The purpose of this article is to propose a framework named IoT-AC/Bc to secure smart cities. This article describes a new method that integrates Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) models based on IoT and blockchain technologies. This method enables fast access authentication on smart city gates using ZKP, which provides an extra layer of security to address access control challenges. The framework consists of an Internet of Things Access Control-based Blockchain Smart Contract that manages user authentication, access session identities, and asset real-time interactions; and a Blockchain Ledger Management Smart Contract that implements distributed access control and tracks the ledger history of different activities. The framework achieves availability, scalability, multi-factor authentication, and decentralization, which strengthens distribution, role authority, access rights, and concurrent identity access requests. The results are demonstrated through a comparative analysis focused on the number of multithreaded requests, the cost of smart contract deployment, the multi-factor authentication performance for users’ interactions with the smart city gates, and the security strength levels. The framework’s performance effectiveness is evaluated through a case study that consists of various scenarios. The framework allows improving the security level by 94% under low and medium attack strength and 89% under high attack strength for 18 security attacks. This paper is novel because the framework uses ZKP over a blockchain network as an extra cryptographic technique with RBAC as a logical access control model to achieve fast accessibility authorization for users’ transactions while preserving their private identity on smart city gates. Keywords: Access Control, Blockchain, Internet of Things, Role-Based Access Control, Smart Cities, Multi-Factor Authentication DOI： https://doi.org/10.35741/issn.0258-2724.58.4.56
Abla El Bekkali, Mohamed Essaaidi, Mohammed Boulmalf
A smart city is one that uses digital technologies and other means to improve the quality of life of its citizens and reduce the cost of municipal services. Smart cities primarily use IoT to collect and analyze data to interact directly with the city’s infrastructure and monitor city assets and community developments in real time to improve operational efficiency and proactively respond to potential problems and challenges. Today, cybersecurity is considered one of the main challenges facing smart cities. Over the past few years, the cybersecurity research community has devoted a great deal of attention to this challenge. Among the different technologies proposed to address this challenge, Blockchain appears to offer the security and data privacy needed to enhance smart cities security. In this paper, we propose a comprehensive framework and architecture based on Blockchain, big data and artificial intelligence to improve smart cities cybersecurity. For the sake of illustration of the proposed framework, simulation results are presented for a smart grid dataset from the UCI Machine Learning Repository, demonstrating its potential and efficiency to deal with cybersecurity challenges in smart cities.
Egor Ermolaev, Iván Abellán Álvarez, Johannes Sedlmeir, Gilbert Fridgen
E-commerce has grown rapidly over the past years, with prevailing e-commerce platforms aggregating large amounts of customer data. This practice has several undesirable side effects, such as facilitating profiling that may lead to price discrimination and data feedback loops that can hamper competition. Moreover, data hoarding carries security risks through data breaches and undermines customers’ privacy expectations. On the other hand, convenience aspects and compliance regulation demand the processing and storage of user-related data. To address this tension field, we aim to conceptualize and iteratively refine a data-minimizinig e-commerce platform. Following a design science research approach, we identify design objectives and propose and implement a solution in which stakeholders receive only customer data that is indispensable for their part of the process. Our solution leverages digital identity wallets and general-purpose zero-knowledge proofs (zk-SNARKs). We aim to perform a criteria-based evaluation to assess our artifact’s feasibility and fitness from an interdisciplinary perspective. With our results, we hope to illustrate that combining state-of-the-art cryptographic techniques and an emerging digital identity paradigm allows reaching the user experience of incumbent e-commerce platforms while mitigating the undesirable socio-economic side effects of avoidable data disclosure.
Le Anh Nguyen Long, Shenja van der Graaf, Athanasios Votsis
Borrowing from insights produced in urban planning, media and governance studies thereby leveraging the Ostrom-nian ideas of institutions and polycentricity, this paper examines how to govern commons in the smart city. It offers a reflection upon whether Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) could be a key notion for the commons discourse which centers around stakeholders, self-organization, and a rights-based framework. By decentralizing ledgers and enabling the interoperability of the various interfaces, DLTs make records more accessible, exchanges more transparent, and reduce costs while increasing efficiency, and permit automation, therefore commoning interactions both offline and online are facilitated. We argue that the use of DLTs to preserve the spatiotemporal integrity of key urban spaces is a common value question that needs to be elucidated or renegotiated in order to provide any useful guidance to DLTs integrity-preserving potential. In doing so, we draw attention to DLT-based urban commons and urban governance, and point to inherent incompatibilities that may lead to radical and not-so-smooth changes in urban institutions, while providing a way of thinking which can move the smart city closer towards a values-centered process and away from a preoccupation with technology and efficiency.
