A blockchain is a decentralized peer to peer platform which provides security services based on some key concepts, namely authentication, confidentiality, integrity and authorization. It is the process of recording and keeping track of the resources without the intervention of a centralized authority. This paper provides an overview of blockchains, the structure of blockchains, consensus algorithms, etc., It compares the algorithms based on their utility and limitations. Though blockchains provide secure communication, there are some minimal data leaks which are discussed. Various security issues in blockchains are discussed such as denial of service attacks, etc., In addition to security, some other blockchain challenges are presented like scalability, reliability, interoperability, privacy and consensus mechanisms for integration with AI, IoT and edge computing. This paper also explains about the importance of blockchains in the fields of smart healthcare, smart grid, and smart financial systems. Overall, this paper gives the glimpse of various protocols, algorithms, applications, challenges and opportunities that are found in the blockchain domain.
The Internet of Things (IoT) promoted a common operating picture (COP) through all modern applications. The COP is takes place only accomplished by the developments seen in wireless sensor network devices that have been able to connect through the network, sharing information, and conducting further analysis. In IoT, knowledge sharing and authentication of data through the central server and is hence vulnerable to security and privacy problems. System spoofing, false authentication, less data sharing reliability may take place. As part of IoT, Blockchain (BC) technology is integrated to solve these security and privacy issues by replacing the idea of the central server. This paper discusses the potential protection and privacy threats of IoT component activity and explores how it relates to distributed ledger-based blockchain (DL-BC) technologies. . Blockchain implementations have explicitly been studied here with regard to focused sectors and categories. This paper also discusses Blockchain technology, its contribution, and challenges specific to IoT.
Background: The healthcare industry is the new frontier for blockchain technology. Given its properties of immutability and decentralization, blockchain represents an opportunity for unprecedented level of privacy and security for all stakeholders by ensuring data integrity while giving patients control over their own health data. On a backdrop of rising interest in blockchain in general and blockchain healthcare applications in particular, there has been a proliferation of blockchain healthcare projects over the past few years. The aim of this review is to identify and understand real-world blockchain healthcare projects that have attained commercial success in the highly competitive blockchain market. Methods and findings: A scoping review was performed in January 2021 on all projects in the CoinMarketCap database. Following a pre-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria, eligible projects were selected. A single reviewer then reviewed each project's official website and whitepaper (where available) and performed data abstraction; 10 blockchain healthcare projects fulfilled the selection criteria. The review found that these projects made up 0.24% of the total number of actively tracked projects on CoinMarketCap. In terms of market capitalization, the total market capitalization for the projects was US$65,078,849, comprising less than 0.01% of the total market capitalization of all projects. Among the projects, the most frequent type was for personal health tracking. Conclusions: This review revealed that blockchain health projects currently comprise a small fraction of the overall number of commercially successful blockchain projects. However, because this sub-industry is still in its early stages, there are reasons to be optimistic that many more blockchain health projects will emerge and attain commercial success in future. Findings from this review done from an entrepreneurial perspective should help with the identification of future projects most likely to succeed.
Sheikh Mohammad Idrees, Mariusz Nowostawski, Roshan Jameel, Ashish Kumar Mourya
Blockchain technology plays a significant role in the industrial development. Many industries can potentially benefit from the innovations blockchain decentralization technology and privacy protocols offer with regard to securing, data access, auditing and managing transactions within digital platforms. Blockchain is based on distributed and secure decentralized protocols in which there is no single authority, and no single point of control; the data blocks are generated, added, and validated by the nodes of the network themselves. This article provides insights into the current developments within blockchain technology and explores its ability to revolutionize the multiple industrial application areas such as supply chain industry, Internet of Things (IoT), healthcare, governance, finance and manufacturing. It investigates and provides insights into the security issues and threats related to the blockchain implementations by assessing the research through a systematic literature review. This article proposes possible solutions in detail for enhancing the security of the blockchain for industrial applications along with significant directions for future explorations. The study further suggests how in recent years the adoption of blockchain technology by multiple industrial sectors has gained momentum while in the finance sector it is touching new heights day by day.
The evolving agricultural technologies used mostly for remote access and modernization in farming connected via the Internet of Things (IoT) have been grown rapidly. However because of the wide size of all its broadcaster's propagandizing existence, it has some significant concerns with respect to security and privacy. We utilize blockchain to address such security breaches, allowing the development of a decentralized distributed blockchain system that's also exchanged between the IoT cluster heads. This article's major focus is provide smart greenhouse farmlands with a portable blockchain-based infrastructure which offers integrity and confidentiality. Where, green-house IoT sensor nodes are function as a blockchain centrally controlled to optimize the energy consumption by utilizing secure immutable ledgers. Furthermore, we present a significant solution that integrates blockchain technology via IoT devices to offer Smart Greenhouse cultivation with an enhanced secure communication.
