Blockchain Papers

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686 papersLast indexed Aug 31, 2026
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May 8, 2022·The 2022 IEEE 7th International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Engineering (ICITE), Beijing, China, 2022, pp. 586-591,
19 cites
Blockchain Application on the Internet of Vehicles (IoV)

Nyothiri Aung, Tahar Kechadi, Tao Zhu, Saber Zerdoumi · 6 authors

With the rapid development of the Internet of Things (IoT) and its potential integration with the traditional Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks (VANETs), we have witnessed the emergence of the Internet of Vehicles (IoV), which promises to seamlessly integrate into smart transportation systems. However, the key characteristics of IoV, such as high-speed mobility and frequent disconnections make it difficult to manage its security and privacy. The Blockchain, as a distributed tamper-resistant ledge, has been proposed as an innovative solution that guarantees privacy-preserving yet secure schemes. In this paper, we review recent literature on the application of blockchain to IoV, in particular, and intelligent transportation systems in general.

Open access
2 source records
cs.NI
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs)
Original source
May 3, 2022·arXiv
0 cites
Coded Transaction Broadcasting for High-throughput Blockchains

Lei Yang, Yossi Gilad, Mohammad Alizadeh

High-throughput blockchains require efficient transaction broadcast mechanisms that can deliver transactions to most network nodes with low bandwidth overhead and latency. Existing schemes coordinate transmissions across peers to avoid sending redundant data, but they either incur a high latency or are not robust against adversarial network nodes. We present Strokkur, a new transaction broadcasting mechanism that provides both low bandwidth overhead and low latency. The core idea behind Strokkur is to avoid explicit coordination through randomized transaction coding. Rather than forward individual transactions. Strokkur nodes send out codewords -- XOR sums of multiple transactions selected at random. Since almost every codeword is useful for the receiver to decode new transactions, Strokkur nodes do not require coordination, for example, to determine which transactions the receiver is missing. Strokkur's coding strategy builds on LT codes, a popular class of rateless erasure codes, and extends them to support multiple uncoordinated senders with partially-overlapping continual streams of transaction data. Strokkur introduces mechanisms to cope with adversarial senders that may send corrupt codewords, and a simple rate control algorithm that enables each node to independently determine an appropriate sending rate of codewords for each peer. Our implementation of Strokkur in Golang supports 647k transactions per second using only one CPU core. Our evaluation across a 19-node Internet deployment and large-scale simulation show that Strokkur consumes 2--7.6x less bandwidth than the existing scheme in Bitcoin, and 9x lower latency that Shrec when only 4% of nodes are adversarial.

Open access
cs.NI
cs.CR
cs.DC
Original source
Apr 19, 2022·Future Generation Computer Systems
14 cites
Bodyless Block Propagation: TPS Fully Scalable Blockchain with Pre-Validation

Chonghe Zhao, Shengli Zhang, Taotao Wang, Soung Chang Liew

Despite numerous prior attempts to boost transaction per second (TPS) of blockchain systems, many sacrifice decentralization and security. This paper proposes a bodyless block propagation (BBP) scheme for which the blockbody is not validated and transmitted during block propagation, to increase TPS without compromising security. Nodes in the blockchain network anticipate the transactions and their ordering in the next upcoming block so that these transactions can be pre-executed and pre-validated before the block is born. For a network with $N$ nodes, our theoretical analysis reveals that BBP can improve TPS scalability from $O(1/log(N))$ to $O(1)$. Ensuring consensus on the next block's transaction content is crucial. We propose a transaction selection, ordering, and synchronization algorithm to drive this consensus. To address the undetermined Coinbase address issue, we further present an algorithm for such unresolvable transactions, ensuring a consistent and TPS-efficient scheme. With BBP, most transactions require neither validation nor transmission during block propagation, liberating system from transaction-block dependencies and rendering TPS scalable. Both theoretical analysis and experiments underscore BBP's potential for full TPS scalability. Experimental results reveal a 4x reduction in block propagation time compared to Ethereum blockchain, with TPS performance being limited by node hardware rather than block propagation.

