electronic voting was introduced to address these concerns. However, it is not cost-effective and requires full oversight by a central authority. Blockchain is an emerging decentralized and decentralized technology that promises to improve many aspects of many industries. Extending e-voting to blockchain technology could be a solution to alleviating current concerns about e-voting. In this paper, I proposed a voting system that leverages the Ethereum blockchain and smart contracts to achieve voter management and verifiable voting records.
Carla Ferraro, Melissa Wheeler, Jason Pallant, Samuel Wilson · 5 authors
Web3 technology is described as trustless in that interactions and transactions do not require trusted third parties and instead rely on smart contracts and the immutability of the decentralized blockchain. Thus, in contrast to earlier iterations of the web, Web3 users are asked to trust the technology itself rather than the human intermediaries. On its face , this shift to a trustless web calls into question the traditional conceptions of and requirements for trust. However, in this article, we caution against claims that advocate distrusting Web3 on the basis that, despite how quickly Web3 technology is advancing, the psychological processes through which people perceive and make sense of the social world remain fundamentally unchanged. Drawing on the psychology of trust and the evolution of web technologies and associated objects of trust, we argue that Web3 is not so trustless after all. We also highlight opportunities for brands to build trust in Web3 technology, including key considerations in leveraging opportunities and directions for further research. Overall, this article provides critical guidance to brand managers, policy advisors, and academics seeking to understand, build, and trust Web3 technology.
With the advancement of cyber threats, blockchain technology has evolved to have a significant role in providing secure and reliable decentralized applications. One of these applications is a remote voting system that allow voters to participate in elections remotely. This work proposes a privacy-preserving e-voting system supporting score voting using blockchain technology. The main challenge with score voting compared to the regular yes/no voting approach is that a voter is allowed to assign a score from a defined range for each candidate. To preserve privacy, votes shall be encrypted before submission to the Blockchain, however, a malicious voter can modify the score value before encrypting it to manipulate the elections result for the favor of a certain candidate. To address this challenge, the proposed scheme allows voters to first prove that the submitted score lies in the predefined range before the vote is added to the Blockchain to ensure fairness of the election. The performance of our scheme is evaluated against a set of comprehensive experiments designed to determine optimal bounds for workload and transaction send rates and measure the impact of exceeding these bounds on critical performance metrics. The results of these simulations and their implications therefore indicate that the proposed scheme is secure while being able to handle up to 10,000 transactions at a time.
Rayan Anwar Abutaleb, Saad Said Alqahtany, Toqeer Ali Syed
Blockchains are gaining traction as secure and reliable platforms for data sharing in fields such as banking, supply chain management, food production, energy, the Internet, and medical services. Furthermore, when decentralized, a blockchain can be regarded as an immutable ledger storing data entries. Moreover, this modern technology was designed to disrupt various data-driven industries, including the healthcare industry. While electronic healthcare services have enabled more straightforward and accessible treatment, patient privacy has become vulnerable to external and internal attacks by healthcare personnel. Therefore, we aimed to design a framework to control patient health records that ensures the patient can provide the necessary permissions to those who access his/her health records. This framework will record all activities via blockchain and usage control. Through this framework, we aim to create a user-centric and privacy-aware experience. A literature review and experiments have been performed to select an optimized and placable blockchain operating system. In addition, performance analysis showed that the OS and smart contracts work at an acceptable speed.
We present a survey to evaluate crypto-political, crypto-economic, and crypto-governance sentiment in people who are part of a blockchain ecosystem. Based on 3,710 survey responses, we describe their beliefs, attitudes, and modes of participation in crypto and investigate how self-reported political affiliation and blockchain ecosystem affiliation are associated with these. We observed polarization in questions on perceptions of the distribution of economic power, personal attitudes towards crypto, normative beliefs about the distribution of power in governance, and external regulation of blockchain technologies. Differences in political self-identification correlated with opinions on economic fairness, gender equity, decision-making power and how to obtain favorable regulation, while blockchain affiliation correlated with opinions on governance and regulation of crypto and respondents’ semantic conception of crypto and personal goals for their involvement. We also find that a theory-driven constructed political axis is supported by the data and investigate the possibility of other groupings of respondents or beliefs arising from the data.