Hanaa Fatoum, Sam Hanna, John Halamka, Douglas Sicker · 6 authors
BACKGROUND: In the era of big data, artificial intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT), digital data have become essential for our everyday functioning and in health care services. The sensitive nature of health care data presents several crucial issues such as privacy, security, interoperability, and reliability that must be addressed in any health care data management system. However, most of the current health care systems are still facing major obstacles and are lacking in some of these areas. This is where decentralized, secure, and scalable databases, most notably blockchains, play critical roles in addressing these requirements without compromising security, thereby attracting considerable interest within the health care community. A blockchain can be maintained and widely distributed using a large network of nodes, mostly computers, each of which stores a full replica of the data. A blockchain protocol is a set of predefined rules or procedures that govern how the nodes interact with the network, view, verify, and add data to the ledger. OBJECTIVE: In this article, we aim to explore blockchain technology, its framework, current applications, and integration with other innovations, as well as opportunities in diverse areas of health care and clinical research, in addition to clarifying its future impact on the health care ecosystem. We also elucidate 2 case studies to instantiate the potential role of blockchains in health care. METHODS: To identify related existing work, terms based on Medical Subject Headings were used. We included studies focusing mainly on health care and clinical research and developed a functional framework for implementation and testing with data. The literature sources for this systematic review were PubMed, Medline, and the Cochrane library, in addition to a preliminary search of IEEE Xplore. RESULTS: The included studies demonstrated multiple framework designs and various implementations in health care including chronic disease diagnosis, management, monitoring, and evaluation. We found that blockchains exhibit many promising applications in clinical trial management such as smart-contract application, participant-controlled data access, trustless protocols, and data validity. Electronic health records (EHRs), patient-centered interoperability, remote patient monitoring, and clinical trial data management were found to be major areas for blockchain usage, which can become a key catalyst for health care innovations. CONCLUSIONS: The potential benefits of blockchains are limitless; however, concrete data on long-term clinical outcomes based on blockchains powered and supplemented by AI and IoT are yet to be obtained. Nonetheless, implementing blockchains as a novel way to integrate EHRs nationwide and manage common clinical problems in an algorithmic fashion has the potential for improving patient outcomes, health care experiences, as well as the overall health and well-being of individuals.
Blockchain or Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) has been seen a new revolutionary technology that can allow significant cost savings and increase efficiency; transform business models from human-based trust model to algorithm-based trust model, although blockchain has some potential risks, it has lots of noticeable advantages. The article discusses the advantages and risks of blockchain. Accordingly, the paper proposes blockchain risk management solutions when it it applied in entities.
Rahul Pitale, Kapil Tajane, S. S. Khandagale, Vidhya Gadewar · 6 authors
The increase in fake goods is severely affecting the industrial sector and consumers. According to the survey, incidences involving fake products have increased in recent years, which have had a negative impact on sales, profits, and brand recognition. Far from reducing the ability of a company to make money, this counterfeiting also affects the consumer's ability to trust their goods in open market. Without proper tracking and security measures, consumers gradually stop trusting brands to keep their consumers safe from theft. This is happening because the manufacturing and distribution processes are hidden to consumers and this information is easily manipulated or falsified by others. So, users must have a method to determine if a product is genuine or not. This study proposes a blockchain based anti-counterfeiting system for product traceability throughout the supply chain. By using public or permissionless blockchain all the information throughout the supply chain will be recorded in the blockchain network in the form of blocks that are immutable, transparent, secure, tamper-proof, and trusted. This proposed method uses QR code for making the system further secure.
The most challenging problem before the world is providing enough food for the gigantic leap in population. There are numerous reasons for the shortage of food and technological innovations in agriculture are required to overcome the shortages in food supply. Sustainable Development goals (SDGs) provides the futuristic vision and ICT along with other latest technologies will help achieve these development goals at a brisk speed. Recent technological developments as use of mobile-broadband access devices, Internet of Things (IoT), Specialized Robots, Drones, big data analytics and Artificial Intelligence has given farmers tools and technologies to scale agricultural production and marketing of their agricultural products. In this paper, we will discuss how Smart Agriculture is changing the face of agriculture in Budaun, a small city in Uttar Pradesh. Smart agriculture coupled with block chain technology is being used to achieve sustainability in agriculture growth. The production/yield has risen by over 20% and the profits have increased by over 30% with the new technology.