Open access
3 source records
cs.NI
cs.DC
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Original source
Apr 8, 2022·arXiv
0 cites
HBFL: A Hierarchical Blockchain-based Federated Learning Framework for a Collaborative IoT Intrusion Detection

Mohanad Sarhan, Wai Weng Lo, Siamak Layeghy, Marius Portmann

The continuous strengthening of the security posture of IoT ecosystems is vital due to the increasing number of interconnected devices and the volume of sensitive data shared. The utilisation of Machine Learning (ML) capabilities in the defence against IoT cyber attacks has many potential benefits. However, the currently proposed frameworks do not consider data privacy, secure architectures, and/or scalable deployments of IoT ecosystems. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical blockchain-based federated learning framework to enable secure and privacy-preserved collaborative IoT intrusion detection. We highlight and demonstrate the importance of sharing cyber threat intelligence among inter-organisational IoT networks to improve the model's detection capabilities. The proposed ML-based intrusion detection framework follows a hierarchical federated learning architecture to ensure the privacy of the learning process and organisational data. The transactions (model updates) and processes will run on a secure immutable ledger, and the conformance of executed tasks will be verified by the smart contract. We have tested our solution and demonstrated its feasibility by implementing it and evaluating the intrusion detection performance using a key IoT data set. The outcome is a securely designed ML-based intrusion detection system capable of detecting a wide range of malicious activities while preserving data privacy.

Open access
cs.CR
cs.LG
cs.NI
Original source
Apr 8, 2022·IEEE Communications Magazine
19 cites
How to Design Autonomous Service Level Agreements for 6G

Tooba Faisal, José Antonio Ordóñez Lucena, Diego López, Chonggang Wang · 5 authors

With the growing demand for network connectivity and diversity of network applications, one primary challenge that network service providers are facing is managing the commitments for Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Service providers typically monitor SLAs for management tasks such as improving their service quality, customer billing and future network planning. Network service customers, on their side, monitor services provided to them, to optimize their network usage and apply, when required, penalties related to service failures. In future 6G networks, critical network applications such as remote surgery and connected vehicles will require these SLAs to be more dynamic, flexible, and automated to match their diverse requirements on network services. Moreover, these SLAs should be transparent to all stakeholders to address the trustworthiness on network services and service providers required by critical applications. Currently, there is no standardized method to immutably record and audit SLAs, leading to challenges in aspects such as SLA enforcement and accountability - traits essential for future network applications. This work explores new requirements for future service contracts, that is, on the evolution of SLAs. Based on those new requirements, we propose an end to end layered SLA architecture leveraging Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and smart contracts. Our architecture is inheritable by an existing telco-application layered architectural frameworks to support future SLAs. We also discuss some limitations of DLT and smart contracts and provide several directions of future studies.

Open access
3 source records
cs.NI
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Software-Defined Networks and 5G
Original source
Apr 7, 2022·arXiv
0 cites
Situation Awareness for Autonomous Vehicles Using Blockchain-based Service Cooperation

Huong Nguyen, Tri Nguyen, Teemu Leppänen, Juha Partala · 5 authors

Efficient Vehicle-to-Everything enabling cooperation and enhanced decision-making for autonomous vehicles is essential for optimized and safe traffic. Real-time decision-making based on vehicle sensor data, other traffic data, and environmental and contextual data becomes imperative. As a part of such Intelligent Traffic Systems, cooperation between different stakeholders needs to be facilitated rapidly, reliably, and securely. The Internet of Things provides the fabric to connect these stakeholders who share their data, refined information, and provided services with each other. However, these cloud-based systems struggle to meet the real-time requirements for smart traffic due to long distances across networks. Here, edge computing systems bring the data and services into the close proximity of fast-moving vehicles, reducing information delivery latencies and improving privacy as sensitive data is processed locally. To solve the issues of trust and latency in data sharing between these stakeholders, we propose a decentralized framework that enables smart contracts between traffic data producers and consumers based on blockchain. Autonomous vehicles connect to a local edge server, share their data, or use services based on agreements, for which the cooperating edge servers across the system provide a platform. We set up proof-of-concept experiments with Hyperledger Fabric and virtual cars to analyze the system throughput with secure unicast and multicast data transmissions. Our results show that multicast transmissions in such a scenario boost the throughput up to 2.5 times where the data packets of different sizes can be transmitted in less than one second.