Taotao Wang, Zibin Lin, Shengli Zhang, Long Shi · 6 authors
A decentralized identity system that can provide users with self-sovereign digital identities to facilitate complete control over their own data is paramount to Web 3.0. The account system on blockchain is an ideal archetype for realizing Web 3.0 decentralized identity. However, a disadvantage of such completely anonymous identity system is that users can create multiple accounts without authentication to obfuscate their activities on the blockchain. In particular, the current anonymous blockchain account system cannot accurately register the social relationships and interactions between real human users, given the amorphous mappings between users and blockchain identities. This work proposes zkBID, a zero-knowledge blockchain-account-based Web 3.0 decentralized identity scheme, to overcome endemic mistrust in blockchain account systems. zkBID links souls (blockchain accounts) to humans (users' personhood credentials) in a one-to-one manner to truly reflect the social relationships and interactions between humans on the blockchain. zkBID conceals the one-to-one relationships between blockchain accounts and users' personhood credentials for privacy protection using zero-knowledge proofs and linkable ring signatures. Thus, with zkBID, the users' blockchain accounts are credibly anonymous. Importantly, zkBID is fully decentralized: all user-related data are generated by users and verified by smart contracts on the blockchain. We implemented zkBID and built a blockchain test network for evaluation purposes. Our tests demonstrate the effectiveness of zkBID and suggest proper ways to configure zkBID system parameters.
Open access
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cs.CR
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
The growth of information technology has resulted in a massive escalation of data and the demand for data exploration, particularly in the machine learning sector. However, machine learning raises concerns about data privacy because algorithms require large amounts of data to learn and make accurate predictions. Such data often contain personal information about individuals, and there is a risk that this information could be accessed or misused by unauthorized parties. It is crucial for organizations that use machine learning to prioritize personal data protection and ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place to prevent privacy breaches. Federated learning (FL) and blockchain technology are two increasingly popular approaches to distributed computing. Federated learning is a distributed machine-learning approach that trains machine-learning models on decentralized datasets without centralizing the data. Federated learning offers several benefits, including improved data privacy. Ensuring the benefit of clients in federated learning is vital for the success of this distributed machine learning approach, especially when combined with blockchain technology, as it offers a secure and transparent way to store and verify data. In this study, we propose a combination of federated learning and blockchain as a solution to some of the challenges faced by both approaches. By leveraging the decentralized nature of federated learning and the security and transparency of blockchain, our approach tends to overcome issues such as data privacy and trustworthiness of results. The evaluation results demonstrated that the proposed approach has many potential applications in various domains.
Tanzeel Zaidi, Muhammad Usman, Muhammad Umar Aftab, Hanan Aljuaid · 5 authors
The Internet of Things (IoT) connects many objects and allows continuous communication and data sharing has emerged as a revolutionary technology. However, expanding IoT devices has raised concerns regarding data security and access control. Traditional access control mechanisms face challenges in managing access rights, particularly in scenarios where multiple users with the same roles try to access several resources which may lead to conflicting roles. Additionally, there is also an overhead of system performance using traditional approaches. In existing studies, the main problem of conflict roles is not addressed or not even identified appropriately. This paper proposes a framework to address these challenges using blockchain technology and role-based access control with a smart contract implementation on the hyperledger fabric framework. The proposed methodology introduces a role management system that resolves conflicts based on predefined rules and user preferences. It employs a consensus mechanism to determine access permissions, ensuring fairness and accountability. The findings demonstrate that applying the suggested framework eliminates conflicting problems, improves system security and also provides better results in response times of twelve seconds on average for thirty-five concurrent user requests. It also provides a secure and transparent access control framework which improves response time and provides security based on roles.
E-voting reduced the cost of election and provided convenience to some extent as compared to the traditional approach of pen and paper but it was considered to be unreliable as anyone having access to the machine physically can obstruct the machine and alter the votes. Also, in order to control the entire procedure from electronic voting to electoral results and tracking the outcomes, a central system is required. Voters are not completely secure as vote can be targeted easily. It also possesses a great threat to the right to vote and transparency. For long, different e-voting systems have been provided with the goal of increasing security and minimizing cost. With the launch of Ethereum, a decentralized platform which runs decentralized applications on it, a secured voting system now seems possible. Making a project successful requires hard work and study. For study purposes, some previous works have been studied and gathered a lot of information which makes the project possible. The job portal-based application and some other things have been learned from the study. The methodology is a very important process for a project. Without this process, a project can’t build up properly. It is a blueprint of a project. This project has used a static waterfall methodology which has a feedback path from one phase to its existing phase. It will allow accounts connected to the network to vote in the election and all votes come in the real time. Application's logical code will deploy in smart contract to a local Ethereum blockchain. It will have a test-driven development (TDD) part, means tests against the smart contract to ensure that the code is bug free. It will also have a client-side application that will allow users connected to the network to interact with the smart contract and vote in the election. User-Interface will develop using HTML, CSS, Java Script. This paper provides a solution for removing inconveniences from conventional elections using blockchain that has emerged as an exciting technology for various application due to its unique characteristics that outperform other technologies. The goal of this research is to establish a system for e-voting that is decentralized rather than centralized by using blockchain technology that guarantees protection to electorate’s identity, data transfer privacy and variability by an open and transparent voting process.