Abstract Agriculture is the primary livelihood factor in the growth of India’s economy. One of the significant challenges faced by the Government of India in the agriculture sector is to increase the delivery of subsidies by re-engineering the existing process. One of the solutions initiated by the government of India on 1 st January 2013 with the highest priority is called a Direct Cash transfer scheme under the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme. It involves crediting subsidies (cash/payments) directly to the farmer’s account. However, the major problem associated with this scheme is that the government subsidies do not reach all the eligible farmers due to corruption, delay, intermediaries, and other reasons. The present direct cash transfers system’s major drawbacks such as (key loopholes are) lack of proper auditing, inability to track subsidy, and inadequate digital banking infrastructure especially in rural areas. In this regard, the disbursement of direct cash transfer scheme is addressed benefitting the farmers directly via Blockchain Smart Contracts technology thereby ensuring transparency, de-duplication, reduced delays, and reducing instances of fraud in the existing government subsidy delivery system. We aim to develop a blockchain-based smart contracts prototype model called a single-window approach for automating farmer’s subsidies and eliminating middlemen. The automated model will be fast, transparent, and immutable by reducing the complexities faced by Indian farmers.
Abstract Recent years have witnessed a widespread interest in healthcare issues and the search for faster and safer service for patients. Electronic health record was established to provide advanced health services. Researchers seek to provide permanent and simplified ways to monitor patients remotely using remote patient monitors. One of these methods is the use of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, where the healthcare provider can monitor the patient remotely. However, with the current centralized electronic patient record system and increase in number of IoT devices, security and privacy issues have arisen, as some patients may not want to disclose their data, in addition to particular concerns or risks that affect the patient’s life. To reduce these issues, several studies have presented the use of blockchain technology as a trustworthy network of solutions to ensure patient information security and secure the transfer of IoT devices’ data. In this regard, this research is an attempt to present a new framework that facilitates the storage and transfer of patient data in the blockchain by merging the electronic health record and remote patient monitoring techniques into a single framework using Django. This framework allows the transfer of data from IoT devices to multiple peers, making use of the smart contract provided by the Ethereum platform.
The production and distribution of COVID-19 testing kits is an urgent and increasingly worldwide requirement, due to the ongoing pandemic. The accuracy of the kit is critically important and to save the world from the faulty kit becomes an issue. The kit before use has to be approved by an authorized medical research agency like US-FDA, ICMR, etc. In this paper, we proposed a framework that ensures that the testing kit is validated by various measures and gives the history of the supply chain of the testing kit. The parties that are used in the supply chain are Notary, Manufacturer, and Validating Party. A Consumer also plays an important role and can punch the batch number to check whether the kit is approved or not. The framework is developed using R3 Corda, a permissioned distributed ledger technology. A permissioned blockchain is used for data privacy and security so that only trusted parties can leave or join the system.
Md. Ashraf Uddin, Andrew Stranieri, Iqbal Gondal, Venki Balasubramanian
Conventional Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystems involve data streaming from sensors, through Fog devices to a centralized Cloud server. Issues that arise include privacy concerns due to third party management of Cloud servers, single points of failure, a bottleneck in data flows and difficulties in regularly updating firmware for millions of smart devices from a point of security and maintenance perspective. Blockchain technologies avoid trusted third parties and safeguard against a single point of failure and other issues. This has inspired researchers to investigate blockchain’s adoption into IoT ecosystem. In this paper, recent state-of-the-arts advances in blockchain for IoT, blockchain for Cloud IoT and blockchain for Fog IoT in the context of eHealth, smart cities, intelligent transport and other applications are analyzed. Obstacles, research gaps and potential solutions are also presented.
To meet efficient, safe, covert and stable transmission of confidential information, the transaction data structures, location and capacity of potential convert channels were analyzed. Then a formal security model of covert transmission in the bitcoin blockchain environment was proposed, which would not break the transaction structures, add special transaction content, can overcome shortcomings of traditional convert channels and protect the anonymity of both sender and receiver. The proposed security model opens a promising avenue of covert transmission, which is of great significance to promote the secure transmission technologies for the national special applications.