Blockchain, also coined as decentralized AI, has the potential to empower AI to be more trustworthy by creating a decentralized trust of privacy, security, and audibility. However, systematic studies on the design principle of blockchain as a trust engine for an integrated society of cyber-physical-social-system (CPSS) are still absent. In this article, we provide an initiative for seeking the design principle of blockchain for a better digital world. Using a hybrid method of qualitative and quantitative studies, we examine the past origin, the current development, and the future directions of blockchain design principles. We have three findings. First, the answer to whether blockchain lives up to its original design principle as a distributed database is controversial. Second, the current development of the blockchain community reveals a taxonomy of 7 categories, namely, privacy and security, scalability, decentralization, applicability, governance and regulation, system design, and cross-chain interoperability. Both research and practice are more centered around the first category of privacy and security and the fourth category of applicability. Future scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers have vast opportunities in other, much less exploited facets and the synthesis at the interface of multiple aspects. Finally, in counter-examples, we conclude that a synthetic solution that crosses discipline boundaries is necessary to close the gaps between the current design of blockchain and the design principle of a trust engine for a truly intelligent world.
Metaverse, the core of the next-generation Internet, is a computer-generated holographic digital environment that simultaneously combines spatio-temporal, immersive, real-time, sustainable, interoperable, and data-sensitive characteristics. It cleverly blends the virtual and real worlds, allowing users to create, communicate, and transact in virtual form. With the rapid development of emerging technologies including augmented reality, virtual reality and blockchain, the metaverse system is becoming more and more sophisticated and widely used in various fields such as social, tourism, industry and economy. However, the high level of interaction with the real world also means a huge risk of privacy leakage both for individuals and enterprises, which has hindered the wide deployment of metaverse. Then, it is inevitable to apply privacy computing techniques in the framework of metaverse, which is a current research hotspot. In this paper, we conduct comprehensive research on the necessity, taxonomy and challenges when privacy computing meets metaverse. Specifically, we first introduce the underlying technologies and various applications of metaverse, on which we analyze the challenges of data usage in metaverse, especially data privacy. Next, we review and summarize state-of-the-art solutions based on federated learning, differential privacy, homomorphic encryption, and zero-knowledge proofs for different privacy problems in metaverse. Finally, we show the current security and privacy challenges in the development of metaverse and provide open directions for building a well-established privacy-preserving metaverse system. For easy access and reference, we integrate the related publications and their codes into a GitHub repository: https://github.com/6lyc/Awesome-Privacy-Computing-in-Metaverse.git.
As time progresses, the need for more secure applications grows exponentially. The different types of sensitive information that is being transferred virtually has sparked a rise in systems that leverage blockchain. Different sectors are beginning to use this disruptive technology to evaluate the risks and benefits. Sectors like finance, medicine, higher education, and wireless communication have research regarding blockchain. Futhermore, the need for security standards in this area of research is pivotal. In recent past, several attacks on blockchain infrastructures have resulted in hundreds of millions dollars lost and sensitive information compromised. Some of these attacks include DAO attacks, bZx attacks, and Parity Multisignature Wallet Double Attacks which targeted vulnerabilities within smart contracts on the Ethereum network. These attacks exposed the weaknesses of current smart contract development practices which has led to the increase in distrust and adoption of systems that leverage blockchain for its functionality. In this paper, I identify common software vulnerabilities and attacks on blockchain infrastructures, thoroughly detail the smart contract development process and propose a model for ensuring a stronger security standard for future systems leveraging smart contracts. The purpose for proposing a model is to promote trust among end users in the system which is a foundational element for blockchain adoption in the future.
We study Privacy Pools, a novel smart contract-based privacy-enhancing protocol. The protocol introduces a mechanism for users to reveal certain properties of their transaction without having to reveal the transaction itself. The core concept involves allowing users to publish a zero-knowledge proof, demonstrating that their funds (do not) originate from known (un-)lawful sources, without publicly revealing their entire transaction history. This is achieved by proving membership in custom association sets, which are designed to demonstrate compliance with regulatory frameworks or social consensus. We illustrate how this mechanism can create a separating equilibrium between compliant and non-compliant withdrawals. Our work describes the technical underpinnings, incentives and broader implications of this mechanism, highlighting how Privacy Pools-like protocols can create more private yet compliant blockchain transactions.
