Anik Islam, Md. Fazlul Kader, Md Mofijul Islam, Soo Young Shin
In order to stay up to date with world issues and cutting-edge technol-ogies, the newspaper plays a crucial role. However, collecting news is not a very easy task. Currently, news publishers are collecting news from their correspond-ents through social networks, email, phone call, fax etc. and sometimes they buy news from the agencies. However, the existing news sharing networks may not provide security for data integrity and any third party may obstruct the regular flow of news sharing. Moreover, the existing news schemes are very vulnerable in case of disclosing the identity. Therefore, a universal platform is needed in the era of globalization where anyone can share and trade news from anywhere in the world securely, without the interference of third-party, and without disclosing the identity of an individual. Recently, blockchain has gained popularity because of its security mechanism over data, identity, etc. Blockchain enables a distrib-uted way of managing transactions where each participant of the network holds the same copy of the transactions. Therefore, with the help of pseudonymity, fault-tolerance, immutability and the distributed structure of blockchain, a scheme (termed as NEWSTRADCOIN) is presented in this paper in which not only news can be shared securely but also anyone can earn money by selling news. The proposed NEWSTRADCOIN can provide a universal platform where publishers can directly obtain news from news-gatherers in a secure way by main-taining data integrity, without experiencing the interference of a third-party, and without disclosing the identity of the news gatherer and publishers.
This paper examines how smart contracts can enhance accounts payable in supply chain finance by automating the three-way match.The conventional system relies on the manual verification of purchase orders, goods receipts, and invoices; hence, it usually causes delays and errors and is expensive.This paper has created a set of conceptual frameworks where blockchain technology is used to automate such processes.The outcomes are great improvements.The processing time is also cut down to approximately 1.5 or 2 days using smart contracts, compared with the manual systems of about 8-14 days.The per 1000 transactions cost is reduced to approximately 650 from 2000 by a wide margin of almost 40-70%.The error rate also reduces drastically from 9.5% to 1.3%, which is primarily through automated validation and elimination of manual data entry.Real-time data capture enhances transparency and accelerates reporting on finances.Certain issues are still there, including the reliability of the data, scaling of the system, and absence of clear legal and accounting standards.The analysis demonstrates that smart contracts can benefit the efficiency, accuracy, and control in the accounts payable process significantly.
For many years, businesses and in some cases many industries have been built on simple principle of trust between multiple parties. However, this business of trust is about to be disrupted and transformed with the advent of blockchain technology. Blockchain can be defined as distributed ledger technology that can record transactions between parties in a permanent and secure way. Blockchain has been identified as one of the technology that may have a major impact on the future of aerospace and aviation industry among other drivers of change such as supply chain management. The future will likely to be a place where every part has a trusted digital identity and historical records that are immediately accessible to those with the right authorization. This paper to some extent explains the blockchain capability that facilitate the use of blockchain technology in Aerospace and Aviation Industry with various use case. Through its methodology, a detailed analysis of the blockchain fit in the industry is made in this paper. Blockchain technology offers a simple and easy way in which the information is immutable and temper proof.
The article discusses the weaknesses of fiat reserve currencies and proposes modern Distributed Ledger Technologies as a way to lower transaction costs and promote digital payments for the public. Specifically, we concentrate on stablecoins, a particular category of cryptocurrencies, that are designed to maintain stability and to be used as a medium of exchange and store of value. The results allow concluding that tokens backed by commodities may be implemented in payments globally with minimum cost and processing time. Hence, it is a revolutionary solution to the existing international monetary issues.
Odhran O’Donoghue, Anuraag A Vazirani, David Brindley, Edward Meinert
BACKGROUND: A blockchain is a list of records that uses cryptography to make stored data immutable; their use has recently been proposed for electronic medical record (EMR) systems. This paper details a systematic review of trade-offs in blockchain technologies that are relevant to EMRs. Trade-offs are defined as "a compromise between two desirable but incompatible features." OBJECTIVE: This review's primary research question was: "What are the trade-offs involved in different blockchain designs that are relevant to the creation of blockchain-based electronic medical records systems?" METHODS: Seven databases were systematically searched for relevant articles using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). Papers published from January 1, 2017 to June 15, 2018 were selected. Quality assessments of papers were performed using the Risk Of Bias In Non-randomized Studies-of Interventions (ROBINS-I) tool and the Critical Assessment Skills Programme (CASP) tool. Database searches identified 2885 articles, of which 15 were ultimately included for analysis. RESULTS: A total of 17 trade-offs were identified impacting the design, development, and implementation of blockchain systems; these trade-offs are organized into themes, including business, application, data, and technology architecture. CONCLUSIONS: The key findings concluded the following: (1) multiple trade-offs can be managed adaptively to improve EMR utility; (2) multiple trade-offs involve improving the security of blockchain systems at the cost of other features, meaning EMR efficacy highly depends on data protection standards; and (3) multiple trade-offs result in improved blockchain scalability. Consideration of these trade-offs will be important to the specific environment in which electronic medical records are being developed. This review also uses its findings to suggest useful design choices for a hypothetical National Health Service blockchain. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): RR2-10.2196/10994.