Abstract Block chain technology had gained popularity because of its use in crypto-currencies like bitcoin. Today uses of blockchain are growing in number of areas like banking, industries, health centers and even security of IOT. Moreover, the use of IOT is growing exponentially every year with its aim in 5G technologies like e- health, smart homes, distributed intelligence etc. but it faces challenges in security and privacy. The privacy of a user data is at a risk because of its (i.e. IoT) centralized client-server model. This centralized approach of the server poses a serious vulnerability to the data security. This data at the server attracts the attackers to enter into the network and invade through the data and schedule attacks or inject a malware. It indicates that the central architecture of IoT possess a compromised confidentiality, integrity, and security of data which disrupts its use as the widespread adoption of this technology. Therefore, it is essential to evade the hostile centralized server architecture for IoT to enhance its security. It implies a need for decentralized architecture to maintain the data. The data can be kept at the different users without any central control with the help of blocks as suggested by Blockchain. This paper addresses the various security issues in IOT and how block chain helps in solving these issues.
This paper proposes a method for improving the data security of wireless sensor networks based on blockchain technology. Blockchain technology is applied to data transfer to build a highly secure wireless sensor network. In t... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on Tech Science Press
Blockchain technology represents a paradigm shift in digital infrastructure, offering decentralized, immutable, and transparent frameworks for recording transactions and ensuring data integrity. Originating as the backbone of Bitcoin, it has evolved into a versatile tool with applications spanning finance, healthcare, and supply chain management. This review examines the core architecture of blockchain, encompassing distributed ledgers, cryptographic hashing, and consensus protocols, alongside its real-world deployments that enhance efficiency, traceability, and trust. It also scrutinizes persistent challenges, including scalability bottlenecks, privacy trade-offs, and security risks, through comparative analyses and case studies. Ultimately, the analysis reveals blockchain's capacity to foster resilient, intermediary-free systems while underscoring the imperative for adaptive solutions to realize its full transformative potential.
Adil El Mane, Marouane Chihab, Omar Bencharef, Younes Chihab
The blockchain represents structured and shared data. Instantly, it is a modern method of distributed databases controlled by a group of individuals. The goal is to store information, create a digital ledger of data, and dispatch them to each network-independent party. Blockchain technology gets used in many fields like government, transportation, healthcare, etc. This article will focus on the blockchain in the agricultural supply chain, especially the multi-blockchain scheme to enhance efficiency and track products. This kind of scheme requires the existence of two chains at least in one system. The article analyzes previous researches on how implementing this model and cites its various steps. Also, this research will offer a novel theoretical architecture inspired by the previous ones. The novel structure will avoid the errors that exist in previous experiments. This novel theoretical scheme uses sensors to provide us with environmental data. Subsequently, we use the multi-blockchain structure to stock our data in blocks. After that, we build Smart Contracts to control all the transactions and make decisions based on the conditions inside the source code of these automated contracts. This scheme would be more effective than the cloud and the simple blockchain storage.
Nowadays, smart cities are using advanced technologies to control and coordinate physical, social, and commercial enterprise systems to deliver high-quality services to their residents while guaranteeing the effective usage of available resources. Numerous major corporations, as well as government bodies, are involved in the construction of smart cities because smart city activities also need information that is obtained from organizations. Blockchain-based technology allows for peer-to-peer exchanges as a public ledger that maintains records of transactions, smart contracts, agreements, and shipments without third-party mediators. In the future, smart cities will be equipped with several innovative technologies, a huge amount of data, a lot of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and a heterogeneous environment. However, data processing among IoT devices in futuristic smart cities is a challenging task. In this paper, the author proposed a blockchain-based big data integrity service framework for IoT devices data processing in smart cities. The author collected the necessary data from various resources and applied three experiments to evaluate the key performance indicators. K-mean algorithm was used to classify the data, and blockchain strategy was applied to ensure secure communication among IoT devices. The framework was simulated and tested using 100 devices. The proposed framework allowed IoT devices to efficiently use information collected from different resources to engage in operational processes and exchange information.
The revolutionary technology blockchain began with cryptocurrencies like bitcoin but has since expanded beyond the worlds of finance and banking. One relatively unexplored application domain is medical and water waste. The production of medical/water waste is an integral part of healthcare operations. However, Health care and water waste management methods can also pose a health and environment risk if the various steps in the management process are not carried out correctly. The objective of this paper is to propose conception of a system, based on the Blockchain and IoT, that ensures the control of these wastes in order to effectively manage, coordinate and monitor their disposal. An initial design of this system and an evaluation of the system's performance are also presented.
