As a blockchain-based application, Non-Fungible Token (NFT) has received worldwide attention over the past few years. Digital artwork is the main form of NFT that can be stored on different blockchains. Although the NFT market is rapidly developing, we observed potential ethical and racial fairness issues in the design of NFT artworks due to a lack of ethical guidelines or censorship. Therefore, we investigated CryptoPunks, the most famous collection in the NFT market, to explore and visualize its potential ethical issues. We explored the ethical issues from three aspects: design, trading transactions, and related topics on Twitter. We scraped data from Twitter and Dune Analytics using python libraries, Twitter crawler, and sentiment analysis tools. Our five visualizations implied that 1.6 times more male punks were created in the initial design process than the female ones. And the male ones have a higher average selling price than females; lighter-skinned punks tend to sell for higher prices. The results of our study and visualizations provide a preliminary exploration of CryptoPunks and further inspire future ethical-related investigation and research in the NFT domain.
User Interaction for NFTs (Non-fungible Tokens) is gaining increasing attention. Although NFTs have been traditionally single-use and monolithic, recent applications aim to connect multimodal interaction with human behavior. This paper reviews the related technological approaches and business practices in NFT art. We highlight that multimodal interaction is a currently under-studied issue in mainstream NFT art, and conjecture that multimodal interaction is a crucial enabler for decentralization in the NFT community. We present a continuum theory and propose a framework combining a bottom-up approach with AI multimodal process. Through this framework, we put forward integrating human behavior data into generative NFT units, as "multimodal interactive NFT." Our work displays the possibilities of NFTs in the art world, beyond the traditional 2D and 3D static content.
The introduction of novel technology has oftentimes changed the concept of ownership. Non-fungible tokens are a recent example, as they allow a decentralized way to generate and verify proof of ownership via distributed ledger technology. Despite crucial uncertainties, these tokens have generated great enthusiasm for the future of digital property and its surrounding economy. In this regard, I think there is an untapped opportunity in applying a hypertext approach to augment such highly structured ownership-based associations. To this end, in this work I propose hyperownership, based on the premises that property is the law of lists and ledgers, and that hypertext is an apt method to inquiry such a ledger system. In spite of the significant risks and challenges to realize such a vision, I believe that it has great potential to transform the way with which we interact with digital property.
In teleradiology, medical images are transmitted to offsite radiologists for interpretation and the dictation report is sent back to the original site to aid timely diagnosis and proper patient care. Although teleradiology offers great benefits including time and cost efficiency, after-hour coverages, and staffing shortage management, there are some technical and operational limitations to overcome in reaching its full potential. We analyzed the current teleradiology workflow to identify inefficiencies. Image unavailability and delayed critical result communication stemmed from lack of system integration between teleradiology practice and healthcare institutions are among the most substantial factors causing prolonged turnaround time. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based medical image sharing and automated critical-results notification platform to address the current limitation. We believe the proposed platform will enhance efficiency in workflow by eliminating the need for intermediaries and will benefit patients by eliminating the need for storing medical images in hard copies. While considerable progress was achieved, further research on governance and HIPAA compliance is required to optimize the adoption of the new application. Towards an idea to a working paradigm, we will implement the prototype during the next phase of our study.
As Covid-19 remains a cause of concern, especially due to its mutations, wearing masks correctly and efficiently remains a priority in order to limit the spread of the disease. In this paper we present a wearable smart-mask prototype using concepts from Internet of Things, Control Theory and Distributed Ledger Technologies. Its purpose is to encourage people to comply with social distancing norms, through the use of incentives. The smart mask is designed to monitor Carbon Dioxide and Total Volatile Organic Compounds concentrations. The detected data is appended to a DAG-based DLT, named the IOTA Tangle. The IOTA Tangle ensures that the data is secure and immutable and acts as a communication backbone for the incentive mechanism. A hardware-in-the-loop simulation, based on indoor positioning, is developed to validate the effectiveness of the designed prototype.