This article considers the problem of testing for an explosive bubble in financial data in the presence of time-varying volatility. We propose a sign-based variant of the Phillips, Shi, and Yu (2015, International Economic Review 56, 1043–1077) test. Unlike the original test, the sign-based test does not require bootstrap-type methods to control size in the presence of time-varying volatility. Under a locally explosive alternative, the sign-based test delivers higher power than the original test for many time-varying volatility and bubble specifications. However, since the original test can still outperform the sign-based one for some specifications, we also propose a union of rejections procedure that combines the original and sign-based tests, employing a wild bootstrap to control size. This is shown to capture most of the power available from the better performing of the two tests. We also show how a sign-based statistic can be used to date the bubble start and end points. An empirical illustration using Bitcoin price data is provided.
Amir Teshome Wonjiga, Louis Rilling, Christine Morin
The cloud computing business model introduced a new paradigm in terms of ownership of a system. Before the cloud, a user acquires physical infrastructure and uses it by installing and configuring according to her/his needs. In that scenario, the full system is owned by a single entity. In the cloud, when the user outsources a service for a cloud provider the user owns some part of the system while the provider owns the remaining part. Thus, ownership in the cloud is divided between different entities. Clients hosting their information system need to trust and rely on what the providers claim. At the same time providers try to give assurance for some aspects of the provided service (e.g. availability) through service level agreements (SLAs). We aim at extending SLAs to include security monitoring terms. In a previous study [1] we proposed an SLA verification method for security monitoring SLAs describing the performance on an NIDS.In this paper we consider an SLA guaranteeing the integrity of tenants’ data stored in the cloud. The tenant outsources data storage service to a Storage as a Service cloud provider. In such a system the data is owned by the tenant while the provider owns the infrastructure. We consider an SLA offered by the provider to guarantee the integrity of tenants’ data. In this paper, we propose a verification method, i.e. an integrity checking method, which is based on a distributed ledger. Specifically, our proposed method allows both providers and tenants to perform integrity checking without one party relying on the other. The method uses a blockchain as a distributed ledger to store evidences of data integrity. Assuming the ledger as a secure, trusted source of information, the evidence can be used to resolve conflicts between providers and tenants. In addition, we present a prototype implementation and an experimental evaluation to show the feasibility of our verification method and to measure the time overhead introduced.
The G7 should address new, unprecedented and highly disruptive issues that characterise our complex world, rather than well‐understood international problems that fit into existing categories. We argue that the G7 can do this by playing to its strengths – informality and like‐mindedness in particular – in addressing emerging and transversal issues such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrencies.
The article describes the problem of forecasting prices of cryptocurrencies at the financial markets. Methods for analyzing and forecasting prices of cryptocurrencies at the financial markets are considered in detail. A trend indicator – moving averages – is considered as an auxiliary tool for technical analysis that helps to analyze and forecast prices of cryptocurrencies at the financial markets. During the study there were analyzed several methods of different categories, namely: SMA (Simple Moving Average), EMA (Exponential Moving Average), WMA (Weighted Moving Average). For analyzing moving averages, there were conducted the analysis, based on mean-square deviation together with the standard graphic analysis. The whole process was divided in several stages: a moving average was calculated, based on basic values; based on values of the calculated moving average, there was calculated a mean square deviation; deviation with the least numerical value was chosen among the massive of deviations. It has been revealed, that SMA has the least value of mean-square deviation, but EMA is the better choice, because EMA is most sensitive among considered moving averages, although an error extent is rater more.
