This study builds on our previous systematic literature review (SLR) that assessed the applications and performance of zk-SNARK, zk-STARK, and Bulletproof non-interactive zero-knowledge proof (NIZKP) protocols. To address the identified research gaps, we designed and implemented a benchmark comparing these three protocols using a dynamic minimized multiplicative complexity (MiMC) hash application. We evaluated performance across four general-purpose programming libraries and two programming languages. Our results show that zk-SNARK produced the smallest proofs, while zk-STARK generated the largest. In terms of proof generation and verification times, zk-STARK was the fastest, and Bulletproof was the slowest. Interestingly, zk-SNARK proofs verified marginally faster than zk-STARK, contrary to other findings. These insights enhance our understanding of the functionality, security, and performance of NIZKP protocols, providing valuable guidance for selecting the most suitable protocol for specific applications.
Abstract Background The intersection of cryptocurrency, especially Bitcoin, with public health issues, particularly synthetic opioid-related deaths, presents an emerging field of study. This research explores the statistical relationship between Bitcoin market fluctuations and synthetic opioid mortalities, against the backdrop of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) enforcement actions. Methods Utilizing data from 2009 to 2022, this study employs Pearson correlation and linear regression models to investigate the relationship between annual Bitcoin price fluctuations and synthetic opioid-related death rates, alongside DEA domestic arrest trends. Results A pronounced positive correlation (r = 0.92) was found between Bitcoin price changes and synthetic opioid mortality rates, with the Bitcoin price accounting for approximately 84.78% of the variance in opioid-related deaths (R² = 0.8478). The analysis also notes a disparity between increasing synthetic opioid fatalities and decreasing DEA domestic arrests. Conclusions The findings reveal significant correlations between Bitcoin price fluctuations and synthetic opioid-related fatalities, highlighting potential gaps in current drug enforcement strategies. This study underscores the need for an interdisciplinary approach to address the complexities introduced by cryptocurrency in the opioid crisis and suggests the necessity of integrating financial and public health strategies to combat emerging drug abuse trends.
Intelligent Transport System (ITS) offers inter-vehicle communication, safe driving, road condition updates, and intelligent traffic management. This research intends to propose a novel decentralized "BlockAuth" architecture for vehicles, authentication, and authorization, traveling across the border. It is required because the existing architects rely on a single Trusted Authority (TA) for issuing certifications, which can jeopardize privacy and system integrity. Similarly, the centralized TA, if failed, can cause the whole system to collapse. Furthermore, a unique "Proof of Authenticity and Integrity" process is proposed, redirecting drivers/vehicles to their home country for authentication, ensuring the security of their credentials. Implemented with Hyperledger Fabric, BlockAuth ensures secure vehicle authentication and authorization with minimal computational overhead, under 2%. Furthermore, it opens up global access, enforces the principles of separation of duty and least privilege, and reinforces resilience via decentralization and automation.
Vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) aim to provide a comfortable driving experience. Sharing messages in VANETs can help with traffic management, congestion mitigation, and driving safety. However, forged or false messages may undermine the efficiency of VANETs. In this paper, we propose a security scheme based on blockchain technology, where two types of blockchain are constructed based on roadside units (RSUs) and Certificate Authorities (CAs), respectively. The proposed security scheme has multifold goals to identify malicious nodes and detect forged messages based on multiple factors, such as reputation of sender nodes, and time and distance effectiveness of messages. In addition, an incentive mechanism is introduced on the RSU blockchain to encourage RSUs to adopt active behaviors. Extensive simulations show that the proposed scheme exhibits superior performances to existing methods in detecting forged messages and identifying malicious nodes. Meanwhile, it provides privacy protection and improves the efficiency of vehicular networks.
Incentive mechanism is the key to the success of the Bitcoin system as a permissionless blockchain. It encourages participants to contribute their computing resources to ensure the correctness and consistency of user transaction records. Selfish mining attacks, however, prove that Bitcoinâs incentive mechanism is not incentive-compatible, which is contrary to traditional views. Selfish mining attacks may cause the loss of mining power, especially those of honest participants, which brings great security challenges to the Bitcoin system. Although there are a series of studies against selfish mining behaviors, these works have certain limitations: either the existing protocol needs to be modified or the detection effect for attacks is not satisfactory. We propose the ForkDec, a high-accuracy system for selfish mining detection based on the fully connected neural network, for the purpose of effectively deterring selfish attackers. The neural network contains a total of 100 neurons (10 hidden layers and 10 neurons per layer), learned on a training set containing about 200,000 fork samples. The data set, used to train the model, is generated by a Bitcoin mining simulator that we preconstructed. We also applied ForkDec to the test set to evaluate the attack detection and achieved a detection accuracy of 99.03%. The evaluation experiment demonstrates that ForkDec has certain application value and excellent research prospects.
