Tasfia Rahman, Sumaiya Islam Mouno, Arunangshu Mojumder Raatul, Abul Kalam Al Azad · 5 authors
Submitting fake certificates is a common problem in Southeast Asia, which prevents qualified candidates from getting the jobs they deserve. When applying for a job, students must provide academic credentials as proof of their qualifications, acquired both inside and outside the classroom. Verifying academic documents before hiring is crucial to prevent fraud. Employing blockchain technology has the potential to address this issue. Blockchain provides an electronic certificate that is tamper-proof and non-repudiable, making it difficult for students to manipulate their academic credentials. This paper presents a prototype for an academic credential verification model that leverages the security features of blockchain and IPFS (Interplanetary File System). Certificates are temporarily stored in a database before being transferred to IPFS, where a unique hash code is generated using a hashing algorithm. This hash code serves as the certificate's unique identity and is stored in the blockchain nodes. Companies can verify an applicant's credentials by searching for the applicant and accessing their already verified certificates. Utilizing IPFS as a middleman storage platform lowers the expenses of directly storing massive data on the blockchain. To sum it up, the proposed solution would make the process of certificate verification more efficient, secure, and cost-effective. It would save time and resources that would otherwise be used to manually verify certificates.
A cyber-physical system is considered to be a collection of strongly coupled communication systems and devices that poses numerous security trials in various industrial applications including healthcare. The security and privacy of patient data is still a big concern because healthcare data is sensitive and valuable, and it is most targeted over the internet. Moreover, from the industrial perspective, the cyber-physical system plays a crucial role in the exchange of data remotely using sensor nodes in distributed environments. In the healthcare industry, Blockchain technology offers a promising solution to resolve most securities-related issues due to its decentralized, immutability, and transparency properties. In this paper, a blockchain-inspired secure and reliable data exchange architecture is proposed in the cyber-physical healthcare industry 4.0. The proposed system uses the BigchainDB, Tendermint, Inter-Planetary-File-System (IPFS), MongoDB, and AES encryption algorithms to improve Healthcare 4.0. Furthermore, blockchain-enabled secure healthcare architecture for accessing and managing the records between Doctors and Patients is introduced. The development of a blockchain-based Electronic Healthcare Record (EHR) exchange system is purely patient-centric, which means the entire control of data is in the owner's hand which is backed by blockchain for security and privacy. Our experimental results reveal that the proposed architecture is robust to handle more security attacks and can recover the data if 2/3 of nodes are failed. The proposed model is patient-centric, and control of data is in the patient's hand to enhance security and privacy, even system administrators can't access data without user permission.
Vesal Ahsani, Ali Rahimi, Mehdi Letafati, Babak Hossein Khalaj
In this article, the authors provide a comprehensive overview on three core pillars of metaverse-as-a-service (MaaS) platforms; privacy and security, edge computing, and blockchain technology. The article starts by investigating security aspects for the wireless access to the metaverse. Then it goes through the privacy and security issues inside the metaverse from data-centric, learning-centric, and human-centric points-of-view. The authors address private and secure mechanisms for privatizing sensitive data attributes and securing machine learning algorithms running in a distributed manner within the metaverse platforms. Novel visions and less-investigated methods are reviewed to help mobile network operators and metaverse service providers facilitate the realization of secure and private MaaS through different layers of the metaverse, ranging from the access layer to the social interactions among clients. Later in the article, it has been explained how the paradigm of edge computing can strengthen different aspects of the metaverse. Along with that, the challenges of using edge computing in the metaverse have been comprehensively investigated. Additionally, the paper has comprehensively investigated and analyzed 10 main challenges of MaaS platforms and thoroughly discussed how blockchain technology provides solutions for these constraints. At the final, future vision and directions, such as content-centric security and zero-trust metaverse, some blockchain's unsolved challenges are also discussed to bring further insights for the network designers in the metaverse era.
Muhammad Izhar, Syed Asad Ali Naqvi, Adeel Ahmed, Saima Abdullah · 6 authors
This paper presents an innovative framework that leverages cutting-edge technologies to revolutionize healthcare systems, focusing on data security, privacy, and efficient medical diagnosis. Our approach integrates distributed ledger technology (DLT), artificial intelligence (AI), and edge computing to create a robust and dependable medical ecosystem. In our proposed system, patients’ health data is securely managed using a combination of elliptic curve cryptography-based identity-based cryptosystems and edge nodes, ensuring both privacy and integrity. These edge nodes, designed for low-power and short-range communication, play a pivotal role in in-vivo data collection and monitoring within the human body. The DLT model at the core of our framework utilizes peer-to-peer networks, enabling seamless information exchange while eliminating the need for centralized servers. We emphasize public edge DLTs, such as Ethereum, to ensure accessibility and data ownership for all stakeholders. Furthermore, our system incorporates a hybrid machine learning model for early detection and prediction of security threats, enhancing overall system efficiency. Our findings demonstrate a remarkable 99.7% accuracy in classification using this approach. In conclusion, this framework’s multidisciplinary approach bridges the gap between healthcare, edge computing, and DLT, promising real-time data processing, enhanced security, and privacy preservation. With the rise of the Internet of Things, this innovation holds the potential to transform the future of healthcare technology.
