Blockchain Papers

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3,895 papersLast indexed Aug 31, 2026
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Mar 12, 2024·Automatika
40 cites
A novel blockchain enabled resource allocation and task offloading strategy in cloud computing environment

G. Senthilkumar, K. N. Madhusudhan, Y. Jeyasheela, P. Ajitha

Large amounts of processing resources are required for the sensed raw big data processing during the data generation process.Furthermore, as sensed data are typically privacy sensitive, blockchain technology can be used to ensure the privacy concerns.This study examines a multiuser mobile offloading network that consists of a cloud server located remotely and an edge node.We formulate the offloading problem as the joint optimization of task offloading decision making of all users, the computation resource allocation among the edge executing applications, and the radio resource assignment among all the remote-processing applications.The goal is to minimize the maximum weighted cost of all users.When compared to other benchmark approaches, the simulation results show that the proposed algorithm achieves optimal results in terms of both energy consumption and delay as a result of collaboration.Finally the resource allocation and optimal offloading strategy with 93% efficiency is obtained.

Open access
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Privacy-Preserving Technologies in Data
Original source
Mar 12, 2024·arXiv (Cornell University)
3 cites
SCALHEALTH: Scalable Blockchain Integration for Secure IoT Healthcare Systems

Mehrzad Mohammadi, Reza Javan, Mohammad Beheshti-Atashgah, Mohammad Reza Aref

Internet of Things (IoT) devices are capable of allowing for far-reaching access to and evaluation of patient data to monitor health and diagnose from a distance. An electronic healthcare system that checks patient data, prepares medicines and provides financial assistance is necessary. Providing safe data transmission, monitoring, decentralization, preserving patient privacy, and maintaining confidentiality are essential to an electronic healthcare system. In this study, we introduce (SCALHEALTH) which is a blockchain-based scheme of the Hyperledger Fabric consortium. In this study, we use authentication to agree on a common key for data encryption to send data confidentially. Also, sending data through IPFS is decentralized. Non-fungible token (NFT) is used to send patient prescriptions to pharmacies and insurance companies to ensure the authenticity of patient prescriptions. As the system's main body, blockchain creates authorization and validation for all devices and institutions. Also, all metadata in the system is recorded on the blockchain to maintain integrity, transparency, and timely data monitoring. The proposed study uses two types of blockchain: a health blockchain and a financial blockchain. The financial blockchain is for financial transactions and is based on Ethereum. The health blockchain also introduces a mechanism that allows several blockchains to be active in parallel, instead of only one blockchain. The prototype of this mechanism is simulated in two scenarios. In comparison to the normal state, the proposed plan has superior results.

Open access
2 source records
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
cs.CR
Original source
Mar 11, 2024·Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education
2 cites
Blockchain technology in the supply chain management classroom: Proof of Attendance Protocols

David Dreyfus

Abstract This research demonstrates a method to introduce blockchain technology in the classroom based on the Proof of Attendance Protocol (POAP). A blockchain is a digital distributed ledger with the potential to improve transparency and trust between parties. Businesses are testing, piloting, and deploying blockchain technology across their organizations, and students show growing interest in the technology. This teaching brief proposes an exercise that uses POAPs, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) associated with an event, to help students understand blockchain technology within supply chain management contexts. Instructors can use the exercise for various purposes: as incentives for behavior the instructor wishes to encourage (such as attending class) or as prizes for games. The exercise also includes a glossary of blockchain‐related terms to introduce the language of this industry to students. Student surveys showed a significant change in their knowledge of blockchain technology, specifically, a 41% increase in understanding of how blockchain technology may benefit supply chain management and a 35% improvement in the ability to explain blockchain technology to others. This brief concludes with resources to create and distribute POAPs for courses and other settings.

Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Internet of Things and AI
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Original source
Mar 5, 2024·Alexandria Engineering Journal
55 cites
Blockchain technology meets 6 G wireless networks: A systematic survey

Khan Maaz Bin Hasan, Mohammad Sajid, Maria Lapina, Mohammad Shahid · 5 authors

To address the limitations of 5 G, 6 G wireless networks are envisaged to provide sub-millisecond latency, ultra-high connection density, extremely high data rates, better coverage, reliability, availability, etc., for cloud computing, Internet-of-Everything, and cyber-physical systems. However, avoiding several trust-related issues in the design of the wireless networks may delay the goal. In recent years, Blockchain has become a promising technology that can transform various fields by providing innovative and profitable solutions. Blockchain’s intrinsic features, such as immutability, decentralization, anonymity, and transparency, can corroborate trust among isolated networks to secure access control, authentication, better integrity, secrecy, and effectual resource sharing. This paper paints a holistic picture of 6 G wireless networks and Blockchain, including architecture, Blockchain-assisted 6 G services, deployment, 6 G-assisted Blockchain service models, consensus mechanisms for Blockchain-as-a-Service, 6 G-assisted mining and consensus, and others. It also sheds light on the integration possibilities of Blockchain and 6 G, its potential benefits, and the effects of consensus mechanisms on 6 G concerning security, scalability, and energy consumption, to name a few. The existing 6 G projects and applications have also been summarized, along with the discussion on research and projects to standardize 6 G. Various research directions for Blockchain, 6 G, and their integration have also been explored and reported.

Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Advanced Wireless Communication Technologies
Original source
Mar 5, 2024·Liverpool John Moores University
4 cites
Blockchain-Enhanced UAV Networks for Post-Disaster Communication: A Decentralized Flocking Approach

Sana Hafeez, Runze Cheng, Lina Mohjazi, Yao Sun · 5 authors

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have significant potential for agile communication and relief coordination in post-disaster scenarios, especially when conventional ground infrastructure is compromised. However, effectively coordinating and securing swarms of heterogeneous UAVs from multiple service providers presents critical challenges related to privacy, scalability, lightweight consensus protocols, and cybersecurity resilience. This study proposes a blockchain-enabled UAV coordination framework that leverages consensus mechanisms, smart contracts, and cryptographic techniques to address these challenges. First, a consortium blockchain architecture is introduced, integrating Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) to enable privacy-preserving, multi-agency coordination while ensuring access control and data security. Second, a hybrid Delegated Proof-of-Stake–Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (DPoS-PBFT) consensus protocol is developed to optimise security, efficiency, and resilience against node failures in resource-constrained UAV networks. Third, a decentralized flocking algorithm is proposed to enable adaptive and autonomous UAV cluster operations under dynamically changing connectivity conditions, ensuring seamless disaster relief functions. Comprehensive simulations show that the proposed system scales efficiently to 500 UAV nodes while maintaining high throughput and low latency, with only a 50-ms increase in latency from 10 to 500 nodes. The framework demonstrates strong cyber resilience, remaining robust under denial-of-service (DoS), spoofing, and tampering attacks. Furthermore, communication latencies remain under 10 milliseconds, with median values of approximately 2–3 ms, achieved through self-optimizing network intelligence. The results validate the proposed system as a secure, scalable, and high-performance solution for UAV-enabled disaster response, ensuring reliable emergency communication and efficient resource allocation in critical environments.

Open access
3 source records
UAV Applications and Optimization
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Original source
Mar 4, 2024·Sensors
17 cites
A Redactable Blockchain-Based Data Management Scheme for Agricultural Product Traceability

Shangxiong Yang, Shaowen Li, Wenjia Chen, Yawen Zhao

With the development of agricultural information technology, the Internet of Things and blockchain have become important in the traceability of agricultural products. Sensors collect real-time data in agricultural production and a blockchain provides a secure and transparent storage medium for these data, which improves the transparency and credibility of agricultural product traceability. However, existing agricultural product traceability solutions are limited by the immutability of the blockchain, making it difficult to delete erroneous data and modify the scope of data sharing. This damages the credibility of traceability data and is not conducive to the exchange and sharing of information among enterprises. In this article, we propose an agricultural product traceability data management scheme based on a redactable blockchain. This scheme allows agricultural enterprises to encrypt data to protect privacy. In order to facilitate the maintenance and sharing of data, we introduce a chameleon hash function to provide data modification capabilities. Enterprises can fix erroneous data and update the access permissions of the data. To improve the efficiency of block editing, our scheme adopts a distributed block editing method. This method supports threshold editing operations, avoiding single-point-of-failure issues. We save records of data modifications on the blockchain and establish accountability mechanisms to identify malicious entities. Finally, in this paper we provide a security analysis of our proposed solution and verify its effectiveness through experiments. Compared with the existing scheme, the block generating speed is improved by 42% and the block editing speed is improved by 29.3% at 125 nodes.

Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Caching and Content Delivery
Original source
Mar 1, 2024·Distributed Ledger Technologies Research and Practice
14 cites
AI and Blockchain Enabled Future Wireless Networks: A Survey And Outlook

Ziyi Zhou, Oluwakayode Onireti, Hao Xu, Lei Zhang · 5 authors

Due to the explosion of mobile users and the ever-increasing heterogeneity and scale of wireless networks, traditional communication protocols and optimizing methods can not satisfy future wireless network (FWN) requirements. As promising technologies, artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain are deemed as the solution for the FWN. AI, famous for its big data processing ability, will enable the FWN to self-update itself to better adapt to the dynamic network condition. Blockchain, as a distributed ledger, can guarantee data integrity, security, and privacy. In this survey, we overview the concept of AI and blockchain and present their state-of-the-art applications in wireless networks. The potential of AI and blockchain is still huge and waiting to be fully explored in wireless networks. Therefore, we introduce how AI and blockchain can assist each other in FWNs. Furthermore, we explore the current constraints of applying both technologies in the FWNs. In the final part, we discuss the future direction of the deployment of AI and blockchain in FWNs.

Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Advanced Wireless Communication Technologies
Original source
Mar 1, 2024·Journal of Network and Computer Applications
17 cites
The convergence of Digital Twins and Distributed Ledger Technologies: A systematic literature review and an architectural proposal

Alessandra Somma, Alessandra De Benedictis, Christian Esposito, Nicola Mazzocca

In recent years, the emerging Digital Twin (DT) technology is playing a key role in fostering the transition towards the Industry 4.0. DTs, representing virtual replicas of physical objects, products or processes established thanks to a bidirectional continuous flow of information between the physical and the virtual world, are currently adopted in multiple domains such as manufacturing, aerospace, automotive, energy, construction, smart cities and smart mobility, etc.. DTs live together with the physical system they replicate, receiving the same data and often triggering specific control actions that directly impact on the real system status. When dealing with DTs of complex Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs), the data sources may be heterogeneous and untrustworthy, which requires the DT to be able to address security issues related to data in transit from/to the physical twin and data at rest. A possible way to address these data security issues consists in adopting Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) which provide several security guarantees on data through cryptographic hashing techniques. In this work, we present a three-fold contribution: (i) we discuss the results of a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) on the state-of-the-art of the research related to the integration between DLT and Digital Twins, aimed at clarifying relevant aspects such as, among others, what is the favourite DLT choice in existing proposals or what is the type of DT-related information to store on-chain; (ii) leveraging the SLR results and other related research, we propose an architectural framework for the integration of DT and DLTs (more specifically, blockchains); (iii) we validate the proposed architecture by means of two proof-of-concept implementations leveraging different technological stacks and taking into account two different operational scenarios. Finally, we conduct a requirements coverage analysis and compare the PoCs through a coverage matrix.

Open access
Digital Transformation in Industry
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Original source
Mar 1, 2024·Proceedings of the IEEE
45 cites
Drawing the Boundaries Between Blockchain and Blockchain-Like Systems: A Comprehensive Survey on Distributed Ledger Technologies

Badr Bellaj, Aafaf Ouaddah, E. Bertin, Noël Crespi · 5 authors

Bitcoin’s success as a global cryptocurrency has paved the way for the emergence of blockchain, a revolutionary category of distributed systems. However, the growing popularity of blockchain has led to a significant divergence from its core principles in many systems labeled as “blockchain.” This divergence has introduced complexity into the blockchain ecosystem, exacerbated by a lack of comprehensive reviews on blockchain and its variants. Consequently, gaining a clear and updated understanding of the diverse spectrum of current blockchain and blockchain-like systems has become challenging. This situation underscores the necessity for an extensive literature review and the development of thematic taxonomies. This survey seeks to offer a comprehensive and current assessment of existing blockchains and their variations while delineating the boundaries between blockchain and blockchain-like systems. To achieve this objective, we propose a holistic reference model for conceptualizing and analyzing these systems. Our layer-wise framework envisions all distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) as composed of four principal layers: data, consensus, execution, and application (DCEA). In addition, we introduce a new taxonomy that enhances the classification of blockchain and blockchain-like systems, offering a more useful perspective than existing works. Furthermore, we conduct a state-of-the-art review from a layered perspective, employing 23 evaluative criteria predefined by our framework. We perform a qualitative and quantitative comparative analysis of 44 DLT solutions and 26 consensus mechanisms while discussing differences and boundaries between blockchain and blockchain-like systems. We emphasize the significant challenges and tradeoffs encountered by distributed ledger designers, decision-makers, and project managers during the design or adoption of a DLT solution. Finally, we outline crucial research challenges and directions in the field of DLTs.