Tanusree Sharma, Zhixuan Zhou, Andrew Miller, Yan Wang
Smart contracts are self-executing programs that run on blockchains (e.g., Ethereum). 680 million US dollars worth of digital assets controlled by smart contracts have been hacked or stolen due to various security vulnerabilities in 2021. Although security is a fundamental concern for smart contracts, it is unclear how smart contract developers approach security. To help fill this research gap, we conducted an exploratory qualitative study consisting of a semi-structured interview and a code review task with 29 smart contract developers with diverse backgrounds, including 10 early stage (less than one year of experience) and 19 experienced (2-5 years of experience) smart contract developers. Our findings show a wide range of smart contract security perceptions and practices including various tools and resources they used. Our early-stage developer participants had a much lower success rate (15%) of identifying security vulnerabilities in the code review task than their experienced counterparts (55%). Our hierarchical task analysis of their code reviews implies that just by accessing standard documentation, reference implementations and security tools is not sufficient. Many developers checked those materials or used a security tool but still failed to identify the security issues. In addition, several participants pointed out shortcomings of current smart contract security tooling such as its usability. We discuss how future education and tools could better support developers in ensuring smart contract security.
Michael Fröhlich, Franz Waltenberger, Ludwig Trotter, Florian Alt · 5 authors
We present a systematic literature review of cryptocurrency and blockchain research in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) published between 2014 and 2021. We aim to provide an overview of the field, consolidate existing knowledge, and chart paths for future research. Our analysis of 99 articles identifies six major themes: (1) the role of trust, (2) understanding motivation, risk, and perception of cryptocurrencies, (3) cryptocurrency wallets, (4) engaging users with blockchain, (5) using blockchain for application-specific use cases, and (6) support tools for blockchain. We discuss the focus of the existing research body and juxtapose it to the changing landscape of emerging blockchain technologies to highlight future research avenues for HCI and interaction design. With this review, we identify key aspects where interaction design is critical for the adoption of blockchain systems. Doing so, we provide a starting point for new scholars and designers and help them position future contributions.
Online voting is convenient and flexible, but amplifies the risks of voter coercion and vote buying. One promising mitigation strategy enables voters to give a coercer fake voting credentials, which silently cast votes that do not count. Current systems along these lines make problematic assumptions about credential issuance, however, such as strong trust in a registrar and/or in voter-controlled hardware, or expecting voters to interact with multiple registrars. Votegral is the first coercion-resistant voting architecture that leverages the physical security of in-person registration to address these credential-issuance challenges, amortizing the convenience costs of in-person registration by reusing credentials across successive elections. Votegral's registration component, TRIP, gives voters a kiosk in a privacy booth with which to print real and fake credentials on paper, eliminating dependence on trusted hardware in credential issuance. The voter learns and can verify in the privacy booth which credential is real, but real and fake credentials thereafter appear indistinguishable to others. Only voters actually under coercion, a hopefully-rare case, need to trust the kiosk. To achieve verifiability, each paper credential encodes an interactive zero-knowledge proof, which is sound in real credentials but unsound in fake credentials. Voters observe the difference in the order of printing steps, but need not understand the technical details. Experimental results with our prototype suggest that Votegral is practical and sufficiently scalable for real-world elections. User-visible latency of credential issuance in TRIP is at most 19.7 seconds even on resource-constrained kiosk hardware, making it suitable for registration at remote locations or on battery power. A companion usability study indicates that TRIP's usability is competitive with other e-voting systems including some lacking coercion resistance, and formal proofs support TRIP's combination of coercion-resistance and verifiability.
The Cognitive Ledger Project is an effort to develop a modular system for turning users' personal data into structured information and machine learning models based on a blockchain-based infrastructure. In this work-in-progress paper, we propose a cognitive architecture for cognitive digital twins. The suggested design embraces a cognitive blockchain (Cognitive ledger) at its core. The architecture includes several modules that turn users' activities in the digital environment into reusable knowledge objects and artificial intelligence that one day can work together to form the cognitive digital twin of users.
Tanusree Sharma, Zhixuan Zhou, Yun Huang, Yan Wang
NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are blockchain-based cryptographic tokens to represent ownership of unique content such as images, videos, or 3D objects. Despite NFTs' increasing popularity and skyrocketing trading prices, little is known about people's perceptions of and experiences with NFTs. In this work, we focus on NFT creators and present results of an exploratory qualitative study in which we interviewed 15 NFT creators from nine different countries. Our participants had nuanced feelings about NFTs and their communities. We found that most of our participants were enthusiastic about the underlying technologies and how they empower individuals to express their creativity and pursue new business models of content creation. Our participants also gave kudos to the NFT communities that have supported them to learn, collaborate, and grow in their NFT endeavors. However, these positivities were juxtaposed by their accounts of the many challenges that they encountered and thorny issues that the NFT ecosystem is grappling with around ownership of digital content, low-quality NFTs, scams, possible money laundering, and regulations. We discuss how the built-in properties (e.g., decentralization) of blockchains and NFTs might have contributed to some of these issues. We present design implications on how to improve the NFT ecosystem (e.g., making NFTs even more accessible to newcomers and the broader population).