Stephen W. Turner, Murat Karakuş, Evrim Güler, Suleyman Uludag
The state of computer network technologies has continually advanced at a rapid pace. Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Blockchain (BC) have emerged as complementary technologies providing support that facilitates greater security and greater network performance for many domains of application, including the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem, ideally resulting in an improvement in our collective quality of life. The proliferation of IoT devices, driven by a wide variety of use cases and its ubiquitous availability, combined with the emergence of SDN and BC, presents rich opportunities for various emerging research efforts. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of the studies in which BC and SDN have been integrated into the IoT ecosystem, referred to hereafter as BC-enabled Software- Defined IoT (BC-SDIoT). First, we discuss the motivations and drivers for integrating BC-enabled SDN and BC-SDIoT, as well as the benefits and drawbacks. Second, we categorize the relevant studies according to six key implementation objectives and ideas that combine BC, SDN, and IoT technologies to create smart, secure, and effective frameworks: Security, computing paradigms (edge and fog computing), trust management, access control & authentication, privacy, and networking. In the corresponding sections, we present the categories (i.e., problem domains) of the aforementioned novel taxonomy and discuss related studies (i.e., solutions) in depth. Finally, we outline potential major challenges, open issues, and future prospects that require further research attention and intensive endeavors for complete and ground-breaking frameworks to broaden newer research domains in BC-SDIoT. This survey paper may be a fruitful primer for a reader investigating the exploitation of BC in SDN and IoT ecosystems.
Abba Garba, David Khoury, Patrick Balian, Samir Haddad · 10 authors
These in recent days, the proliferation of the internet of things (IoT) within the emergence of five-generation (5G) networks has received a huge attention in both industrial and academic domains. A 5G network is a cornerstone of realizing the full potential of the IoT, which interconnects billions of devices wirelessly. However, wireless communication in IoT devices reveals tremendous security risks in different dimensions and precisely in the distribution of the user certificates. The existing X.509 PKI, or the proposed decentralized PKI based on blockchain solutions have lacked practicality, and continue to have security flaws, or have not yet gained widespread acceptance owing to complexity and deployment issues. We present a lightweight certificate in size (LightCert4IoTs) that is not issued by Certification Authorities (CAs) due to the cost and complexity of the assignment of a signed certificate. In LightCert4IoTs first, an end-user (i.e., mobile and IoT devices) issues a self-signed certificate and lets Local Registration Authorities (LRAs)/EDGE nodes to verify and validate the binding identity-self signed certificate of the users through the Ethereum blockchain where The Ethereum network is used as the global notary for the IoT light certificates by saving them in the blockchain immutable ledger. The LightCert4IoTs leverages the advantages of blockchain technology and smart contracts to address the existing challenges of PKI certificates in IoT devices, which neatly achieve certificate issuance, update, and revocation more securely and efficiently. Finally, the LightCert4IoTs experimental results show that LightCert, as compared to relevant solutions/baselines, achieves reasonable overheads and is suitable for use in low- constrained IoT devices where the memory and processor power are optimized.