Open access
4 source records
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Caching and Content Delivery
Original source
Feb 29, 2024·Sensors
24 cites
Searchable Blockchain-Based Healthcare Information Exchange System to Enhance Privacy Preserving and Data Usability

Sejong ­Lee, Yushin Kim, Sunghyun Cho

Ensuring the security and usability of electronic health records (EHRs) is important in health information exchange (HIE) systems that handle healthcare records. This study addressed the need to balance privacy preserving and data usability in blockchain-based HIE systems. We propose a searchable blockchain-based HIE system that enhances privacy preserving while improving data usability. The proposed methodology includes users collecting healthcare information (HI) from various Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) devices and compiling this information into EHR blocks for sharing on a blockchain network. This approach allows participants to search and utilize specific health data within the blockchain effectively. The results demonstrate that the proposed system mitigates the issues of traditional HIE systems by providing secure and user-friendly access to EHRs. The proposed searchable blockchain-based HIE system resolves the trade-off dilemma in HIE by achieving a balance between security and the data usability of EHRs.

Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Privacy-Preserving Technologies in Data
Original source
Feb 29, 2024·Knowledge-Based Systems
32 cites
A multi-objectives framework for secure blockchain in fog–cloud network of vehicle-to-infrastructure applications

Abdullah Lakhan, Mazin Abed Mohammed, Karrar Hameed Abdulkareem, Muhammet Deveci · 7 authors

The Intelligent Transport System (ITS) is an emerging paradigm that offers numerous services at the infrastructure level for vehicle applications. Vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) is an advanced form of ITS where diverse vehicle services are deployed on the roadside unit. V2I consists of distributed computing nodes where transport applications are parallel processed. Many research challenges exist in the presented V2I paradigms regarding security, cyber-attacks, and application processing among heterogeneous nodes. These cyber-attacks, Sybil attacks, and their attempts cause a lack of security and degrade the V2I performance in the presented paradigms. This paper presents a new secure blockchain framework that handles cyber-attacks, as mentioned earlier. This paper formulates this complex problem as a combinatorial problem, encompassing concave and convex problems. The convex function minimizes the given constraints, such as time and security risk, and the concave function improves performance and accuracy. Therefore, numerous constraints, such as time, energy, malware detection accuracy, and application deadlines, require optimization for the considered problem. Combining the jointly non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) and long short-term memory (LSTM) schemes is the best way to meet the problem’s limitations. In this study, the paper designed a malware dataset with known and unknown malware. The different kinds of malware lists (e.g., cyber-attacks) are considered in the form of known and unknown malware lists with the characteristics, size of code, where malware comes from, attack on which data, and current status of the workload after being attacked by the malware. Our main idea is to present blockchain, NSGA-II, and LSTM schemes that handle phishing, routing, Sybil, and 51% of cyber-attacks without compromising application performance. Simulation results show that the study reduces delay and energy, improves accuracy, and minimizes security risks for vehicular applications.

Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs)
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Original source
Feb 29, 2024·Blockchain Research and Applications
106 cites
Blockchain for secure and decentralized artificial intelligence in cybersecurity: A comprehensive review

