Suboh Alkhushayni, Du’a Al-Zaleq, Nadine L Gadjou Kengne
Blockchain technology is on the cusp of revolutionizing the way we handle healthcare data, in term of storage and utilization. The main goal is to empower patients to be the center of their own health record so that, the patient doesn't have to rely on different institutions or hospitals they might visit. Blockchain technology and smart contracts provide an interesting and innovative way to keep track of Electronic Health Records (EHRs). This technology could help the patients to have better control of their own data. Health professionals and institutions, such as hospitals, could have access to patient’s data owned by other institutions. In the present article, we discuss how blockchain technologies can be used to handle EHR while improving the efficiency of operations through streamlining processes and transparency. We propose an architecture to manage and share healthcare data among different organizations. The proposed work could significantly reduce the time needed to share patient data among different health organizations and reduce the overall cost.
Scott Ruoti, Benjamin Kaiser, Arkady Yerukhimovich, Jeremy Clark · 5 authors
Bitcoin's success has led to significant interest in its underlying components, particularly Blockchain technology. Over 10 years after Bitcoin's initial release, the community still suffers from a lack of clarity regarding what properties defines Blockchain technology, its relationship to similar technologies, and which of its proposed use-cases are tenable and which are little more than hype. In this paper we answer four common questions regarding Blockchain technology: (1) what exactly is Blockchain technology, (2) what capabilities does it provide, and (3) what are good applications for Blockchain technology, and (4) how does it relate to other approache distributed technologies (e.g., distributed databases). We accomplish this goal by using grounded theory (a structured approach to gathering and analyzing qualitative data) to thoroughly analyze a large corpus of literature on Blockchain technology. This method enables us to answer the above questions while limiting researcher bias, separating thought leadership from peddled hype and identifying open research questions related to Blockchain technology. The audience for this paper is broad as it aims to help researchers in a variety of areas come to a better understanding of Blockchain technology and identify whether it may be of use in their own research.
Bin Cao, Mengyang Li, Lei Zhang, Yixin Li · 5 authors
The impact of communication transmission delay on the original blockchain, has not been well considered and studied since it is primarily designed in stable wired communication environment with high communication capacity. However, in a wireless scenario, due to the scarcity of spectrum resource, a blockchain user may have to compete for wireless channel to broadcast transactions following media access control (MAC) mechanism. As a result, the communication transmission delay may be significant and pose a bottleneck on the blockchain system performance and security. To facilitate blockchain applications in wireless industrial Internet of Things (IIoTs), this article aims to investigate whether the widely used MAC mechanism, carrier sense multiple access/collision avoidance (CSMA/CA), is suitable for wireless blockchain networks or not. Based on tangle, as an example to analyze the system performance in term of confirmation delay, transaction per second and transaction loss probability by considering the impact of queueing and transmission delay caused by CSMA/CA. Next, a stochastic model is proposed to analyze the security issue taking into account the malicious double-spending attack. Simulation results provide valuable insights when running blockchain in wireless network, the performance would be limited by the traditional CSMA/CA protocol. Meanwhile, we demonstrate that the probability of launching a successful double-spending attack would be affected by CSMA/CA as well.
Lei Yang, Vivek Bagaria, Gerui Wang, Mohammad Alizadeh · 7 authors
Bitcoin is the first fully decentralized permissionless blockchain protocol and achieves a high level of security: the ledger it maintains has guaranteed liveness and consistency properties as long as the adversary has less compute power than the honest nodes. However, its throughput is only 7 transactions per second and the confirmation latency can be up to hours. Prism is a new blockchain protocol which is designed to achieve a natural scaling of Bitcoin's performance while maintaining its full security guarantees. We present an implementation of Prism which achieves a throughput of 70,000 transactions per second and confirmation latencies of tens of seconds.