The purpose of this article is to propose a framework for controlling light level consumption in smart city buildings and preventing power meter reading fraud. The framework utilizes IoT sensors, decentralized smart agents, and a smart contract on a backchain platform. This method enables the monitoring of light system consumption by focusing on communication integrity and identity for IoT sensors. The framework improves the work of light systems based on operational voltage, which varies with respect to light intensity values sensed via IoT sensors. The decentralized smart agents send consumption and real-time behavior data from the IoT sensors either through the default assigned agent or any available nearby agent. The smart contract securely transacts the consumption and behavior data of the smart agents using a Proof-of-Stake algorithm to support untampering of electric consumption. The results of the case study show that the proposed framework can improve light level consumption by 76%. The framework is evaluated through characteristics such as communication overhead, energy optimization, high availability, and real-time monitoring. The research results contribute to the development and improvement of energy conservation in smart cities. The proposed framework can also be applied to other applications in smart cities, such as facility management solutions. The novelty of the paper lies in the use of a blockchain-based framework to control light level consumption and prevent power meter readings fraud, providing a secure and tamper-proof way to collect and transmit consumption data, thus improving energy efficiency in smart city and ensuring accurate billing for consumers. Keywords: IoT Sensors, Blockchain, Energy Management, Smart Agents DOI： https://doi.org/10.35741/issn.0258-2724.58.4.46
Consensus algorithms are essential for achieving agreement among nodes in blockchain systems. However, traditional consensus algorithms such as Proof of Work (PoW) and Proof of Stake (PoS) can be resource-intensive and unsuitable for lightweight private blockchain applications. This paper proposes using the RSA (Rivest–Shamir–Adleman) encryption algorithm as a consensus algorithm for a lightweight private blockchain in the context of a college placement system. RSA offers several advantages over traditional consensus algorithms, including simplicity, efficiency, and security. Moreover, RSA can be implemented on resource-constrained nodes, making it a promising solution for lightweight blockchain applications. The resource constrained nodes are students, academic department, training and placement cell department, and placement cell coordinator. The company acts as a client. The movement of the student’s data to companies is recorded as transactions on the distributed ledger or blockchain, allowing the student to track its progress.
A. Sasikumar, Logesh Ravi, Malathi Devarajan, V. Subramaniyaswamy · 7 authors
The expansion of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and their integration into a variety of vital sectors has created serious concerns regarding data protection, privacy, and resource management. As a promising model, edge computing has the ability to overcome these difficulties by putting the computing power closer to IoT devices. This article presents a novel approach for decentralized resource allocation in edge computing settings, with the goal of improving the security and efficiency of IoT systems. Edge nodes are critical in our proposed framework for managing and assigning computing resources to IoT devices, minimizing latency, and optimizing network traffic. The decentralization of resource distribution promotes resilience in the event of network outages or cyberattacks and provides robustness against single points of failure. We created a proof-of-importance (PoI) consensus mechanism for creating new blocks in the blockchain integrated edge-computing IoT devices. Therefore, the consensus mechanism will ensure the trust and security of IoT devices by authentication of each user in the network. We performed a series of experiments in a simulated edge-computing setting to assess the feasibility of our proposed method. We analyze the proposed system model based on the operation of three different file delivery and transactions. The simulation outcomes show that the blockchain system efficiently delivers the files and increases the transmission rate. We also compared our file delivery and transmission rate with existing techniques, and our proposed model provides a better result. Finally, we compared the power consumption of creating IoT nodes based on proof-of-work (PoW), proof-of-stake (PoS), and PoI. The proposed PoI consensus mechanism consumes less power than the other two methods.
Norah M. Alshahrani, Miss Laiha Mat Kiah, B. B. Zaidan, A. H. Alamoodi · 5 authors
A smart contract is a digital program of transaction protocol (rules of contract) based on the consensus architecture of blockchain. Smart contracts with Blockchain are modern technologies that have gained enormous attention in scientific and practical applications. A smart contract is the central aspect of a blockchain that facilitates blockchain as a platform outside the cryptocurrency spectrum. The development of blockchain technology, with a focus on smart contracts, has advanced significantly in recent years. However, research on the smart contract idea has weaknesses in the implementation sectors based on a decentralized network that shares an identical state. This paper extensively reviews smart contracts based on multi-criteria analysis, challenges and motivations. Therefore, implementing blockchain in multi-criteria research is required to increase the efficiency of interaction between users via supporting information exchange with high trust. Implementing blockchain in the multi-criteria analysis is necessary to increase the efficiency of interaction between users via supporting information exchange and with high confidence, detecting malfunctioning, helping users with performance issues, reaching a consensus, deploying distributed solutions and allocating plans, tasks and joint missions. The smart contract with decision-making performance, planning and execution improves the implementation based on efficiency, sustainability and management. Furthermore, the uncertainty and supply chain performance lead to improved users’ confidence in offering new solutions in exchange for problems in smart contacts. Evaluation includes code analysis and performance, while development performance can be under development.
This research paper presents an innovative approach to address the challenges associated with platitudinous paper certificates and electronic certificates. These challenges include issues such as preservation, management, verification inconvenience, poor reliability, and susceptibility to counterfeiting and tampering. The suggested approach involves an autonomous certificate system leveraging blockchain technology and smart contracts. Tailored for university students engaged in innovation and entrepreneurship competitions, this platform is intended to offer blockchain-based certification services. Within this system, various functions related to certificates, such as management, issuance, verification, and revocation, are executed through smart contracts. Structured data within these contracts stores information about signers, certificate templates, and certificate details. This structure simplifies the process of querying and validating certificates, all the while maintaining their security and authenticity.