Ahmed M. Shamsan Saleh

As the usage of artificial intelligence (AI) grows within the field of cybersecurity, so too does the demand for secure and decentralized AI systems to protect against potential cyber threats. Blockchain technology (BT) has emerged as the ideal approach for increasing both the security and privacy of AI systems since it provides decentralized and immutable data storage. This systematic literature review focuses on the integration of BT with decentralized AI within cybersecurity. It provides a comprehensive taxonomy of BT and decentralized AI for cybersecurity serving as the starting point for the study. This paper begins with an overview of BT and its possible uses in cybersecurity and also analyzes its challenges and opportunities. Decentralized AI is also covered in the study, along with its potential advantages and difficulties in decentralized AI cybersecurity. Building on that foundation, this study provides convincing findings highlighting the beneficial relationships between BT and decentralized AI for cybersecurity, contributing to a nuanced comprehension of their integration. Moreover, it offers real-world uses of blockchain-enabled decentralized AI to discuss its usefulness in tackling cybersecurity concerns. Finally, this paper discusses future research directions for blockchain-enabled decentralized AI in cybersecurity, including potential applications and implications of this technology in the field, emphasizing the potential of blockchain-enabled decentralized AI in cybersecurity to enhance security, privacy, and trust in AI systems.

Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Privacy-Preserving Technologies in Data
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Original source
Feb 29, 2024·IEEE Internet of Things Journal
44 cites
SC-CAAC: A Smart-Contract-Based Context-Aware Access Control Scheme for Blockchain-Enabled IoT Systems

Mpyana Mwamba Merlec, Hoh Peter In

Integrating blockchain technology with the Internet of Things (IoT) facilitates seamless interaction between IoT devices and systems to securely share, access, and exchange data. However, ensuring adequate access control within blockchain-enabled IoT (BIoT) systems remains a significant challenge. It is often difficult to adapt existing access control mechanisms to the dynamic and context-dependent nature of IoT environments, necessitating a robust context-aware approach to ensure adequate security and the privacy of resources within BIoT systems. In this paper, we propose a novel smart contract-enabled context-aware access control (SC-CAAC) scheme for BIoT systems. It utilizes context-aware access control models that consider contextual information, including user profile, purpose, date, time, location, resource, and operating environment specifications, to make access control decisions. Smart contracts dynamically enforce access control policies and manage access permissions, ensuring that sensitive data and resources are accessible only to authorized users. The proposed scheme leverages the immutability, transparency, and decentralization of a blockchain that is shared by multiple participants in a consortium network, removing the need for a central authority to record and audit access control policies and decisions and promoting accountability and trust. The implementation and evaluation of our proposed scheme using the Hyperledger Besu blockchain demonstrates its effectiveness and scalability in real-world scenarios.

Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Cryptography and Data Security
Original source
Feb 29, 2024·PLoS ONE
52 cites
Blockchain-secure patient Digital Twin in healthcare using smart contracts

Sandro Amofa, Qi Xia, Hu Xia, Isaac Amankona Obiri · 7 authors

Modern healthcare has a sharp focus on data aggregation and processing technologies. Consequently, from a data perspective, a patient may be regarded as a timestamped list of medical conditions and their corresponding corrective interventions. Technologies to securely aggregate and access data for individual patients in the quest for precision medicine have led to the adoption of Digital Twins in healthcare. Digital Twins are used in manufacturing and engineering to produce digital models of physical objects that capture the essence of device operation to enable and drive optimization. Thus, a patient's Digital Twin can significantly improve health data sharing. However, creating the Digital Twin from multiple data sources, such as the patient's electronic medical records (EMR) and personal health records (PHR) from wearable devices, presents some risks to the security of the model and the patient. The constituent data for the Digital Twin should be accessible only with permission from relevant entities and thus requires authentication, privacy, and provable provenance. This paper proposes a blockchain-secure patient Digital Twin that relies on smart contracts to automate the updating and communication processes that maintain the Digital Twin. The smart contracts govern the response the Digital Twin provides when queried, based on policies created for each patient. We highlight four research points: access control, interaction, privacy, and security of the Digital Twin and we evaluate the Digital Twin in terms of latency in the network, smart contract execution times, and data storage costs.

Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Privacy-Preserving Technologies in Data
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Original source
Feb 28, 2024·International Journal of Advanced Research in Science Communication and Technology
0 cites
Document Storage and Verification System Using Blockchain Technology

Prathamesh Sinkar, Gaurav Shende, Sudhir Patil, Mohit Pawar · 5 authors

A banking or identity provider can set up a customer identification data verification process between reliant parties with the use of the electronic know your customer (e-KYC) system. Due to its high degree of accessibility and availability and its efficient resource usage, the majority of banks choose to implement their e-KYC system on the cloud. All of the KYC procedures used by banks rely on encryption, which is a cumbersome process that may cause consumer data to be disclosed to unaffiliated financial institutions. Blockchain technology can be used to increase the efficiency of this system because it can automate a lot of human labor and is impervious to attacks of all kinds. The distributed ledger and immutable blockchain block make the perfect addition to the KYC process. The use of smart contacts can automate the identification of fraud. Any kind of KYC can be used to store information related to KYC identity. Consequently, financial institutions can establish a shared private blockchain on their premises for the purpose of document validation. This allows the user to maintain control over their private documents while also simplifying the process for banks to obtain the records needed for compliance

Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Cloud Data Security Solutions
Original source
Feb 28, 2024·Internet of Things
32 cites
Improve quality of service for the Internet of Things using Blockchain & machine learning algorithms

Lawrence Nforh CheSuh, Ramón Ángel Fernández Díaz, Jose Manuel Alija-Perez, Carmen Benavides · 5 authors

The quality of service (QoS) parameters in IoT applications plays a prominent role in determining the performance of an application. Considering the significance and popularity of IoT systems, it can be predicted that the number of users and IoT devices are going to increase exponentially shortly. Therefore, it is extremely important to improve the QoS provided by IoT applications to increase their adaptability. Majority of the IoT systems are characterized by their heterogeneous and diverse nature. It is challenging for these systems to provide high-quality access to all the connecting devices with uninterrupted connectivity. Considering their heterogeneity, it is equally difficult to achieve better QoS parameters. Artificial intelligence-based machine learning (ML) tools are considered a potential tool for improving the QoS parameters in IoT applications. This research proposes a novel approach for enhancing QoS parameters in IoT using ML and Blockchain techniques. The IoT network with Blockchain technology is simulated using an NS2 simulator. Different QoS parameters such as delay, throughput, packet delivery ratio, and packet drop are analyzed. The obtained QoS values are classified using different ML models such as Naive Bayes (NB), Decision Tree (DT), and Ensemble, learning techniques. Results show that the Ensemble classifier achieves the highest classification accuracy of 83.74% compared to NB and DT classifiers.

Open access
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Software-Defined Networks and 5G
Advanced Data and IoT Technologies
Original source
Feb 28, 2024·Системи обробки інформації
1 cites
Implementation and evaluation of a decentralized medical data exchange system based on the IOTA Tangle and approximate algorithms for optimal data placement

Віктор Воронін, Аліна Рибальченко, Oleksandr Shmatko, Олексій Коломійцев · 6 authors

© Voronin V., Rybalchenko A., Shmatko O., Kolomiitsev O., Tretiak V., Kliuchka Ya., 2023 Facilitating the transfer of patient medical information across healthcare providers is crucial for ensuring high-quality care. However, this process encounters obstacles pertaining to privacy, security, and centralised control. This article outlines the creation of a decentralised system for exchanging medical data. The system utilises Distributed Ledger Technology, specifically the IOTA Tangle (open protocol (and network) for data and value transfer). This document outlines the structure and fundamental elements of a system designed for the secure and unalterable storage and transfer of medical records. The system employs masking and encryption methodologies to protect patient confidentiality while enabling healthcare practitioners to access complete information with patient authorization. The IOTA Tangle facilitates transactions without any fees and ensures the verification of data integrity through its Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) topology. Simulation trials validate the system’s capability to securely communicate medical data on a large scale, while incurring lower resource costs than typical blockchain systems. The system demonstrates the feasibility of a decentralised and self-governing method for efficient and confidential sharing of medical data, utilising Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). The secure data sharing platform facilitates the implementation of novel care and research frameworks, all the while upholding patient confidentiality and adhering to healthcare ethical standards. Also, in the development of billing Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) systems, which are designed for input, structured storage and processing of information in real time, the use of cloud technology is proposed. The problems that arise and their relevance to the solution of an integer linear programming problem with Boolean variables are shown. Approximate algorithms for optimal data placement and mathematical models for optimizing the structure of a distributed database of a cloud system are proposed, taking into account the limitations on the amount of node memory, the available costs of renting cloud resources, and the number of replicas of fragments of the distributed database.