To promote the benefits of the Internet of Things (IoT) in smart communities and smart cities, a real-time data marketplace middleware platform, called the Intelligent IoT Integrator (I3), has been recently proposed. While facilitating the easy exchanges of real-time IoT data streams between device owners and third-party applications through the marketplace, I3 is presently a monolithic, centralized platform for a single community. Although the service oriented architecture (SOA) has been widely adopted in the IoT and cyber-physical systems (CPS), it is difficult for a monolithic architecture to provide scalable, inter-operable and extensible services for large numbers of distributed IoT devices and different application vendors. Traditional security solutions rely on a centralized authority, which can be a performance bottleneck or susceptible to a single point of failure. Inspired by containerized microservices and blockchain technology, this paper proposed a BLockchain-ENabled Secure Microservices for Decentralized Data Marketplaces (BlendSM-DDM). Within a permissioned blockchain network, a microservices based security mechanism is introduced to secure data exchange and payment among participants in the marketplace. BlendSM-DDM is able to offer a decentralized, scalable and auditable data exchanges for the data marketplace.
Blockchain – a distributed and public database of transactions – has become a platform for decentralized applications. Despite its increasing popularity, blockchain technology faces a scalability problem: the throughput does not scale with the increasing network size. Thus, in this paper, we propose a scalable blockchain protocol to solve the scalability problem. The proposed method was designed based on a proof of stake (PoS) consensus protocol and a sharding protocol. Instead of transactions being processed by the whole network, the sharding protocol is employed to divide unconfirmed transactions into transaction shards and to divide the network into network shards. The network shards process the transaction shards in parallel to produce middle blocks. Middle blocks are then combined into a final BLOCK in a timestamp recorded on the blockchain. Experiments were performed in a simulation network consisting of 100 Amazon EC2 instances. The latency of the proposed method was approximately 27 s and the maximum throughput achieved was 36 transactions per second for a network containing 100 nodes. The results of the experiments indicate that the throughput of the proposed protocol increases with the network size. This confirms the scalability of the proposed protocol.
Cloud computing plays a critical role in modern society and enables a range of applications from infrastructure to social media. Such system must cope with varying load and evolving usage reflecting societies interaction and dependency on automated computing systems whilst satisfying Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees. Enabling these systems are a cohort of conceptual technologies, synthesized to meet demand of evolving computing applications. In order to understand current and future challenges of such system, there is a need to identify key technologies enabling future applications. In this study, we aim to explore how three emerging paradigms (Blockchain, IoT and Artificial Intelligence) will influence future cloud computing systems. Further, we identify several technologies driving these paradigms and invite international experts to discuss the current status and future directions of cloud computing. Finally, we proposed a conceptual model for cloud futurology to explore the influence of emerging paradigms and technologies on evolution of cloud computing.
Blockchains are distributed ledgers that use a tamper-sensitive, append-only data structure in conjunction with a consensus protocol to enable mutually distrusting parties to maintain a global set of states. A primary barrier to adoption of blockchain technology by industry is the current performance and scalability limitations of these systems, which lag far behind incumbent database systems. Of particular interest are “lottery-style” consensus algorithms, which are relatively scalable to many participants but suffer from low throughput (performance). Proof-of-Elapsed-Time (PoET) is one such algorithm with great promise for use in industry, though the parameters that govern its performance have not been well studied. This thesis explores, through simulation, key performance outcomes in PoET blockchain networks implemented with the Hyperledger Sawtooth framework. A better quantitative understanding of the interactions among these system parameters will be crucial for efficiently optimizing real world blockchain networks and facilitating adoption by industry.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Internet-of-Things (IoT) is an enabling technology for numerous initiatives worldwide such as manufacturing, smart cities, precision agriculture, and eHealth. The massive field data aggregation of distributed administered IoT devices allows new insights and actionable information for dynamic intelligent decision-making. In such distributed environments, data integrity, referring to reliability and consistency, is deemed insufficient and requires immediate facilitation. In this article, we introduce a distributed ledger (DLT)-based system for ensuring IoT data integrity which securely processes the aggregated field data. Its uniqueness lies in the embedded use of IOTA’s ledger, called “The Tangle”, used to transmit and store the data. Our approach shifts from a cloud-centric IoT system, where the Super nodes simply aggregate and push data to the cloud, to a node-centric system, where each Super node owns the data pushed in a distributed and decentralized database (i.e., the Tangle). The backend serves as a consumer of data and a provider of additional resources, such as administration panel, analytics, data marketplace, etc. The proposed implementation is highly modularand constitutes a significant contribution to the Open Source communities, regarding blockchain and IoT.