Open access
cs.NI
cs.CY
cs.DC
Original source
Apr 5, 2022·arXiv
0 cites
Less is More: Fairness in Wide-Area Proof-of-Work Blockchain Networks

Yifan Mao, Shaileshh Bojja Venkatakrishnan

Blockchain is rapidly emerging as an important class of network application, with a unique set of trust, security and transparency properties. In a blockchain system, participants record and update the `server-side' state of an application as blocks of a replicated, immutable ledger using a consensus protocol over the Internet. Mining blocks has become lucrative in recent years; e.g., a miner receives over USD 200,000 per mined block in Bitcoin today. A key factor affecting mining rewards, is the latency of broadcasting blocks over the network. In this paper, we consider the problem of topology design for optimizing mining rewards in a wide-area blockchain network that uses a Proof-of-Work protocol for consensus. Contrary to general wisdom that a faster network is always better for miners, we show a counter intuitive result where a slower network is actually beneficial to some miners. This is because competing miners must choose neighbors that not only decrease their own latency to others, but also ensure that the latency between other miners do not decrease because of itself. We formalize this problem, and provide both theoretical analysis and experimental results to support our claim.

Open access
cs.NI
Original source
Mar 30, 2022·2021 22nd International Arab Conference on Information Technology (ACIT)
0 cites
Internet of Things Protection and Encryption: A Survey

Ghassan Samara, Ruzayn Quaddoura, Mooad Imad Al-Shalout, AL-Qawasmi Khaled · 5 authors

The Internet of Things (IoT) has enabled a wide range of sectors to interact effectively with their consumers in order to deliver seamless services and products. Despite the widespread availability of (IoT) devices and their Internet connectivity, they have a low level of information security integrity. A number of security methods were proposed and evaluated in our research, and comparisons were made in terms of energy and time in the encryption and decryption processes. A ratification procedure is also performed on the devices in the main manager, which is regarded as a full firewall for IoT devices. The suggested algorithm's success has been shown utilizing low-cost Adriano Uno and Raspberry Pi devices. Arduous Uno has been used to demonstrate the encryption process in low-energy devices using a variety of algorithms, including Enhanced Algorithm for Data Integrity and Authentication (EDAI) and raspberry, which serves as a safety manager in low-energy device molecules. A variety of enhanced algorithms used in conjunction with Blockchain software have also assured the security and integrity of the information. These findings and discussions are presented at the conclusion of the paper.

Open access
cs.CR
cs.NI
Original source
Mar 30, 2022·arXiv (Cornell University)
2 cites
Hawkes Process Modeling of Block Arrivals in Bitcoin Blockchain

Rui Luo, Vikram Krishnamurthy, Erik Blasch

The paper constructs a multi-variate Hawkes process model of Bitcoin block arrivals and price jumps. Hawkes processes are selfexciting point processes that can capture the self- and cross-excitation effects of block mining and Bitcoin price volatility. We use publicly available blockchain datasets to estimate the model parameters via maximum likelihood estimation. The results show that Bitcoin price volatility boost block mining rate and Bitcoin investment return demonstrates mean reversion. Quantile-Quantile plots show that the proposed Hawkes process model is a better fit to the blockchain datasets than a Poisson process model.

Open access
2 source records
cs.NI
stat.AP
Point processes and geometric inequalities
Original source
Mar 16, 2022·arXiv (Cornell University)
6 cites
Metaverse Native Communication: A Blockchain and Spectrum Prospective