Open access
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Cloud Computing and Resource Management
Original source
Feb 27, 2024·Advances in higher education and professional development book series
8 cites
Empowering Micro-Credentials Using Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence

Rory McGreal

The recognition and transfer of credits is becoming essential for students, as an increasing number of them are studying at different institutions, often at the same time online, in both traditional and unconventional settings. Micro-credentials can aid in this process by providing easily accessible and transparent evidence of skills or knowledge, certified by an authority, based on small units of learning. The development of blockchain technology holds promise of becoming a useful enabler for supporting the storage and dissemination of micro-credentials on a global scale. Because of its immutability, blockchain can be used to attest to students' accomplishments securely and privately. Artificial intelligence (AI) can facilitate the maintenance and dissemination of micro-credentials, while ensuring that access is readily available for students under their control. So, AI can play a role in supporting blockchain-enabled micro-credentials. For educators, a basic understanding of the development of all three technologies is becoming essential.

Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
COVID-19 diagnosis using AI
Original source
Feb 27, 2024·Internet of Things
5 cites
Secure decentralized firmware update delivery service for Internet of Things

Yustus Eko Oktian, Thi-Thu-Huong Le, Uk Jo, Agus Mahardika Ari Laksmono · 5 authors

With the increasing number of Internet of Things devices, it is crucial to keep them up-to-date to prevent cyber attacks. Traditional centralized delivery is not suitable for scaling and also can be too expensive to run for small vendors. Thus, finding a fully secure, scalable, yet cost-efficient firmware update distribution strategy is always an open research problem. This paper tries to answer those problems by proposing Patchman, a secure decentralized firmware update delivery service for the Internet of Things ecosystem leveraging blockchain. When a new firmware patch is available, vendors make a bid in the smart contract for anyone to join as firmware distributors. For each successful delivery to targeted devices, distributors are rewarded with tokens. Meanwhile, devices gain a reputation score every time they successfully install an update. To ensure robustness and fairness, we develop secure fair exchange protocols using verifiable proof-of-delivery and proof-of-installation. Those proofs can be traded in the blockchain for rewards and reputation scores increase, proving that the proof-holders have successfully processed a firmware delivery and firmware installation task. This way, the firmware update delivery can be executed safely without centralized third-party control. Our evaluation results show that our implementation complies with the five security goals that we envision. We also have successfully punished malicious actions by confiscating their deposits and requiring them to pay up to four times of base deposit value when they join the next update task, ensuring the fairness of our protocol. Furthermore, we generate low processing delay overhead compared to existing works that rely on Zero-Knowledge Proofs. The gas usage consumption from our approach also produced a competitive result despite our works supporting more features than existing works, ensuring the efficiency of our proposal.

Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Cryptography and Data Security
Original source
Feb 26, 2024·Applied Sciences
11 cites
Practical Implementation of a Blockchain-Enabled SDN for Large-Scale Infrastructure Networks

Rudolf Kovacs, Sorin Buzura, Bogdan Iancu, Vasile Dădârlat · 6 authors

The network function virtualization (NFV) feature lies at the core of modern networking, and it allows on-demand real-time integration of new network functions, which is a great benefit for large-scale infrastructure networks. In contrast to the functional benefits, NFV introduces software complexity and computational overhead through additional abstraction layers. The current article addresses the function validation problem in large-scale infrastructure networks of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and proposes the utilization of blockchain as a validation technology, as opposed to implementing a custom validation solution. The current work showcases a practical architecture implementation to address the service validation in service provider large-scale networks. The POX-based solution to control software-defined networks (SDN) for NFV is extended to offer additional blockchain capabilities. Thus, a blockchain node is integrated and executed in the POX SDN controller. Transaction experiments are performed between two endpoints located in remote locations on the Internet, and the detailed results are presented to validate the utilization of the blockchain technology used on SDNs’ control plane.