Machine learning and blockchain are two of the most notable technologies of recent years. The first is the foundation of artificial intelligence and big data analysis, and the second has significantly disrupted the financial industry. Both technologies are data‐driven, and thus there are rapidly growing interests in integrating both for more secure and efficient data sharing and analysis. In this article, we review existing research on combining machine learning and blockchain technologies and demonstrate that they can collaborate efficiently and effectively. In the end, we point out some future directions and expect more research on deeper integration of these two promising technologies.
Marcos Vinicius M. R. Souza, Hélio Crestana Guardia
Advances in ubiquitous computing and in the Internet of things (IoT) bring new challenges to access control systems, such as not having to rely on a centralized trusted party, and the ability to use contextual data. Such characteristics may be required to enable IoT services in smart homes and cities, and in electronic health systems. In these environments, service-based device to device interactions reinforce the need for flexible and scalable authenticity and confidentiality mechanisms. This work presents an access control model to address such challenges using a blockchain infrastructure. In the proposed model, services and contextual data are defined using smart contracts, and blockchain logs are used for reliable information management. Assets are associated with permissions, and their transfers prove access control rights in service invocation requests. A reference implementation on Hyperledger shows the viability of the model.
Blockchain is a technology that can ensure data integrity in a distributed network, and it is actively applied in various fields. Recently, blockchain is gaining attention due to combining with the Internet of Things (IoT) technology in the industrial field. Moreover, many researchers have proposed the Industrial IoT (IIoT) architecture with blockchain for data integrity and efficient management. The IIoT network consists of many heterogeneous devices (e.g., sensors, actuators, and programmable logic controllers (PLC)) with resources-constrained, and the availability of the network must be preferentially considered. Therefore, applying the existed blockchain technology is still challenging. There are some results about the technique of constructing blockchain lightly to solve this challenge. However, in these results, the analysis in perspective of cryptographic performance (area, throughput, and power consumption) has not been considered sufficiently, or only focused on the architecture of the blockchain network. The blockchain technology is based on cryptographic techniques, and the main part is a cryptographic hash function. Therefore, if we construct the blockchain-based IIoT architecture, we have to consider the performance of the hash function. Many lightweight hash functions have been proposed recently for the resource-constrained environment, and it can also be used to the blockchain. Therefore, in this paper, we analyze the considerations of lightweight blockchain for IIoT. Also, we conduct an analysis of lightweight hash for blockchain, and propose a new lightweight hash-based blockchain architecture that can change the hash algorithm used for mining adjust to network traffic.
In the Internet of Things (IoT) idea, regular gadgets end up savvy and self-governing. As we are seeing idea behind this is transforming into a realism on account of achievement in innovation, but we still face challenges, especially in some field like security e.g., information dependability. Taking account, the upcoming advancement in the field of IoT, it seems very important to give trust in the field of enormous approaching data foundation. Blockchain has given us the new way to share our data with others. Building such a trust in discrete condition with is term as the key factor of blockchain in which we don’t need any specialists is a hi-tech development that can possibly change numerous enterprises, the IoT among them. Troublesome advances, for example, IoT used enormous information and distributed to beat its restrictions, and we blockchain can be one of the accompanying ones. This paper centers around this correlation, explores difficulties in blockchain with IoT implementation, and reviews recent significant work so as to investigate about how the existing blockchain technology can change the way we work in IoT.
The security aspect of the IoT occupies a place of great importance especially after the evolution that has known this field lastly because it must take into account the transformations and the new applications .Blockchain is a new technology dedicated to the data sharing. However, this does not work the same way in the different systems with different operating principles. This article will discuss network security using the Blockchain to facilitate the sending of messages and information, enabling the use of new processes and enabling autonomous coordination of devices. To do this, we will discuss proposed solutions to ensure a high level of security in these networks in the work of other researchers. Finally, our article will propose a method of security more adapted to our needs as a team working in the ad hoc networks, this method is based on the principle of the Blockchain and that we named ”MPR Blockchain”.