Hao Xu, Zihao Li, Zongyao Li, Xiaoshuai Zhang · 6 authors

Metaverse depicts a vista of constructing a virtual environment parallel to the real world so people can communicate with others and objects through digital entities. In the real world, communication relies on identities and addresses that are recognized by authorities, no matter the link is established via post, email, mobile phone, or landline. Metaverse, however, is different from the real world, which requires a single identity belongs to the individual. This identity can be an encrypted virtual address in the metaverse but no one can trace or verify it. In order to achieve such addresses to hide individuals in the metaverse, re-mapping the virtual address to the individual's identity and a specific spectrum to support the address-based communication for the metaverse are needed. Therefore, metaverse native or meta-native communications based on blockchain could be a promising solution to directly connect entities with their native encrypted addresses that gets rid of the existing network services based on IP, cellular, HTTP, etc. This paper proposes a vision of blockchain, encrypted address and address-based access model for all users, devices, services, etc. to contribute to the metaverse. Furthermore, the allocation architecture of a designated spectrum for the metaverse is proposed to remove the barrier to access to the metaverse/blockchain in response to the initiatives of metaverse and decentralized Internet.

Open access
2 source records
cs.DC
cs.CY
cs.NI
Original source
Mar 16, 2022·arXiv (Cornell University)
14 cites
Blockchain as privacy and security solution for smart environments: A Survey

Maad Ebrahim, Abdelhakim Hafid, Etienne Elie

Blockchain was always associated with Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and digital asset trading. However, its benefits are far beyond that. It supports technologies like the Internet-of-Things (IoT) to pave the way for futuristic smart environments, like smart homes, smart transportation, smart energy trading, smart industries, smart supply chains, and more. To enable these environments, IoT devices, machines, appliances, and vehicles, need to intercommunicate without the need for centralized trusted parties. Blockchain replaces these trusted parties in such trustless environments. It provides security enforcement, privacy assurance, authentication, and other key features to IoT ecosystems. Besides IoT-Blockchain integration, other technologies add more benefits that attract the research community. Software-Defined Networking (SDN), Fog, Edge, and Cloud Computing technologies, for example, play a key role in enabling realistic IoT applications. Moreover, the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) provides smart, dynamic, and autonomous decision-making capabilities for IoT devices in smart environments. To push the research further in this domain, we provide in this paper a comprehensive survey that includes state-of-the-art technological integration, challenges, and solutions for smart environments, and the role of these technologies as the building blocks of such smart environments. We also demonstrate how the level of integration between these technologies has increased over the years, which brings us closer to the futuristic view of smart environments. We further discuss the current need to provide general-purpose Blockchain platforms that can adapt to unique design requirements of different applications and solutions. Finally, we provide a simplified architecture of futuristic smart environments that integrate these technologies, showing the advantage of such integration.

Open access
2 source records
cs.CR
cs.NI
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Original source
Mar 12, 2022·IEEE Internet of Things Magazine
22 cites
Towards On-Device AI and Blockchain for 6G enabled Agricultural Supply-chain Management

Muhammad Zawish, Nouman Ashraf, Rafay Iqbal Ansari, Steven Davy · 7 authors

6G envisions artificial intelligence (AI) powered solutions for enhancing the quality of service (QoS) in the network and to ensure optimal utilization of resources. In this work, we propose an architecture based on the combination of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), AI, and blockchain for agricultural supply chain management with the purpose of ensuring traceability and transparency, tracking inventories, and contracts. We propose a solution to facilitate on-device AI by generating a roadmap of models with various resource-accuracy trade-offs. A fully convolutional neural network (FCN) model is used for biomass estimation through images captured by the UAV. Instead of a single compressed FCN model for deployment on UAVs, we motivate the idea of iterative pruning to provide multiple task-specific models with various complexities and accuracy. To alleviate the impact of flight failure in a 6G-enabled dynamic UAV network, the proposed model selection strategy will assist UAVs to update the model based on the runtime resource requirements.