Simona‐Vasilica Oprea, Adela Bârã, Anca-Ioana Andreescu, Marian Pompiliu Cristescu
Digitalization advances in many fields due to its clear advantages and facilities especially in pandemic times when crowds are to be avoided. E-voting is gaining importance as voting using laptops, mobile phones or tablets is more practical. Hence, human counting which leads to unintentional errors or fraud could be eliminated. Furthermore, software applications can reduce the costs of the classic election process and physical infrastructure. In this paper, we propose to identify the most critical specifications of an e-voting application, find a solution for elections in universities and compare our solution with others. The goal is to propose a conceptual architecture using encrypted functions and two stages: voting and validation, separating layers and roles, that is based on blockchain tables and innovative interactions between actors (voters and voting committee) and the two software components (web application and database). For replicability, the conceptual architecture is depicted and formalized using several Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagrams. Furthermore, in order to provide proof of concept, the initial steps in implementing the proposed solution are showcased.
The rapid expansion of digital platforms, electronic health systems, IoT devices, and cross-organisational data-sharing environments have resulted in the exchanged amount and sensitivity of personal data growing. Conventional consent management models are centralised, non-transparent, and hard to audit, exposing threats of unauthorised distribution, poor interoperability, and substandard compliance with regulations. Traditional systems have a hard time delivering dynamic, fine-grained and verifiable user control over consent. They do not have transparent audit trails, do not support the use of multi-party authorization, and do not impose the use of data in a manner specific to purpose, particularly when regulated by laws like GDPR. The issue of scalability, the absence of automation, and immutable logging also contribute to the growth of trust and security concerns. The objective of the research is to assess in a critical manner the concept of blockchain-based and smart contract-based consent management models to determine the architectural designs, performance aspects, cryptographic techniques, and compliance measures that enhance personal data control within healthcare, fitness tracking, and wider data-sharing systems. Solution: This paper summarises the evidence regarding the benefits of hybrid on-chain/off-chain architectures, purpose-based access control, threshold cryptography, pseudonymization layers, and business-process-sensitive workflows in improving the transparency, auditability, and automation of consent management through the analytical review of nineteen blockchain-based consent systems. Smart contract systems give enforceability of rules, minimise risk of breach and enhance precision of consent revocation. The remaining issues are scalability, fluctuations in the cost of gas, GDPR-compatible deletion, and multidimensional approval. In general, consent systems based on smart contracts provide a technically plausible and legally consistent platform on which to build the systems of personal data-sharing in the future.
I. Román, Jorge Calvillo‐Arbizu, Vicente Mayor, German Madinabeitia-Luque · 6 authors
Continuity of care requires the exchange of health information among organizations and care teams. The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) establishes that subject of care should give explicit consent to the treatment of her personal data, and organizations must obey the individual’s will. Nevertheless, few solutions focus on guaranteeing the proper execution of consents. We propose a service-oriented architecture, backed by blockchain technology, that enables: (1) tamper-proof and immutable storage of subject of care consents; (2) a fine-grained access control for protecting health data according to consents; and (3) auditing tasks for supervisory authorities (or subjects of care themselves) to assess that healthcare organizations comply with GDPR and granted consents. Standards for health information exchange and access control are adopted to guarantee interoperability. Access control events and the subject of care consents are maintained on a blockchain, providing a trusted collaboration between organizations, supervisory authorities, and individuals. A prototype of the architecture has been implemented as a proof of concept to evaluate the performance of critical components. The application of subject of care consent to control the treatment of personal health data in federated and distributed environments is a pressing concern. The experimental results show that blockchain can effectively support sharing consent and audit events among healthcare organizations, supervisory authorities, and individuals.
Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt or FUD, is relatively understudied in relation to cryptocurrency. It is a feeling derived from negative cryptocurrency-related information and it prompts adverse sentiment. This thesis addresses knowledge gaps on FUD by exploring its relationship with trust, and cryptocurrency information-seeking practices. We conducted 23 semi-structured interviews with cryptocurrency adopters and non-adopters to investigate triggers of FUD, FUD-induced behaviours, and how people form trust assessments of cryptocurrency information. Using thematic analysis, we classified FUD triggers found in our data across the personal, societal, and systemic level. Furthermore, we identified how participants make either cursory, extensive, or negative trust assessments of cryptocurrency information using attachment and depth. To illustrate this process, we proposed a model of trust assessment pathways. We then provide four recommendations on combating FUD, and suggest areas of future work.