Many individuals (including governments) envision living in a future world where physical currency is a thing of the past. Many countries have made great strides in their efforts to go cashless. At the same time, there is increasing awareness among citizens of the decreasing amount of privacy in their lives. The potential hazards cashless societies pose to financial privacy may incentivize citizens to hold some of their money in independent cryptocurrencies. This article argues that in order for governments in cashless societies to keep firm control over their money supply, they should enact stronger privacy law protections for its citizens in order to decrease the real or perceived loss of (financial) privacy. This paper compares the privacy laws that exist today in both the United States and the European Union and suggests combining elements of both legal systems in order create a more privacy-friendly legal framework that can enable governments to complete against independent cryptocurrencies.
Przemysław Rodwald, Witold Sobolewski, Maja Rodwald
The aim of this article is to show how one can deanonymize users of cryptocurrencies. To this end the most popular of the cryptocurrencies, i.e. bitcoin is used as an example. At the beginning, the basic concepts about cryptocurrencies are presented. Afterwards, our approach to systematize the types of transactions existing in the blockchain is proposed. This part is enriched with the graphs showing their quantitative occurrence in the blockchain. The main part of this article presents the heuristics use to deanonymize users. A few practical pieces of advice for implementation of the presented heuristics in the real deanonymizing system are included. Then the real case studies are introduced. They are supported with comments based on the experience from court trials carried out by the authors. The final part contains legal regulations and existing tools supporting the deanonymizing process. Keywords: deanonymization, cryptocurrency, bitcoin.
Adnan Qayyum, Junaid Qadir, Muhammad Umar Janjua, Falak Sher
In recent years, `fake news' has become a global issue that raises unprecedented challenges for human society and democracy. This problem has arisen due to the emergence of various concomitant phenomena such as (1) the digitization of human life and the ease of disseminating news through social networking applications (such as Facebook and WhatsApp); (2) the availability of `big data' that allows customization of news feeds and the creation of polarized so-called `filter-bubbles'; and (3) the rapid progress made by generative machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) algorithms in creating realistic-looking yet fake digital content (such as text, images, and videos). There is a crucial need to combat the rampant rise of fake news and disinformation. In this paper, we propose a high-level overview of a blockchain-based framework for fake news prevention and highlight the various design issues and consideration of such a blockchain-based framework for tackling fake news.
Индустрия 4.0 включает создание киберфизических систем, способных децентрализованно управлять производством, продажами, самообучаться и развиваться. Функционирование таких систем нуждается в аналогичных "умных" технологиях хранения и распространения информации. Блокчейн, обеспечивший децентрализацию и кибербезопасность в сфере криптовалют и создавший "умные" контракты, стал рассматриваться как подобная технология. Однако экстраполяция блокчейн с узкой сферы цифровых денег до универсального применения в индустрии и публичном секторе столкнулась с серьезными трудностями. Некоторые из них могут быть преодолены в рамках существующего поколения блокчейн (например, улучшением алгоритмов консенсуса). Большинство же требует существенных трансформаций технологии, комбинирования ее с другими информационными и промышленными инновациями. Трудности такого переходного этапа породили критику блокчейн и, нередко, отказ от его использования. Появились гибридные решения, взявшие от блокчейн лишь часть инновационной идеи (блочную организацию реестра транзакций) и имплантировав ее в традиционные технологии. Предложено считать такие решения неполноценным "квазиблокчейном". На основе анализа эволюции блокчейна обосновано, что дальнейшее развитие его децентрализованных версий наиболее отвечает концепции Индустрия 4.0. Показано, что внедрению таких версий сейчас препятствуют внутренние противоречия: "трилемма" блокчейн плюс его высокая энергоемкость. Исследованы перспективы выхода из тупика "трилеммы" блокчейн с помощью смежных инновационных решений, таких как протокол второго уровня (Lightning Network) и ему подобные. Освещены тенденции дальнейшего развития различных форм и архитектур блокчейн. Предложена классификация, связывающая блокчейн с традиционными распределенными базами данных и учитывающая логику их развития. Проанализированы эффективные методы промышленного внедрения блокчейн, включая реализацию с его помощью цифровых счетов-фактур (e-Invoice) и коммуникаций для промышленного Интернета вещей. Выполненные исследования позволили разработать критерии выбора и оптимизации конкретных блокчейн-решений для индустриального применения.