Faced with the impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, governments must protect the well-being of the population. Aside from considerations, such as keeping the virus from spreading and treating patients, the government should also be concerned about the mental health of its citizens during the epidemic. This study aimed to help users who develop depression due to COVID-19 on social media, reduce the cost of counselling, and reduce the need for users to visit the hospital for counselling. This study investigated the opportunities for blockchain technology to provide psychological help to social media users suffering from depression caused by the pandemic. Blockchain-based technology has been used to develop a new model that enables a user autonomy system to allow users to control their own data fully. The model utilizes a delegated proof of stake consensus blockchain to manage depression data to enable low cost and information security while discussing aspects related to trust, privacy, interoperability, and integration with other information communication technologies. The blockchain framework has been proven to provide secure and reliable information management that meets the user requirements for information autonomy. The frame-work can be combined with various other information technologies to extend its functionality further.
Federated learning (FL) is a distributed machine learning technique that allows multiple devices (e.g., smartphones and IoT devices) to collaborate in the training of a shared model with each device preserving the privacy of its local data. However, the highly heterogeneous distribution of data among clients in FL can result in poor convergence. In addressing this issue, the concept of personalized federated learning (PFL) has emerged. PFL aims to tackle the effects of non-independent and identically distributed data and statistical heterogeneity and to achieve personalized models with rapid model convergence. One approach is clustering-based PFL, which utilizes group-level client relationships to achieve personalization. However, this method still relies on a centralized approach, whereby the server coordinates all processes. To address these shortcomings, this study introduces a blockchain-enabled distributed edge cluster for PFL (BPFL) that combines the benefits of blockchain and edge computing. Blockchain technology can be used to enhance client privacy and security by recording transactions on immutable distributed ledger networks, thereby improving client selection and clustering. The edge computing system offers reliable storage and computation such that computational processing is locally performed in the edge infrastructure to be closer to clients. Thus, the real-time services and low-latency communication of PFL are improved. However, further work is required to develop a representative dataset for the examination of related types of attacks and defenses for a robust BPFL protocol.
This paper delves into two legal models for zero-knowledge proof protocols in the context of the eIDAS 2.0 Regulation: a trust service or a software product. The ARIES: reliAble euRopean Identity EcoSystem EU project highlighted the need for a legal framework for stakeholders to accept proof of the existence of user data with legal certainty, while Hyperledger Indy shows that ZKP solutions are currently commercialized, stressing deficiencies in the eIDAS 2.0. An overview of ZKP applied to identity, its relationship to the European Digital Identity Wallet and the electronic attestations of attributes, both introduced by the eIDAS 2.0, and Self-Sovereign Identity systems, leads to the central question of proof of the existence of user-held data as a trust service or as a software product and its data privacy implications for each approach. Finally, we outline a possible solution based on the product approach for future work. Our findings reveal that ZKP technology must have legal value and a presumption system to be effective. However, the path we take could lead us either to develop a system of surveillance and control in electronic environments or to build an environment where we share not the data itself but proof of its existence.
This paper presents an architectural overview and detailed design of the Krypton network, the first decentralized search engine built on Web3 principles. Krypton leverages blockchain technology, token-driven incentives, and privacy-focused features to revolutionize internet search. The proposed solution incorporates distributed storage, decentralized web crawling and indexing, a consensus mechanism, open-source search algorithms, and a privacy-focused search experience. Krypton introduces the novel concept of Proof of Learning, a machine learning protocol embedded in the search engine to facilitate the discovery of decentralized platforms and enable direct peer-to-peer networking. The system also employs decentralized cloud technologies (validators in the PoS blockchain) to promote enhanced decentralization and encryption, paving the way for a more secure and equitable internet.
Data is the new gold, as correctly stated by many people that data is the most valued thing/entity in today's world. Data is sold at a very high price at various levels across various vendors. For example, the data after the analytics on an e-commerce site can be used by any advertisement company to sell the product to oriented users. Similarly, data can be used in various ways to benefit a company or an individual user. As the demand for such data increases, many sources and companies also emerged that sell their data for money. A company that was entrusted by a user with their data, now will sell their data for their personal monetary benefits and hence become wealthier. Also, many users follow unethical ways like Penetration and other hacking methods to gain access to the database or any datalake. For any user, his personal details and his data are of utmost value that he holds virtually on any platform. The data can be of any form that a user shares, be it his id, passwords, date of birth, interests, skills, his unique id. Personal data in bulk can be used by any company for their good but does not respect cyber laws. Many social media applications clearly state that they can use user data completely without even informing the user about it. MetaShare is a web app, which will use a blockchain wallet to sign in a user so that the user can share his blog while maintaining his anonymity.