Naeem Iqbal, Faisal Jamil, Shabir Ahmad, Do‐Hyeun Kim
The recent advances in information management systems coupled with machine learning algorithms paved the way for a significant revolution in animal healthcare industries. However, the data in such systems suffer from various challenges such as security, reliability, and convenience, to name a few. Traditional systems are not useful to meet these critical issues because these systems have not a consistent structure for data security and reliability policies. Therefore, a new solution is required to enhance data accessibility and should regulate government security policies to ensure the accountability of the usage of the medical records system. Moreover, it is also required to analyze historical data of veterinary clinic using data mining and machine learning techniques to predict the future appointments scheduling requests, which is essential for veterinary management to drive better future decisions, for instance, future demands of medical supplies and to plan veterinary medical staff, etc. This paper aims to fill the gap by proposing a novel blockchain-based reliable and intelligent veterinary information management system (RIVIMS) using smart contract and machine learning techniques. The proposed RIVIMS consists of two main modules; blockchain-based secured veterinary information management, data and predictive analytics modules. First, a blockchain-based secure and reliable veterinary clinic information management system is developed using Hyperledger Fabric. Second, a smart contract enabled data, and predictive analytics modules are developed using permissioned blockchain framework. The data and predictive modules aim to analyze veterinary clinic patients appointments data in order to discover underlying patterns and build a robust prediction model using machine learning algorithms. The data and predictive helps veterinary management to drive better future business decisions to provide better healthcare services to veterinary patients. Hyperledger Caliper is used as a benchmark tool to evaluate the performance of the developed blockchain-based system in terms of transaction per second, transaction success rate, transaction throughput, and transaction latency. Furthermore, machine learning performance measures have utilized, such as MAE, RMSE, and R2 score to evaluate the overall performance of the prediction model. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed RIVIMS.
A large number of shipments are moved everyday domestically and internationally. A considerable number of items such as food, commodities, and pharmaceutical drugs are prone to damage in transit. This can be caused due to various reasons such as improper storage conditions and exposure to air or sunlight. The Internet of Things (IoT) has been used to enhance fundamental shipment tracking by improving transparency and visibility to such transport systems. This paper introduces a blockchain-powered smart container system (CryptoCargo) that monitors the conditions of the shipment and detects any violations that may damage its contents. These violations are recorded on the blockchain via smart contracts, which provides a secure and immutable storage thereby improving its trustworthiness in an inherently trustless environment comprising of multiple stakeholders. We present the design and implementation of CryptoCargo including architectural concerns and implementation details using a test Ethereum blockchain platform and cloud services. Moreover, we present details of thorough evaluation of the system to validate its function as well as to assess its effectiveness with respect to performance efficiency and real-time operation. We have made our smart contract code publicly available on Github.
Diabetes is a metabolic disorder caused by high blood sugar levels, which can harm the kidneys, the heart, the eyes, and blood vessels. During the Covid-19 pandemic, diabetes patients were most affected. In the existing healthcare system, medical data is available in paper form or through a central server. Accessing the data from the central system and sharing it with all stakeholders would be a critical task during the pandemic. This research work deals with the design and implementation of a diabetes blockchain consortium. It can help all healthcare stakeholders to efficiently prioritize the needs of diabetes patients during a pandemic, such as oxygen beds, vaccinations, diabetes compensation, telemedicine, 5G-integrated remote location support, and other related records. The Ethereum sandbox simulation design is utilized to secure diabetes patients’ healthcare records. The Interplanetary file system (IPFS) encrypts health data and sends it to the blockchain to ensure the privacy of personal healthcare information. The NEM symbol blockchain is used to develop this consortium as a proof-of-concept (PoC) model. Each stakeholder in a consortium is assigned NEM generated QR code to track records as a distributed ledger. A smart contract designed to run the diabetes blockchain application. Attribute-based encryption (ABE) authenticates users and restricts malicious nodes. Certainly, this research suggests aggregation of transactions and blocks in the blockchain, which would increase transaction speed, minimize transaction fees, and consume less power in a future blockchain design.
Recently, many IoT applications, such as smart transportation, healthcare, and virtual and augmented reality experiences, have emerged with fifth-generation (5G) technology to enhance the Quality of Service (QoS) and user experience. The revolution of 5G-enabled IoT supports distinct attributes, including lower latency, higher system capacity, high data rate, and energy saving. However, such revolution also delivers considerable increment in data generation that further leads to a major requirement of intelligent and effective data analytic operation across the network. Furthermore, data growth gives rise to data security and privacy concerns, such as breach and loss of sensitive data. The conventional data analytic and security methods do not meet the requirement of 5G-enabled IoT including its unique characteristic of low latency and high throughput. In this paper, we propose a Deep Learning (DL) and blockchain-empowered security framework for intelligent 5G-enabled IoT that leverages DL competency for intelligent data analysis operation and blockchain for data security. The framework’s hierarchical architecture wherein DL and blockchain operations emerge across the four layers of cloud, fog, edge, and user is presented. The framework is simulated and analyzed, employing various standard measures of latency, accuracy, and security to demonstrate its validity in practical applications.