This thesis work is aimed at developing understanding of the hash functions and algorithms being used in blockchain technologies Bitcoin in comparison to Ethereum and private blockchain hash functions. This study attempts to answer one fundamental research question: “What considerations are important in assessing blockchain cryptographic security, with an emphasis on hash functions”. \n \nThe study was carried out qualitatively using a desk research approach and combining this approach with using two public blockchains-based cryptocurrencies; Ethereum and Bitcoin as case studies. The research aims to provide a holistic view of blockchain cryptographic security comparing Bitcoin and Ethereum as use cases, and thus providing a consolidated document which students studying cryptography can access to obtain a better understanding of what is involved in blockchain security. From an academic perspective, the research aims at providing a model which can be used in assessing what is important to consider in the cryptographic security of blockchains. \n \nThree main categories of factors considered were presented in the proposed model which were strategical factors, complexity attributes and technical drivers. This results in a base crucial metrics such as absence of secret seeds, efficiency of verification, preimage collision resistance, fixed output size, low collision probability, and even distribution of preimages in output.
Eli Ben‐Sasson, Lior Goldberg, Swastik Kopparty, Shubhangi Saraf
Motivated by the quest for scalable and succinct zero knowledge arguments, we revisit worst-case-to-average-case reductions for linear spaces, raised by [Rothblum, Vadhan, Wigderson, STOC 2013]. The previous state of the art by [Ben-Sasson, Kopparty, Saraf, CCC 2018] showed that if some member of an affine space U is δ-far in relative Hamming distance from a linear code V - this is the worst-case assumption - then most elements of U are almost-δ-far from V - this is the average case. However, this result was known to hold only below the "double Johnson" function of the relative distance δ_V of the code V, i.e., only when δ < 1-(1-δ_V)^(1/4). First, we increase the soundness-bound to the "one-and-a-half Johnson" function of δ_V and show that the average distance of U from V is nearly δ for any worst-case distance δ smaller than 1-(1-δ_V)^(1/3). This bound is tight, which is somewhat surprising because the one-and-a-half Johnson function is unfamiliar in the literature on error correcting codes. To improve soundness further for Reed Solomon codes we sample outside the box. We suggest a new protocol in which the verifier samples a single point z outside the box D on which codewords are evaluated, and asks the prover for the value at z of the interpolating polynomial of a random element of U. Intuitively, the answer provided by the prover "forces" it to choose one codeword from a list of "pretenders" that are close to U. We call this technique Domain Extending for Eliminating Pretenders (DEEP). The DEEP method improves the soundness of the worst-case-to-average-case reduction for RS codes up their list decoding radius. This radius is bounded from below by the Johnson bound, implying average distance is approximately δ for all δ < 1-(1-δ_V)^(1/2). Under a plausible conjecture about the list decoding radius of Reed-Solomon codes, average distance from V is approximately δ for all δ. The DEEP technique can be generalized to all linear codes, giving improved reductions for capacity-achieving list-decodable codes. Finally, we use the DEEP technique to devise two new protocols: - An Interactive Oracle Proof of Proximity (IOPP) for RS codes, called DEEP-FRI. The soundness of the protocol improves upon that of the FRI protocol of [Ben-Sasson et al., ICALP 2018] while retaining linear arithmetic proving complexity and logarithmic verifier arithmetic complexity. - An Interactive Oracle Proof (IOP) for the Algebraic Linking IOP (ALI) protocol used to construct zero knowledge scalable transparent arguments of knowledge (ZK-STARKs) in [Ben-Sasson et al., eprint 2018]. The new protocol, called DEEP-ALI, improves soundness of this crucial step from a small constant < 1/8 to a constant arbitrarily close to 1.
Ivan Jovović, Siniša Husnjak, Ivan Forenbacher, Sven Maček
The Industry 4.0 is experiencing significant challenges, including the need for an increased amount of data transmission with improved security, transparency and credibility. The 5th Generation Mobile Network (5G) and Blockchain are innovative emerging technologies that can respond to these needs. 5
The emergence of blockchain technology has created a debate regarding technologies’ socio-cultural symbolism. Prevailing as alternative or complementary to internet technology, blockchain’s decentralized radical architecture reflects organizational change, enhancement of degrees of freedom, for individual identities and communities, new schemes of distributed trust and privacy, transformation of power relations and social reality perception. The current paper aims to contribute to the ongoing debate, from an organizational and socio-psychological perspective, discussing the key elements of a socially grounded technology, like any other technological product within the history of humanity. Through an evolutionary lens, blockchain technology is examined as a decentralized grassroots organizational movement at birth, influencing and, at the same time, be influenced, by science, culture, as well as by other aspects of individual and collective networked life, apart from the economy. Social sciences and cyber sciences are in a crossroad where society and technology integrate creating a mixed socio-technological or techno-social reality. Therefore, it is of high importance for them, to address the new epistemological challenges by developing new methodologies and tools, independently from any utopian or dystopian predictions.