George Suciu, Mari-Anais Sachian, Marius Dobrea, Cristiana-Ioana Istrate · 7 authors
This paper presents how a Smart Grid system is secured and how blockchain implementation provides confidentiality and integrity for such a system. One main issue that has to be addressed in smart grid systems is databases security. Blockchain has been proven to be a safe alternative to be used in mining systems because it allows a secure applicability in databases. Another important feature is that each hash in a crypto mining system cannot be changed if it has such an algorithm behind its build, thus resulting in a secure and reliable system. This paper aims to show how blockchain can affect and be used in a smart power management system going forth from the SealedGRID platform. This system enables the user to monitor in real time the power usage in a smart grid system, therefore, this platform being built with security and resilience against attacks in mind.
The blockchain is a distributed technology which allows establishing trust among unreliable users who interact and perform transactions with each other. While blockchain technology has been mainly used for crypto-currency, it has emerged as an enabling technology for establishing trust in the realm of the Internet of Things (IoT). Nevertheless, a naive usage of the blockchain for IoT leads to high delays and extensive computational power. In this paper, we propose a blockchain architecture dedicated to being used in a supply chain which comprises different distributed IoT entities. We propose a lightweight consensus for this architecture, called LC4IoT. The consensus is evaluated through extensive simulations. The results show that the proposed consensus uses low computational power, storage capability and latency.
Open access
2 source records
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Increased penetration of Renewable Energy Sources(RES) and ever expanding global energy demands push forward the need of efficient utilization of RES by incorporating the prosumers (who are able to inject produced renewable energy) into the energy infrastructure.Moreover, there is emerging demand of the prosumers to participate in the electricity market and monetise their contributions.In order to facilitate these demands, the traditional centralised architectures are no longer viable therefore a decentralised transactive energy system enabling peer to peer energy trading, should be adopted.In this context, Blockchain based decentralised ledger technology emerges as the most viable solution which offers peer to peer energy trading platform providing a unique distributed local energy market model(LEM) for beneficial energy exchanges among participants which represents evolution for future smart grids.This thesis provides comprehensive review of the fundamental characteristics of the blockchain technology and its promising solutions for the energy industry.P2P energy trading, one of the use case of blockchain in energy sector has been focused and explored by thoroughly reviewing various initiatives, research and pilot projects that are currently working in that area.Moreover potential challenges pertaining to this blockchain based application are also evaluated.Based on the extensive research and literature review, a simple model of blockchain based peer to peer energy trade using IoT devices has been developed.Hence, this thesis provides all the necessary technical details and steps required to build the simple model of blockchain application for energy transactions.
Over the last decade, blockchain technology has emerged to provide solutions to the complexity and privacy challenges of using distributed databases. It reduces cost for customers by eliminating intermediaries and builds trust in peer-to-peer communications. Over this time, the concept of blockchain has shifted greatly due to its potential in business growth for enterprises and the rapidly evolving applications in a collaborative smart-city ecosystem, healthcare, and governance. Many platforms, with different architectures and consensus protocols, have been introduced. Consequently, it becomes challenging for an application developer to choose the right platform. Furthermore, blockchain has misaligned with the goals for an efficient green collaborative digital ecosystem. Therefore, it becomes critical to address this gap and to build new frameworks to align blockchain with those goals. In this paper, we discuss the evolution of blockchain architecture and consensus protocols, bringing a retrospective analysis and discussing the rationale of the evolution of the various architectures and protocols, as well as capturing the assumptions conducive to their development and contributions to building collaborative applications. We introduce a classification of those architectures helping developers to choose a suitable platform for applications and providing insights for future research directions in the field to build new frameworks.