This article shows a brief history of Techno-Economic Assessment (TEA) in Communications, a proposed redefinition of TEA as well as the new challenges derived from a dynamic context with cloud-native virtualized networks, the Helium Network & alike blockchain-based decentralized networks, the new network as a platform (NaaP) paradigm, carbon pricing, network sharing, and web3, metaverse and blockchain technologies. The authors formulate the research question and show the need to improve TEA models to integrate and manage all this increasing complexity. This paper also proposes the characteristics TEA models should have and their current degree of compliance for several use cases: 5G and beyond, software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN), secure access service edge (SASE), secure service edge (SSE), and cloud cybersecurity risk assessment. The authors also present TEA extensibility to request for proposals (RFP) processes and other industries, to conclude that there is an urgent need for agile and effective TEA in Comms that allows industrialization of agile decision-making for all market stakeholders to choose the optimal solution for any technology, scenario and use case.
n recent years it has been shown that the secure exchange of medical information significantly benefits people’s life quality, improving their care and treatment. The interoperability of the entire healthcare ecosystem is a constant challenge, and even more, with all the risks posed to the security of healthcare information. Blockchain technology is emerging as one of the main alternatives when it comes to finding a balance in the healthcare ecosystem. However, the constant development of new Blockchain technologies and the evolution of healthcare systems make it difficult to find established proposals. From an architectural point of view, the design of blockchain-based solutions requires trade-offs e.g., security and interoperability. This paper focuses on two main objectives, in the first one, it was carried out a Systematic Literature Review for exploring architectural mechanisms used to support the interoperability and security of Blockchain-based Health Management Systems. Taking into account of results, a series of scenarios were generated where these mechanisms can be used along with their context, issues, and various architectural concerns (interoperability and security). In the second objective, a high-level architecture and its validation were proposed through an experiment for the whole process of developing a Domain Specific Language, using the Model Driven Engineering methodology for specific Smart Contracts.
The research on the sixth-generation (6G) wireless communications for the development of future mobile communication networks has been officially launched around the world. 6G networks face multifarious challenges, such as resource-constrained mobile devices, difficult wireless resource management, high complexity of heterogeneous network architectures, explosive computing and storage requirements, privacy and security threats. To address these challenges, deploying blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) in 6G networks may realize new breakthroughs in advancing network performances in terms of security, privacy, efficiency, cost, and more. In this paper, we provide a detailed survey of existing works on the application of blockchain and AI to 6G wireless communications. More specifically, we start with a brief overview of blockchain and AI. Then, we mainly review the recent advances in the fusion of blockchain and AI, and highlight the inevitable trend of deploying both blockchain and AI in wireless communications. Furthermore, we extensively explore integrating blockchain and AI for wireless communication systems, involving secure services and Internet of Things (IoT) smart applications. Particularly, some of the most talked-about key services based on blockchain and AI are introduced, such as spectrum management, computation allocation, content caching, and security and privacy. Moreover, we also focus on some important IoT smart applications supported by blockchain and AI, covering smart healthcare, smart transportation, smart grid, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Moreover, we thoroughly discuss operating frequencies, visions, and requirements from the 6G perspective. We also analyze the open issues and research challenges for the joint deployment of blockchain and AI in 6G wireless communications. Lastly, based on lots of existing meaningful works, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive survey of blockchain and AI in 6G networks. We hope this survey can shed new light on the research of this newly emerging area and serve as a roadmap for future studies.
Nima Afraz, Francesc Wilhelmi, Hamed Ahmadi, Marco Ruffini
Blockchain technology offers solutions to numerous network problems by leveraging distributed record-keeping and collaborative decision-making features. However, deployment considerations such as blockchain infrastructure cost, performance requirements, and scalability are often overlooked. This paper provides an in-depth perspective on deploying blockchain-based solutions for telecommunications networks, estimating costs, comparing infrastructure options (on-premises, IaaS, BaaS), and choosing a suitable blockchain platform. We have analyzed prominent use cases and investigated deployment options, highlighting the pros and cons of each. Finally, we present two case studies, one proposing a distributed marketplace solution for 5G slice brokering and another one on the decentralization of federated learning (FL) through blockchain. Experiments are conducted to identify the performance limitations of the proposed solution under various deployment infrastructures. For the slice brokering use case, we studied the achievable transaction throughput and average latency under various systems under test with different resource specifications. Our experiments showed that while use cases that required maximum transaction throughputs in the range of 10 to 200 could be carried out with sub-second latency, use cases that require higher transaction throughputs (300 to 400) would need more computational resources to maintain such low latency. The federated learning use case provided insights into the achievable accuracy of distributed learning under various blockchain settings (public, consortium, and private). This led to the understanding that private and consortium blockchains can achieve acceptable accuracy in significantly lower training times compared to public blockchains.