21. yüzyıl bilgi ve iletişim teknolojilerinde önemli gelişmelere sahne olmuştur. Özellikle iletişim teknolojilerinde yaşanan kayda değer gelişmeler sonucu akıllı telefonların ortaya çıkması, interneti insanların günlük yaşantılarında sürekli kullandıkları bir teknoloji haline getirmiştir. Bu gelişmeler hayatın pek çok alanını değiştirdiği gibi ekonomik faaliyetleri de değiştirmiş ve bu faaliyetleri internet ortamına taşımıştır. Günümüzde bankacılık işlemlerinden, alışverişe kadar pek çok faaliyet internet üzerinden kolaylıkla yapılabilmektedir. Ancak internetin sunduğu bu kolaylıklar, güvenlik açıkları, verilerin çalınması gibi pek çok sorunu da beraberinde getirmektedir. Bu noktada blockchain teknolojisinin güvenlik açıklarına karşı korumalı ve bir ağ üzerinde şifrelenen verilerin yönetimini sağlayan dağınık bir veri tabanı oluşu, bu kronikleşmiş sorunların çözülmesinin yanı sıra günümüz ekonomilerinde yaşanan pek çok soruna da çözümler sunmaktadır. Bu çerçevede blockchain tabanlı ekosistemlerin oluşturulması amacıyla kamu/özel destekli pek çok platform hali hazırda çalışmalar yürütmektedir. Bu çalışmada, Blockchain’in altyapısını oluşturan teknoloji hakkında bilgi verilmiş ve bu teknolojinin kullanım alanları doğrultusunda uygulama alanları incelenmiştir.
Blockchain ilk defa 2009 yılında ortaya çıkan bir alt yapı teknolojisi olsa da finans dünyası tarafından keşfedilip araştırılmaya başlanması 2014 yılının ilk aylarını bulmuştur. Bugün gelinen noktada, mevcut ekonomik ve iş modellerini bozma gücüyle radikal bir inovasyon olduğunu ispatlamış, yeni ve heyecan verici bir teknoloji olduğu söylenebilir. Finans sektöründen enerji piyasalarına, tedarik zinciri süreçlerine, fikri mülkiyet yönetimine, kamu sektörüne ve bunlar gibi çok çeşitli alanlara verimlilik artışı sağlama potansiyeline sahiptir. Blockchain teknolojisi sağladığı tam otomatik, şeffaf, güvenli ve minimum aracı alt yapısı ile pek çok sektörün ve devletin ilgisini çekmektedir. Yapılan bu çalışmada Blockchain’in taşıdığı potansiyelin daha iyi anlaşılabilmesi için uygulama alanlarına genel bir bakış ile Türkiye’nin bu teknolojiye olan yaklaşımı incelenmiştir. Çalışmada ek olarak Türkiye’deki emeklilik yatırım fon piyasasının işleyişinde kullanılacak özel bir Blockchain ağ yapısı tavsiye edilmiştir. Yapılan araştırma ve incelemeler sonucunda Blockchain kullanımının pek çok sektör için avantajlı, hatta on sene içerisinde hayati öneme sahip olacağı söylenebilir.
We present a general consensus framework that allows to easily introduce a customizable Byzantine fault tolerant consensus algorithm to an existing (Delegated) Proof-of-Stake blockchain. We prove the safety of the protocol under the assumption that less than 1/3 of the validators are Byzantine. The framework further allows for consensus participants to choose subjective decision thresholds in order to obtain safety even in the case of a larger proportion of Byzantine validators. Moreover, the liveness of the protocol is shown if less than 1/3 of the validators crash. Based on the framework, we introduce Lisk-BFT, a Byzantine fault tolerant consensus algorithm for the Lisk ecosystem. Lisk-BFT integrates with the existing block proposal mechanism, requires only two additional integers in blocks and no additional messages. The protocol is simple and provides safety in the case of static validators if less than 1/3 of the validators are Byzantine. For the case of dynamically changing validators, we prove the safety of the protocol assuming a bound on the number of Byzantine validators and the number of honest validators that can change at one time. We further show the liveness of the Lisk-BFT protocol for less than 1/3 crashing validators.