Open access
2 source records
cs.AI
cs.LG
cs.NI
Original source
Mar 10, 2022·arXiv
0 cites
A Full Dive into Realizing the Edge-enabled Metaverse: Visions, Enabling Technologies,and Challenges

Minrui Xu, Wei Chong Ng, Wei Yang Bryan Lim, Jiawen Kang · 9 authors

Dubbed "the successor to the mobile Internet", the concept of the Metaverse has grown in popularity. While there exist lite versions of the Metaverse today, they are still far from realizing the full vision of an immersive, embodied, and interoperable Metaverse. Without addressing the issues of implementation from the communication and networking, as well as computation perspectives, the Metaverse is difficult to succeed the Internet, especially in terms of its accessibility to billions of users today. In this survey, we focus on the edge-enabled Metaverse to realize its ultimate vision. We first provide readers with a succinct tutorial of the Metaverse, an introduction to the architecture, as well as current developments. To enable ubiquitous, seamless, and embodied access to the Metaverse, we discuss the communication and networking challenges and survey cutting-edge solutions and concepts that leverage next-generation communication systems for users to immerse as and interact with embodied avatars in the Metaverse. Moreover, given the high computation costs required, e.g., to render 3D virtual worlds and run data-hungry artificial intelligence-driven avatars, we discuss the computation challenges and cloud-edge-end computation framework-driven solutions to realize the Metaverse on resource-constrained edge devices. Next, we explore how blockchain technologies can aid in the interoperable development of the Metaverse, not just in terms of empowering the economic circulation of virtual user-generated content but also to manage physical edge resources in a decentralized, transparent, and immutable manner. Finally, we discuss the future research directions towards realizing the true vision of the edge-enabled Metaverse.

Open access
cs.NI
cs.CY
Original source
Mar 10, 2022·arXiv (Cornell University)
0 cites
Controlling Transaction Rate in Tangle Ledger: A Principal Agent Problem Approach

Anurag Gupta, Vikram Krishnamurthy

Tangle is a distributed ledger technology that stores data as a directed acyclic graph (DAG). Unlike blockchain, Tangle does not require dedicated miners for its operation; this makes Tangle suitable for Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Distributed ledgers have a built-in transaction rate control mechanism to prevent congestion and spamming; this is typically achieved by increasing or decreasing the proof of work (PoW) difficulty level based on the number of users. Unfortunately, this simplistic mechanism gives an unfair advantage to users with high computing power. This paper proposes a principal-agent problem (PAP) framework from microeconomics to control the transaction rate in Tangle. With users as agents and the transaction rate controller as the principal, we design a truth-telling mechanism to assign PoW difficulty levels to agents as a function of their computing power. The solution of the PAP is achieved by compensating a higher PoW difficulty level with a larger weight/reputation for the transaction. The mechanism has two benefits, (1) the security of Tangle is increased as agents are incentivized to perform difficult PoW, and (2) the rate of new transactions is moderated in Tangle. The solution of PAP is obtained by solving a mixed-integer optimization problem. We show that the optimal solution of the PAP increases with the computing power of agents. The structural results reduce the search space of the mixed-integer program and enable efficient computation of the optimal mechanism. Finally, via numerical examples, we illustrate the transaction rate control mechanism and study its impact on the dynamics of Tangle.

Open access
2 source records
cs.NI
eess.SY
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Original source
Feb 15, 2022·Quantum Science and Technology, Institute of Physics, May 2023
0 cites
Paving the Way towards 800 Gbps Quantum-Secured Optical Channel Deployment in Mission-Critical Environments

Marco Pistoia, Omar Amer, Monik R. Behera, Joseph A. Dolphin · 19 authors

This article describes experimental research studies conducted towards understanding the implementation aspects of high-capacity quantum-secured optical channels in mission-critical metro-scale operational environments using Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) technology. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that an 800 Gbps quantum-secured optical channel -- along with several other Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexed (DWDM) channels on the C-band and multiplexed with the QKD channel on the O-band -- was established at distances up to 100 km, with secret key-rates relevant for practical industry use cases. In addition, during the course of these trials, transporting a blockchain application over this established channel was utilized as a demonstration of securing a financial transaction in transit over a quantum-secured optical channel. The findings of this research pave the way towards the deployment of QKD-secured optical channels in high-capacity, metro-scale, mission-critical operational environments, such as Inter-Data Center Interconnects.