Open access
2 source records
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Cryptoeconomic incentives in the form of blockchain-based tokens are seen as an enabler of the sharing economy that could shift society towards greater sustainability. Nevertheless, knowledge of the impact of these tokens on human sharing behavior is still limited and this poses a challenge to the design of effective cryptoeconomic incentives. This study applies the theory of self-determination to investigate the impact of such tokens on human behavior in an information-sharing scenario. By utilizing an experimental methodology in the form of a randomized control trial with a 2x2 factorial design involving 132 participants, the effects of two token incentives on human information-sharing behavior are analyzed. Individuals obtain these tokens in exchange for their shared information. Based on the collected tokens, individuals receive a monetary payment and build reputation. Besides investigating the effect of these incentives on the quantity of shared information, the study includes quality characteristics of the information, such as accuracy and contextualization. The focus on quantity while excluding quality has been identified as a limitation in previous work. In addition to confirming previously known effects such as a crowding-out of intrinsic motivation by incentives, which also exists for blockchain-based tokens, the findings of this paper point to a hitherto unreported interaction effect between multiple tokens when applied simultaneously. The findings are critically discussed and put into the context of recent work and ethical considerations. The theory-based-empirical study is of interest to those investigating the effect of cryptoeconomic tokens or digital currencies on human behavior and supports the community in the design of effective personalized incentives for sharing economies.
In this research, we discussed a rising issue for Muslims in today world that involves a financial and technical innovation, namely: cryptocurrencies. We found out through a questionnaire that many Muslims are having a hard time finding the jurisprudence rulings on certain cryptocurrencies. Therefore, the objective of this research is to investigate and identify features that play a part in determining the jurisprudence rulings on cryptocurrencies. We have collected a dataset containing 106 cryptocurrencies classified into 56 Halal and 50 Haram cryptocurrencies, and used 20 handcrafted features. Moreover, based on these identified features, we designed an intelligent system that contains a Machine Learning model for classifying cryptocurrencies into Halal and Haram.
Open access
2 source records
cs.CY
cs.HC
Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence
With a growing number of institutions involved in the global education market, it has become increasingly challenging to verify the authenticity of academic achievements such as CVs and diplomas. Blockchain is an enabling technology that can play a key role in solving this problem. This study introduces a blockchain-based achievement record system that produces a verifiable record of achievements. The proposed system aims to facilitate the process of authentication and validation of certificates reliably, easily, and quickly, leveraging the unique capabilities offered through Blockchain technology (public Ethereum Blockchain) and smart contracts. We present the design and implementation of the system and its components and tools. We then evaluate the system through a number of studies to measure the system's usability, effectiveness, performance, and cost. A System Usability Scale (SUS) test gave a scale of 77.1. Through a literature survey, we demonstrate that this system is a significant improvement on legacy systems, being both more user-friendly and more efficient. We also conduct a detailed cost analysis and discuss the positives and limitations of alternative blockchain solutions.
Cryptocurrency has been extensively studied as a decentralized financial technology built on blockchain. However, there is a lack of understanding of user experience with cryptocurrency exchanges, the main means for novice users to interact with cryptocurrency. We conduct a qualitative study to provide a panoramic view of user experience and security perception of exchanges. All 15 Chinese participants mainly use centralized exchanges (CEX) instead of decentralized exchanges (DEX) to trade decentralized cryptocurrency, which is paradoxical. A closer examination reveals that CEXes provide better usability and charge lower transaction fee than DEXes. Country-specific security perceptions are observed. Though DEXes provide better anonymity and privacy protection, and are free of governmental regulation, these are not necessary features for many participants. Based on the findings, we propose design implications to make cryptocurrency trading more decentralized.
The IS discourse on the potential of distributed ledger technology (DLT) in the financial services has grown at a tremendous pace in recent years. Yet, little has been said about the related implications for the costly and highly regulated process of compliance reporting. Working with a group of representatives from industry and regulatory authorities, we employ the design science research methodology (DSR) in the design, development, and evaluation of an artefact, enabling the automated collection and enrichment of transactional data. Our findings indicate that DLT may facilitate the automation of key compliance processes through the implementation of a "pull-model", in which regulators can access compliance data in near real-time to stage aggregate exposures at the supranational level. Generalizing our preliminary results, we present four propositions on the implications of DLT in compliance. The findings contribute new practical insights on the topic of compliance to the growing IS discourse on DLT.