Blockchain, pivotal in shaping the metaverse and Web3, often draws criticism for high energy consumption and carbon emission. The rise of sustainability-focused blockchains, especially when intersecting with innovative wireless technologies, revises this predicament. To understand blockchain's role in sustainability, we propose a three-layers structure encapsulating four green utilities: Recording and Tracking, Wide Verification, Value Trading, and Concept Disseminating. Nori, a decentralized voluntary carbon offset project, serves as our case, illuminating these utilities. Our research unveils unique insights into the on-chain carbon market participants, affect factors of the market, value propositions of NFT-based carbon credits, and the role of social media to spread the concept of carbon offset. We argue that blockchain's contribution to sustainability is significant, with carbon offsetting potentially evolving as a new standard within the blockchain sector.
This research combines two emerging technologies, the IoT and blockchain, and investigates their potential and use in the healthcare sector. In healthcare, IoT technology can be utilized for purposes such as remotely monitoring patients’ health. This paper details ongoing research towards individualized health monitoring using wearable gadgets. The goal of improving healthcare facilities and improvement of the quality of life of citizens naturally brings up Internet of Things (IoT) technologies for consideration. Health observation is exceptionally critical in terms of avoidance, especially since the early determination of illnesses can minimize trouble and treatment costs. The cornerstones of intelligent, integrated, and individualized healthcare are continuous monitoring of physical signs and evaluation of medical data. To build a more reliable and robust IoMT model, the study will monitor the application of blockchain technology in federated learning (FL). A viable way to address the heterogeneity problem in federated learning is to design the system, data, and model tiers to lessen heterogeneity and produce a high-quality, tailored model for each endpoint. Blockchain-based federated learning allows for smarter simulations, lower latency, and lower power consumption while maintaining privacy at the same time. This solution provides another immediate benefit: in addition to having a shared model upgrade, the updated model on phones will now be used automatically, giving personalized knowledge about the phone is used.
Trust is the concept that lies amidst the rhetoric on empowering users with blockchain. Bitcoin's eminence hyped as “trust-free,” poignantly made trust an indispensable central element associated with the complexities and uncertainties of online transactions abound in the use and development of blockchain - leaving many users unacquainted with the use of it. Studies focusing on assessing the trustworthiness of the trustee using various characteristics are scant in this context. Mapping the characteristics which constitute the basis of the formation of trust from the viewpoint of the trustor, this study explores the characteristics of blockchain. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 individuals (aged 20–40 years, from the technical and/or business prospect), using blockchain. Three overlapping procedures; data reduction; data display; and conclusion drawing and verification, were used to identify categories and themes. The findings show that the characteristics of blockchain which influence trust were Reliability, Integrity, Tamper-proofing & Immutability, Versatility, Transparency and Privacy. The blockchain is a functionally versatile, tamper-proof, immutable, asset database on a decentralised network. Its reliable technical features that ensure data integrity, and provide a transparent privacy protected environment, have meant that users are willing to trust it, to generate value.
Pekka Koskela, Anni Karinsalo, Jori Paananen, Laura Salmela
Since the mid-2000s, the digitalisation of border checks has often referred to the increased adoption of automated border control (ABC) solutions at border crossing points in all border environments from air- ports and seaports to land border crossings. Key prerequisites for the operational implementations of the so-called eGates have been the electronic machine-readable travel document together with biometric technologies that have facilitated the automation of much of the tasks performed by border guards at manual control booths for selected groups of nationalities. Now, the next wave of major changes is emerging with the development of electronic identification (eID), with certain implementations particularly designed for crossborder use cases supplementing and possibly replacing the traditional physical identity document in a long-term future. The evolution of eID strongly aligns with the increased demands for data privacy to ensure that individuals can better control how much information is shared about themselves, with whom and for what purpose. One possible technology to provide the so-called data self-sovereignty is distributed ledger technology (DLT), including blockchains. DLT is being developed for instance by the Linux foundation, dispensing several distributed ledger projects and associated solutions for digital and self-sovereign identity. One of these projects is Hyperledger Indy. In this study, we present a distributed ledger implementation based on Hyperledger Indy applied as a border check use case. Our aim is to investigate the suitability of DLT in providing data self-sovereign facility in border checks, and to discuss the benefits and disadvantages the technology might entail for this security domain.