Open access
Software-Defined Networks and 5G
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Advanced Optical Network Technologies
Original source
Feb 26, 2024·Sensors
19 cites
B-SAFE: Blockchain-Enabled Security Architecture for Connected Vehicle Fog Environment

Priyanka Gaba, Ram Shringar Raw, Omprakash Kaiwartya, Mohammad Aljaidi

Vehicles are no longer stand-alone mechanical entities due to the advancements in vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication-centric Internet of Connected Vehicles (IoV) frameworks. However, the advancement in connected vehicles leads to another serious security threat, online vehicle hijacking, where the steering control of vehicles can be hacked online. The feasibility of traditional security solutions in IoV environments is very limited, considering the intermittent network connectivity to cloud servers and vehicle-centric computing capability constraints. In this context, this paper presents a Blockchain-enabled Security Architecture for a connected vehicular Fog networking Environment (B-SAFE). Firstly, blockchain security and vehicular fog networking are introduced as preliminaries of the framework. Secondly, a three-layer architecture of B-SAFE is presented, focusing on vehicular communication, blockchain at fog nodes, and the cloud as trust and reward management for vehicles. Thirdly, details of the blockchain implementation at fog nodes is presented, along with a flowchart and algorithm. The performance of the evaluation of the proposed framework B-SAFE attests to the benefits in terms of trust, reward points, and threshold calculation.

Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs)
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Original source
Feb 23, 2024·ICT Express
29 cites
Blockchain consensus mechanisms comparison in fog computing: A systematic review

Yehia Ibrahim Alzoubi, Alok Mishra

Numerous consensus mechanisms have been suggested to cater to the specific characteristics of fog computing. To comprehensively understand their unique features, performance, and applications in fog computing, it is crucial to conduct a systematic analysis of these mechanisms. For this study, 79 relevant articles were carefully selected based on predefined criteria. Among these articles, 35 employed work-proof-based consensus mechanisms, 24 utilized voting-based mechanisms, and 22 adopted capability-based mechanisms. Among the 26 identified consensus mechanisms, proof of work remains the most prevalent one. It’s important to note that the scope of this paper is limited to the research available in the predominant databases at the time of writing. Future research may expand to include additional databases and more recent literature in this domain.

Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Data Stream Mining Techniques
Original source
Feb 22, 2024·Data in Brief
46 cites
Cyberattack patterns in blockchain-based communication networks for distributed renewable energy systems: A study on big datasets

Muhammad Faheem, Mahmoud Ahmad Al‐Khasawneh, Arfat Ahmad Khan, Syed Hamid Hussain Madni

Blockchain-based reliable, resilient, and secure communication for Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) is essential in Smart Grid (SG). The Solana blockchain, due to its high stability, scalability, and throughput, along with low latency, is envisioned to enhance the reliability, resilience, and security of DERs in SGs. This paper presents big datasets focusing on SQL Injection, Spoofing, and Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) cyberattacks, which have been collected from Solana blockchain-based Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks (IWSNs) for events monitoring and control in DERs. The datasets provided include both raw (unprocessed) and refined (processed) data, which highlight distinct trends in cyberattacks in DERs. These distinctive patterns demonstrate problems like superfluous mass data generation, transmitting invalid packets, sending deceptive data packets, heavily using network bandwidth, rerouting, causing memory overflow, overheads, and creating high latency. These issues result in ineffective real-time events monitoring and control of DERs in SGs. The thorough nature of these datasets is expected to play a crucial role in identifying and mitigating a wide range of cyberattacks across different smart grid applications.

Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Smart Grid Security and Resilience
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Original source
Feb 12, 2024·Decision Analytics Journal
44 cites
A blockchain privacy-conserving framework for secure medical data transmission in the internet of medical things

Shrabani Sutradhar, S. P. Majumder, Rajesh Bose, Haraprasad Mondal · 5 authors

The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) has transformed healthcare, collecting and transmitting vast medical data. This study proposes an innovative solution, integrating blockchain into IoMT within a fog-cloud computing framework for secure medical data transmission. The blockchain-based zero-trust system ensures reliable data auditing and Electronic Health Repository (EHR) protection. New blockchain entries atop prior blocks deter tampering, with Quad Merkle tree and zero-knowledge proof encryption ensuring data integrity and privacy. The multi-critic deep deterministic policy gradient algorithm optimizes task-offloading decisions in the fog-cloud layer. Security analyses validate its effectiveness, improving computing efficiency and ensuring data fidelity and privacy. These findings position the system as a promising solution for enhancing medical data security and integrity in edge-fog cloud environments, aligning with evolving healthcare technology demands.

Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Privacy-Preserving Technologies in Data
Original source