Dave Murray-Rust, Chris Elsden, Bettina Nissen, Ella Tallyn · 6 authors
This paper presents an annotated portfolio of projects that seek to understand and communicate the social and societal implications of blockchains, distributed ledgers and smart contracts. These complex technologies rely on human and technical factors to deliver cryptocurrencies, shared computation and trustless protocols but have a secondary benefit in providing a moment to re-think many aspects of society, and imagine alternative possibilities. The projects use design and HCI methods to relate blockchains to a range of topics, including global supply chains, delivery infrastructure, smart grids, volunteering and charitable giving, through engaging publics, exploring ideas and speculating on possible futures. Based on an extensive annotated portfolio we draw out learning for the design of blockchain systems, broadening participation and surfacing questions around imaginaries, social implications and engagement with new technology. This paints a comprehensive picture of how HCI and design can shape understandings of the future of complex technologies.
The revolutionary potential of automatic code generation tools based on Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) frameworks has yet to be realized. Beyond their ability to help software professionals write more accurate, reusable code, they could make programming accessible for a whole new class of non-technical users. However, non-technical users have been slow to embrace these tools. This may be because their concrete syntax is often patterned after the operations of textual or graphical interfaces. The interfaces are common, but users would need more extensive, precise and detailed knowledge of them than they can be assumed to have, to use them as concrete syntax. Conversational interfaces (chatbots) offer a much more accessible way for non-technical users to generate code. In this paper, we discuss the basic challenge of integrating conversational agents within Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) frameworks, then turn to look at a specific application: the auto-generation of smart contract code in multiple languages by non-technical users, based on conversational syntax. We demonstrate how this can be done, and evaluate our approach by conducting user experience survey to assess the usability and functionality of the chatbot framework.
S. Kate Devitt, Jason Scholz, Timo Schless, L Lewis
Abstract Artificial intelligences (AI) will increasingly participate digitally and physically in conflicts yet there is a lack of trusted communications with humans for humanitarian purposes. For example, in disasters and conflicts messaging and social media are used to share information, however, international humanitarian relief organisations treat this information as unverifiable and untrustworthy. Furthermore, current AI implementations can be brittle, with a narrow scope of application and wide scope of ethical risks. Meanwhile, human error can cause significant civilian harms even by combatants committed to compliance with international humanitarian law. AI offers an opportunity to help reduce the tragedy of war and better deliver humanitarian aid to those who need it. However, to be successful, these systems must be trusted by humans and their information systems, overcoming flawed information flows in conflict and disaster zones that continue to be marked by intermittent communications, poor situation awareness, mistrust and human errors. In this paper, we consider the integration of a communications protocol (the ‘Whiteflag protocol’), distributed ledger ‘blockchain’ technology, and information fusion with artificial intelligence (AI), to improve conflict communications called “Protected Assurance Understanding Situation & Entities” (PAUSE). Such a trusted human-AI communication network could provide accountable information exchange regarding protected entities, critical infrastructure, humanitarian signals and status updates for humans and machines in conflicts. Trust-based information fusion provides resource-efficient use of diverse data sources to increase the reliability of reports. AI can catch human mistakes and complement human decision making, while human judgment can direct and override AI recommendations. We examine several realistic potential case studies for the integration of these technologies into a trusted human-AI network for humanitarian benefit including mapping a conflict zone with civilians and combatants in real time, preparation to avoid incidents and using the network to manage misinformation. We finish with a real-world example of a PAUSE-like network, the Human Security Information System (HSIS), being developed by USAID, that uses blockchain technology to provide a secure means to better understand the civilian environment.