Open access
quant-ph
cs.CR
cs.NI
Original source
Feb 5, 2022·arXiv
0 cites
Digital Twin of Wireless Systems: Overview, Taxonomy, Challenges, and Opportunities

Latif U. Khan, Zhu Han, Walid Saad, Ekram Hossain · 6 authors

Future wireless services must be focused on improving the quality of life by enabling various applications, such as extended reality, brain-computer interaction, and healthcare. These applications have diverse performance requirements (e.g., user-defined quality of experience metrics, latency, and reliability) that are challenging to be fulfilled by existing wireless systems. To meet the diverse requirements of the emerging applications, the concept of a digital twin has been recently proposed. A digital twin uses a virtual representation along with security-related technologies (e.g., blockchain), communication technologies (e.g., 6G), computing technologies (e.g., edge computing), and machine learning, so as to enable the smart applications. In this tutorial, we present a comprehensive overview on digital twins for wireless systems. First, we present an overview of fundamental concepts (i.e., design aspects, high-level architecture, and frameworks) of digital twin of wireless systems. Second, a comprehensive taxonomy is devised for both different aspects. These aspects are twins for wireless and wireless for twins. For the twins for wireless aspect, we consider parameters, such as twin objects design, prototyping, deployment trends, physical devices design, interface design, incentive mechanism, twins isolation, and decoupling. On the other hand, for wireless for twins, parameters such as, twin objects access aspects, security and privacy, and air interface design are considered. Finally, open research challenges and opportunities are presented along with causes and possible solutions.

Open access
cs.NI
Original source
Feb 3, 2022·IEEE Communications Letters
42 cites
End-to-End Latency Analysis and Optimal Block Size of Proof-of-Work Blockchain Applications

Francesc Wilhelmi, Sergio Barrachina‐Muñoz, Paolo Dini

Due to the increasing interest in blockchain technology for fostering secure, auditable, decentralized applications, a set of challenges associated with this technology need to be addressed. In this letter, we focus on the delay associated with Proof-of-Work (PoW)-based blockchains, whereby participants validate the new information to be appended to a distributed ledger via consensus to confirm transactions. We propose a novel end-to-end latency model based on batch-service queuing theory that characterizes timers and forks for the first time. Furthermore, we derive an estimation of the optimal block size analytically. Endorsed by analytical and simulation results, we show that the optimal block size approximation is a consistent method that leads to close-to-optimal performance by significantly reducing the overheads associated with blockchain applications.

Open access
3 source records
cs.NI
cs.CR
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Original source
Jan 17, 2022·arXiv (Cornell University)
6 cites
Understanding the Decentralization of DPoS: Perspectives From Data-Driven Analysis on EOSIO

Jieli Liu, Weilin Zheng, Dingyuan Lu, Jiajing Wu · 5 authors

Recently, many Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS)-based blockchains have been widely used in decentralized applications, such as EOSIO, Tron, and Binance Smart Chain. Compared with traditional PoW-based blockchain systems, these systems achieve a higher transaction throughput and are well adapted to large-scale scenes in daily applications. Decentralization is a key element in blockchain networks. However, little is known about the evolution of decentralization in DPoS-based blockchain networks. In this paper, we conduct a systematic analysis on the decentralization of DPoS with data from up to 135,000,000 blocks in EOSIO, the first successful DPoS-based blockchain system. We characterize the decentralization evolution of the two phases in DPoS, namely block producer election and block production. Moreover, we study the voters with similar voting behaviors and propose methods to discover abnormal mutual voting behaviors in EOSIO. The analytical results show that our methods can effectively capture the decentralization evolution and abnormal voting phenomena in the system, which also have reference significance for other DPoS-based blockchains.

Open access
2 source records
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Internet Traffic Analysis and Secure E-voting
Auction Theory and Applications
Original source
Jan 16, 2022·2021 12th International Conference on Computing Communication and Networking Technologies (ICCCNT), 2021
0 cites
Towards 6G Communications: Architecture, Challenges, and Future Directions

Purbita Mitra, Rouprita Bhattacharjee, Twinkle Chatterjee, Soumalya De · 7 authors

The cellular network standard is gradually stepping towards the 6th Generation (6G). In 6G, the pioneering and exclusive features, such as creating connectivity even in space and under water, are attracting Governments, organizations and researchers to spend time, money, effort extensively in this area. In the direction of intelligent network management and distributed secured systems, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and blockchain are going to form the backbone of 6G, respectively. However, there is a need for the study of the 6g architecture and technology, such that researchers can identify the scopes of improvement in 6G. Therefore, in this survey, we discuss the primary requirements of 6G along with its overall architecture and technological aspects. We also highlight crucial challenges and future research directions in 6G networks, which can lead to the successful practical implementation of 6G, as per the objective of its introduction in next generation cellular networks.