Blockchain interoperability, which allows state transitions across different\nblockchain networks, is critical functionality to facilitate major blockchain\nadoption. Existing interoperability protocols mostly focus on atomic token\nexchange between blockchains. However, as blockchains have been upgraded from\npassive distributed ledgers into programmable state machines (thanks to smart\ncontracts), the scope of blockchain interoperability goes beyond just token\nexchange. In this paper, we present HyperService, the first platform that\ndelivers interoperability and programmability across heterogeneous blockchains.\nHyperService is powered by two innovative designs: (i) a developer-facing\nprogramming framework that allows developers to build cross-chain applications\nin a unified programming model; and (ii) a secure blockchain-facing\ncryptography protocol that provably realizes those applications on blockchains.\nWe implement a prototype of HyperService in about 35,000 lines of code to\ndemonstrate its practicality. Our experiment results show that HyperService\nimposes reasonable latency, in order of seconds, on the end-to-end execution of\ncross-chain applications\n
Dinh C. Nguyen, Pubudu N. Pathirana, Ming Ding, Aruna Seneviratne
The blockchain technology is taking the world by storm. Blockchain with its decentralized, transparent and secure nature has emerged as a disruptive technology for the next generation of numerous industrial applications. One of them is Cloud of Things enabled by the combination of cloud computing and Internet of Things. In this context, blockchain provides innovative solutions to address challenges in Cloud of Things in terms of decentralization, data privacy and network security, while Cloud of Things offer elasticity and scalability functionalities to improve the efficiency of blockchain operations. Therefore, a novel paradigm of blockchain and Cloud of Things integration, called BCoT, has been widely regarded as a promising enabler for a wide range of application scenarios. In this article, we present a state-of-the-art review on the BCoT integration to provide general readers with an overview of the BCoT in various aspects, including background knowledge, motivation, and integrated architecture. Particularly, we also provide an in-depth survey of BCoT applications in different use-case domains such as smart healthcare, smart city, smart transportation and smart industry. Then, we review the recent BCoT developments with the emerging blockchain and cloud platforms, services, and research projects. Finally, some important research challenges and future directions are highlighted to spur further research in this promising area.
There is no doubt that Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain technology will a major impact in the automated futuristic world. Even though the usage of IoT is increasing rapidly, it is riddled with scalability, security, privacy and integrity issues. Even though blockchain was initially created for managing cryptocurrencies, its decentralised nature, higher security, integrity and privacy has led to being integrated with IoT in order to improve it. There are multiple challenges arising from this integration which increases the complexities. It is necessary to study these challenges involved in this integration before carrying it out. Hence, this paper has carried out a systematic study of the various challenges involved in IoT individually and also the advantages and challenges of integrating it with the blockchain system.
Blockchain technology uses the cryptographic technique to create expanding list of data records called blocks. Along with transaction and timestamp data, each block holds a hash value obtained using cryptographic technique. Blockchain gains importance for its decentralized data transaction and authorization without the need for third-party intervention. Although, it is mostly used in Finance sector these days, due to its inherent ability to protect data it can be applied to every field of computation especially in fields where data transaction is voluminous. Internet of Things (IoT) is one such area where it involves collection, transfer and processing of real time data from objects, humans and sensors to automate various tasks. Hence, this paper reviews the blockchain technology, and how it can be coupled with IoT to overcome the privacy and security issues. This paper first systematically introduces the concept of blockchain technology, its applications along with the need for IoT devices and its implementation. Finally, it discusses the blockchain based IoT (BIoT) its architecture, advantages, challenges in implementation
Blockchain is a distributed operation and information supervision technology programmed initially for Bitcoin cryptocurrency. The awareness in Blockchain technology is rapidly growing since the notion was invented in the year 2008. The motivation for the concentration in Blockchain is its significant characteristics that deliver security, privacy, and information reliability devoid of any additional system regulating the communications, and consequently it generates fascinating research domains, specifically from the viewpoint of methodological difficulties and restrictions. This study discovers the wide‐ranging Blockchain technology and studies it's perspective with respect to ‘ internet‐of‐things ’ controlled nodes. A resilient prototype method has been programmed that reveals a basic system exhausting Blockchain. The outcome illustrates that the established method is functional in test‐bed environment.