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are gaining immense attention due to their potential to revolutionize various businesses and industries. However, the adoption of UAV-assisted applications will strongly rely on the provision of reliable systems that allow managing UAV operations at high levels of safety and security. Recently, the concept of UAV traffic management (UTM) has been introduced to support safe, efficient, and fair access to low-altitude airspace for commercial UAVs. A UTM system identifies multiple cooperating parties with different roles and levels of authority to provide real-time services to airspace users. However, current UTM systems are centralized and lack a clear definition of protocols that govern a secure interaction between authorities, service providers, and end-users. The lack of such protocols renders the UTM system unscalable and prone to various cyber attacks. Another limitation of the currently proposed UTM architecture is the absence of an efficient mechanism to enforce airspace rules and regulations. To address this issue, we propose a decentralized UTM protocol that controls access to airspace while ensuring high levels of integrity, availability, and confidentiality of airspace operations. To achieve this, we exploit key features of the blockchain and smart contract technologies. In addition, we employ a mobile crowdsensing (MCS) mechanism to seamlessly enforce airspace rules and regulations that govern the UAV operations. The solution is implemented on top of the Etheruem platform and verified using four different smart contract verification tools. We also provided a security and cost analysis of our solution. For reproducibility, we made our implementation publicly available on Github.
The development and adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHR) and health monitoring Internet of Things (IoT) Devices have enabled digitization of patient records and has also substantially transformed the healthcare delivery system in aspects such as remote patient monitoring, healthcare decision making, and medical research. However, data tends to be fragmented among health infrastructures and prevents interoperability of medical data at the point of care. In order to address this gap, we introduce BlockIoT that uses blockchain technology to transfer previously inaccessible and centralized data from medical devices to EHR systems, which provides greater insight to providers who can, in turn, provide better outcomes for patients. This notion of interoperability of medical device data is possible through an Application Programming Interface (API), which serves as a versatile endpoint for all incoming medical device data, a distributed file system that ensures data resilience, and knowledge templates that analyze, identify, and represent medical device data to providers. Our participatory design survey on BlockIoT demonstrates that BlockIoT is a suitable system to supplement physicians' clinical practice and increases efficiency in most healthcare specialties, including cardiology, pulmonology, endocrinology, and primary care.
In recent years, the metaverse has attracted enormous attention from around the world with the development of related technologies. The expected metaverse should be a realistic society with more direct and physical interactions, while the concepts of race, gender, and even physical disability would be weakened, which would be highly beneficial for society. However, the development of metaverse is still in its infancy, with great potential for improvement. Regarding metaverse's huge potential, industry has already come forward with advance preparation, accompanied by feverish investment, but there are few discussions about metaverse in academia to scientifically guide its development. In this paper, we highlight the representative applications for social good. Then we propose a three-layer metaverse architecture from a macro perspective, containing infrastructure, interaction, and ecosystem. Moreover, we journey toward both a historical and novel metaverse with a detailed timeline and table of specific attributes. Lastly, we illustrate our implemented blockchain-driven metaverse prototype of a university campus and discuss the prototype design and insights.
AKM Bahalul Haque, Bilal Naqvi, A. K. M. Najmul Islam, Sami Hyrynsalmi
The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the world and limited work/personal life activities. Besides the loss of human lives and agony faced by humankind, the pandemic has badly hit different sectors economically, including the travel industry. Special arrangements, including COVID test before departure and on arrival, and voluntary quarantine, were enforced to limit the risk of transmission. However, the hope for returning to a normal (pre-COVID) routine relies on the success of the current COVID vaccination drives administered by different countries. To open for tourism and other necessary travel, a need is realized for a universally accessible proof of COVID vaccination, allowing travelers to cross the borders without any hindrance. This paper presents an architectural framework for a GDPR-compliant blockchain-based COVID vaccination passport (VacciFi), whilst considering the relevant developments, especially in the European Union region.
Diogo Cortiz, Newton Calegari, Fabiana Oliveira, Daniel Couto Gatti
Blockchain is a new technological approach that has gained popularity on the market due to its application in several areas such as education, health, security, and smart cities, among others. However, understanding how blockchain works is not easy at first, especially for non-technical people, because it relies on a non-trivial computational process. We have developed a game board - called Blocktrain - whose game mechanics are based on the blockchain processing model. This game gives people the opportunity to learn key blockchain concepts while playing. In this paper, we describe the game design process and assessment of the game as pedagogical instrument.
Louise Hanna, David Barr, Helen Hou, Shauna McGill
A study was performed with 33 Modern Foreign Language (MFL) teachers to afford insight into how classroom practitioners interact with Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) in Second Language (L2) pedagogy. A questionnaire with CALL specific statements was completed by MFL teachers who were recruited via UK based Facebook groups. Significantly, participants acknowledged a gap in practice from the expectation of CALL in the MFL classroom. Overall, respondents were shown to be interested and regular consumers of CALL who perceived its ease and importance in L2 teaching and learning.