Open access
cs.NI
Original source
Jan 1, 2022·Computer Networks
21 cites
S-HIDRA: A blockchain and SDN domain-based architecture to orchestrate fog computing environments

Carlos Núñez‐Gómez, Carmen Carrión, Blanca Caminero, Francisco M. Delicado

Fog computing arises as a complement to cloud computing where computing and storage are provided in a decentralized way rather than the centralized approach of the cloud paradigm. In addition, blockchain provides a decentralized and immutable ledger which can provide support for running arbitrary logic thanks to smart contracts. These facts can lead to harness smart contracts on blockchain as the basis for a decentralized, autonomous, and resilient orchestrator for the resources in the fog. However, the potentially vast amount of geographically distributed fog nodes may threaten the feasibility of the orchestration. On the other hand, fog nodes can exhibit highly dynamic workloads which may result in the orchestrator redistributing the services among them. Thus, there is also a need to dynamically support the network connections to those services independently of their location. Software Defined Networking (SDN) can be integrated within the orchestrator to carry out a seamless service management. To tackle both aforementioned issues, the S-HIDRA architecture is proposed. It integrates SDN support within a blockchain-based orchestrator of container-based services for fog environments, in order to provide low network latency and high service availability. Also, a domain-based architecture is outlined \marev{as potential scenario} to address the geographic distributed nature of fog environments. Results obtained from a proof-of-concept implementation assess the required functionality for S-HIDRA.

Open access
3 source records
cs.NI
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Caching and Content Delivery
Original source
Dec 25, 2021·IEEE Access, vol. 10, pp. 48660-48672, 2022
18 cites
BEAT: Blockchain-Enabled Accountable and Transparent Infrastructure Sharing in 6G and Beyond

Tooba Faisal, Mischa Döhler, Simone Mangiante, Diego López

It is widely expected that future networks of 6G and beyond will deliver on the unachieved goals set by 5G. Technologies such as Internet of Skills and Industry 4.0 will become stable and viable, as a direct consequence of networks that offer sustained and reliable mobile performance levels. The primary challenges for future technologies are not just low-latency and high-bandwidth. The more critical problem Mobile Service Providers (MSPs) will face will be in balancing the inflated demands of network connections and customers' trust in the network service, that is, being able to interconnect billions of unique devices while adhering to the agreed terms of Service Level Agreements (SLAs). To meet these targets, it is self-evident that MSPs cannot operate in a solitary environment. They must enable cooperation among themselves in a manner that ensures trust, both between themselves as well as with customers. In this study, we present the BEAT (Blockchain-Enabled Accountable and Transparent) Infrastructure Sharing architecture. BEAT exploits the inherent properties of permissioned type of distributed ledger technology (i.e., permissioned distributed ledgers) to deliver on accountability and transparency metrics whenever infrastructure needs to be shared between providers. We also propose a lightweight method that enables device-level accountability. BEAT has been designed to be deployable directly as only minor software upgrades to network devices such as routers. Our simulations on a resource-limited device show that BEAT adds only a few seconds of overhead processing time -- with the latest state-of-the-art network devices, we can reasonably anticipate much lower overheads.