The advancement of information technology may greatly benefit from the use of blockchain technology.Blockchain technology presents a promising future for protecting personal data. However, it does pose challenges concerning data security and risk that need to be overcome. This paper focused on examining the challenges posed by blockchain technology in terms of security and risk relating to the aspect of privacy. Furthermore, the regulation of the protection of personal data posed by blockchain technology has been taken into consideration. We focus on presenting security enhancement methods that regulators can take into account when drafting regulations on personal data protection guidelines. We also concentrate on the current methods for blockchain privacy protection as well as the future areas for study. The security and privacy-related challenges derived from its progressive maturity, complexity, lack of standardization, and diversity of protocols are superimposed on the demands of a vibrant, competitive environment. It is difficult to align it with the GDPR concerning privacy. There is an urgent need to develop multidisciplinary teams that must ensure its participation from the beginning of the legal/regulatory area, cybersecurity, and company information systems
Darshana M Chigari, Dashvath R, Chandrakanth K J, Bhavya Das D · 5 authors
The evolution of Blockchain has given way to a Smart World where there is improved security and integration of devices, systems, and processes with humans through all-pervasive connectivity. There are numerous secure applications using Blockchain like smart cities, Cloud Computing, Smart Management of the Environment and Healthcare, etc.A decentralized voting system is an option for the paper ballot system and EVM (Electronic Voting Machines). Democracies need a decentralized voting system that offers security, integrity, immutability, transparency, and privacy to voters. Blockchain is an emerging technology that offers integrity, immutability, and decentralization of data. Moving our traditional voting system to Blockchain technology can increase voter confidence. This paper describes an attempt to influence the advantages of Blockchain, such as cryptography and transparency, to accomplish an efficient scheme for a decentralized voting system using the Ethereum network. Smart contracts are profound chunks of codes, which are included in the Blockchain and then execute written code as planned in each stage of Blockchain updates. Decentralized voting is one of the trending topics, but is yet to be significant, compared to the other e-services.
The Internet of Things (IoT) can provide intelligent and effective solutions to various applications with higher accuracy that requires less or no human intervention. Smart Cities are one of the significant applications of the IoT comprising a collection of various services such as intelligent transportation, waste management, smart homes, etc. These heterogeneous services offer a wide range of collaborative applications in smart cities. A smart municipality in a smart city is a concept in which a digital municipal corporation is developed to provide comprehensive local government collaboration services based on digitization and automation aiming towards raising the living standards of citizens. Interoperability between heterogeneous services for collaborative tasks creates challenges for data security and privacy. Ensuring integrity and confidentiality of information is critical, and reliable data is essential to both the government and its citizens. In this paper, we proposed a service security architecture based on authentication and authorization for constrained environments during collaborative tasks for Software Defined Networking (SDN) and smart contract-enabled municipal smart cities. The proposed collaborative service security framework is being tested on the Multichain Blockchain networks. We present a novel method for using smart contracts in multichain blockchains for data security during collaborative tasks in smart city municipal architecture. The proposed security solution is based on the dynamism of smart contracts to govern and control all interactions and transactions securely between different heterogeneous IoT networks. We implemented a supportive use case for collaborative services in an SDN-enabled IoT architecture to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed service security architecture.
In recent years, the internet of things (IoT) growth has brought about many technological changes, including the emergence of the notion of the smart city. The development of a smart city requires the integration of IoT devices and information and communication technologies to improve the quality of lives of citizens in many areas such as health, economy, business, agriculture, and transport. However, with this evolution, many cybersecurity risks and challenges have been raised, so it is necessary to develop these technologies in a protected way to avoid being compromised by attackers. Blockchain, being a new technology based on cryptographic principles, can play an important role in securing smart cities. In this survey, we discussed different applications of blockchain technology in smart cities and also studied how blockchain features (transparency, democracy, decentralization, and security) can help in the improvement of smart city services. This analysis will help us to implement an electronic voting model using a smart contract based on the Ethereum blockchain to highlight how blockchain technology can be implemented in smart cities to promote security.
Identity management is the process of setting and organizing the roles and access privileges of a user’s identity. The current identity management system is centralized and is controlled by a single entity. Users’ privacy concerns are not in their best interest. Users have very little to no control over their data. The centralized system becomes a single point of failure which is prone to attack that leads to users losing their data privacy if these centralized systems are breached. Therefore we propose a Blockchain-based decentralized Identity Management System that makes use of self-sovereign identity, decentralized identifiers, and verifiable credentials. It also gives users the ability to choose from a very large number of identity providers instead of just a select few corporations. The main advantages of the proposed solution include the elimination of the need for a central authority for identity verification and identity data management, the reduction of time spent on identity verification, the ability to share data with permission, and the ability to verify the origin of the data while sharing.