Web3, the next generation web, promises a decentralized and democratized internet that puts users in control of their data and online identities. However, Web3 faces significant challenges, including scalability, interoperability, regulatory compliance, and energy consumption. To address these challenges, this review paper provides a comprehensive analysis of Web3, including its key advancements and implications, as well as an overview of its major applications in Decentralized Applications (DApps), Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs), Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), and Supply Chain Management and Provenance Tracking. The paper also discusses the potential social and economic impact of Web3, as well as its integration with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), and smart cities. This article then discusses importance of zero-trust architecture for Web3. Ultimately, this review highlights the importance of Web3 in shaping the future of the internet and provides insights into the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
Yusuf Ucbas, Amna Eleyan, Mohammad Hammoudeh, Manar Alohaly
Blockchain emerged in the last decade as a promising technology with possible applications in numerous fields such as healthcare, supply chain, and finance. Its immutability, transparency, security, and decentralisation gained significant attention in academia and industry. One technology that blockchain can support is the Internet of Things (IoT). However, there are still challenges hindering the real-world adoption of blockchain due to concerns about its performance, scalability, and complexity. This study contributes to a comparative study that analyses blockchain platforms in terms of their performance and scalability, with specific reference to IoT applications. We focus on the Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric blockchain platforms. As part of the implementation, an IoT healthcare use case is developed. We conducted performance and scalability tests on private platform networks to measure the throughput and latency parameters. To evaluate scalability, we examined the behaviour of the studied platforms in response to an increase in the number and rate of transactions. Hyperledger Caliper is used to collect these parameters. Experiment analysis shows that Fabric outperforms Ethereum in terms of latency and throughput. As for performance and scalability analysis, Fabric was found to be more suitable than Ethereum for private networks such as IoT healthcare ecosystems.
Cyber-physical systems (CPSs) are highly susceptible to malicious cyberattacks due to their reliance on communication networks. For this reason, many different attack detection techniques have been developed to guarantee the safety of CPSs. This article introduces BlockChain (BC) to address CPS issues such as data security and privacy. Additionally, BC is not well suited for CPS due to its high computing complexity, limited scalability, significant bandwidth overhead, and latency. To meet the requirements of CPS, a light-weight blockchain-based signature algorithm (LWBSA) model is developed in this work. The concept's resource constraints are alleviated by having a single centrally managed manager generate shared keys for outward-bound data transmission requests. The LWBSA paradigm provided herein produces an overlay network where extremely equipped resources can merge into a community BC, hence ensuring both dedicated privileges. Lightweight consensus, the elliptic curve digital signature algorithm (ECDSA), and distributed throughput management (DTM) are the three optimizations implemented in the ELIB model discussed here. Extensive simulation is carried out to examine the implications of different situations on processing time, energy usage, and overhead. The experimental outcomes show that the LWBSA achieves the best possible performance across a wide variety of measures.
Blockchain may be an optimal solution when a detailed and transparent record of assets is necessary. It is imperative to manage and safeguard digital interactions or maintain a decentralized and shared system of records in applications, such as those used for electricity production, transmission, distribution, and consumption and those used for data sharing and secure payments. Such applications can benefit from blockchain technology to resolve these problems. In the proposed blockchain-based consumer electronics data sharing and safe payment framework, an innovative IoT meter detects monthly consumption and transmits the data to a decentralized application that is stored in the blockchain. This decentralized platform will generate the bill and provide incentives for legitimate consumers. Finally, the end-to-end latency and throughput were used to evaluate the performance of the proposed approach.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
The ongoing push for the 4th industrial revolution is setting the stage to digitise, persist and verify identity along with credentials. Academic and skills credentials are currently verified manually and have much scope for automation using cryptographic techniques but requires standardisation to facilitate future systems interoperability. The Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Verifiable Credentials (VC) standards presents the possibility to achieve this credential verification automation. To accomplish this, an understanding of various DLTs and requirements for a viable skills tracking system is important. Therefore, this research aims to access the selected DLTs against the assessment criterion presented and an analysis has been completed to determine which DLT is suitable for the proposed system. The DLTs are assessed in terms of their ability to support the rapid prototyping of such a system and provide recommendations to guide a future development path from the perspective of standards compliance. We conclude that few DLTs possess the maturity to provide proper requirements coverage due to the emergent nature of the DLT space. Additionally, this paper presents the high-level requirements to achieve a minimally viable solution that can demonstrate such digital credential verification in the academic and skills tracking context.