Open access
2 source records
cs.NI
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Original source
Dec 15, 2021·arXiv
0 cites
Analysis and Evaluation of Synchronous and Asynchronous FLchain

Francesc Wilhelmi, Lorenza Giupponi, Paolo Dini

Motivated by the heterogeneous nature of devices participating in large-scale Federated Learning (FL) optimization, we focus on an asynchronous server-less FL solution empowered by blockchain technology. In contrast to mostly adopted FL approaches, which assume synchronous operation, we advocate an asynchronous method whereby model aggregation is done as clients submit their local updates. The asynchronous setting fits well with the federated optimization idea in practical large-scale settings with heterogeneous clients. Thus, it potentially leads to higher efficiency in terms of communication overhead and idle periods. To evaluate the learning completion delay of BC-enabled FL, we provide an analytical model based on batch service queue theory. Furthermore, we provide simulation results to assess the performance of both synchronous and asynchronous mechanisms. Important aspects involved in the BC-enabled FL optimization, such as the network size, link capacity, or user requirements, are put together and analyzed. As our results show, the synchronous setting leads to higher prediction accuracy than the asynchronous case. Nevertheless, asynchronous federated optimization provides much lower latency in many cases, thus becoming an appealing solution for FL when dealing with large datasets, tough timing constraints (e.g., near-real-time applications), or highly varying training data.

Open access
cs.LG
cs.DC
cs.NI
Original source
Dec 7, 2021·Digital War
11 cites
Developing a Trusted Human-AI Network for Humanitarian Benefit

S. Kate Devitt, Jason Scholz, Timo Schless, L Lewis

Abstract Artificial intelligences (AI) will increasingly participate digitally and physically in conflicts yet there is a lack of trusted communications with humans for humanitarian purposes. For example, in disasters and conflicts messaging and social media are used to share information, however, international humanitarian relief organisations treat this information as unverifiable and untrustworthy. Furthermore, current AI implementations can be brittle, with a narrow scope of application and wide scope of ethical risks. Meanwhile, human error can cause significant civilian harms even by combatants committed to compliance with international humanitarian law. AI offers an opportunity to help reduce the tragedy of war and better deliver humanitarian aid to those who need it. However, to be successful, these systems must be trusted by humans and their information systems, overcoming flawed information flows in conflict and disaster zones that continue to be marked by intermittent communications, poor situation awareness, mistrust and human errors. In this paper, we consider the integration of a communications protocol (the ‘Whiteflag protocol’), distributed ledger ‘blockchain’ technology, and information fusion with artificial intelligence (AI), to improve conflict communications called “Protected Assurance Understanding Situation & Entities” (PAUSE). Such a trusted human-AI communication network could provide accountable information exchange regarding protected entities, critical infrastructure, humanitarian signals and status updates for humans and machines in conflicts. Trust-based information fusion provides resource-efficient use of diverse data sources to increase the reliability of reports. AI can catch human mistakes and complement human decision making, while human judgment can direct and override AI recommendations. We examine several realistic potential case studies for the integration of these technologies into a trusted human-AI network for humanitarian benefit including mapping a conflict zone with civilians and combatants in real time, preparation to avoid incidents and using the network to manage misinformation. We finish with a real-world example of a PAUSE-like network, the Human Security Information System (HSIS), being developed by USAID, that uses blockchain technology to provide a secure means to better understand the civilian environment.

Open access
3 source records
cs.CY
cs.AI
cs.HC
Original source
Dec 1, 2021·2021 IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM)
45 cites
Towards a Secure and Reliable Federated Learning using Blockchain

Hajar Moudoud, Soumaya Cherkaoui, Lyes Khoukhi

Federated learning (FL) is a distributed machine learning (ML) technique that enables collaborative training in which devices perform learning using a local dataset while preserving their privacy. This technique ensures privacy, communication efficiency, and resource conservation. Despite these advantages, FL still suffers from several challenges related to reliability (i.e., unreliable participating devices in training), tractability (i.e., a large number of trained models), and anonymity. To address these issues, we propose a secure and trustworthy blockchain framework (SRB-FL) tailored to FL, which uses blockchain features to enable collaborative model training in a fully distributed and trustworthy manner. In particular, we design a secure FL based on the blockchain sharding that ensures data reliability, scalability, and trustworthiness. In addition, we introduce an incentive mechanism to improve the reliability of FL devices using subjective multi-weight logic. The results show that our proposed SRB- FL framework is efficient and scalable, making it a promising and suitable solution for federated learning.

Open access
2 source records
cs.CR
cs.AI
cs.LG
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