Modern vehicles have evolved to support connected and self-driving capabilities. The concepts such as connected driving, cooperative driving, and intelligent transportation systems have resulted in an increase in the connectivity of vehicles and subsequently created new information security risks. The original vehicular ad-hoc network term is now emerged to a new term, Internet of Vehicles (IoV), which is a typical application of symmetry of Internet of Things (IoT). Vehicle manufacturers address some critical issues such as software bugs or security issues through remote updates, and this gives rise to concerns regarding the security of updated components. Moreover, aftermarket units such as those imposed by transportation authorities or insurance companies expose vehicles to high risk. Software testing aims to ensure that software products are reliable and behave as expected. Many commercial and open-source software products undergo formal certifications to increase usersâ confidence in their accuracy, reliability, and security. There are different techniques for software certification, including test-based certification. Testcase repositories are available to support software testing and certification, such as the Linux Test Project for Linux kernel testing. Previous studies performed various testing and experimental evaluation of different parts of modern vehicles to assess the security risks. Due to the lack of trusted testcase repositories and a common approach for testing, testing efforts are performed individually. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based approach for a testcase repository to support test-based software and security testing and overcome the lack of trusted testcase repositories. The novel concept Proof-of-Validation to manage global state is proposed to manage updates to the repository. The initial work in this study considers the LTP test suite as a use case for the testcase repository. This research work is expected to contribute to the further development in including evidence generation for testing verification.
Modern vehicles are no longer simply mechanical devices. Connectivity between the vehicular network and the outside world has widened the security holes that hackers can use to exploit a vehicular network. Controller Area Network (CAN), FlexRay, and automotive Ethernet are popular protocols for in-vehicle networks (IVNs) and will stay in the industry for many more years. However, these protocols were not designed with security in mind. They have several vulnerabilities, such as lack of message authentication, lack of message encryption, and an ID-based arbitration mechanism for contention resolution. Adversaries can use these vulnerabilities to launch sophisticated attacks that may lead to loss of life and damage to property. Thus, the security of the vehicles should be handled carefully. In this paper, we investigate the security vulnerabilities with in-vehicle network protocols such as CAN, automotive Ethernet, and FlexRay. A comprehensive survey on security attacks launched against in-vehicle networks is presented along with countermeasures adopted by various researchers. Various algorithms have been proposed in the past for intrusion detection in IVNs. However, those approaches have several limitations that need special attention from the research community. Blockchain is a good approach to solving the existing security issues in IVNs, and we suggest a way to improve IVN security based on a hybrid blockchain.
In mass disasters with multinational victims, it is critical to identify the deceased for judicial, ethical, religious and human rights reasons, as well as to allow the next of kin to complete the grieving process. Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) process is a complex procedure where Post-mortem (PM) identifying data, essentially fingerprints, DNA and dental, is collected in order to be compared with equivalent Antemortem (AM) data related to the missing persons list. Although there are solutions used in the field of human identification, they all fall short of equipping them with the tools needed for achieving human identification in a timely manner. Initially, it is significantly challenging to manage missing person lists containing years, and sometimes decades, of family AM data resourcesâ updates. Furthermore, there is currently no record of any holistic technical solutions for managing both AM and PM for human identification to support collaborative multinational and interjurisdictional processes. Blockchain technology provides the tools to facilitate building trustworthy, secure and holistic ecosystems, and it can disseminate siloed AM and PM data across systems, protecting data breaches, redundancies, inconsistencies, and errors. As such, blockchain technology can revolutionize the human identification process worldwide in terms of managing missing person lists, AM data repositories for living people, PM data repositories of recovered unidentified victims, and contribute to the comparison of compatible biological profiles for definitive identification. Using real-world scenarios, the authors propose a number of promising use cases to attain a holistic understanding of the challenges, and present how blockchain technology meets such challenges and facilitates multi-jurisdictional data information-sharing in conjunction with the forthcoming circulation of patientsâ electronic medical and dental records.
Internet and digital technologies have been discussed recently by Addiction contributors in relation to the delivery of efficient computer-delivered brief interventions [1,2], online methodologies for recruiting and surveying illicit drug users [3] and the internet's role in facilitating the spread of information and sale of emerging drugs such as mephedrone [4] and synthetic cannabinoids [5]. Here, I introduce readers to a novel use of the internet in the drugs field. The anonymous online drug market-place Silk Road was first revealed in June 2011 [6]. Silk Road is accessible only to people who are using Tor anonymizing software [7]. Tor uses encryption to make it impossible for anyone to trace IP addresses (the electronic code assigned to each computer on the internet). The front page of Silk Road looks a great deal like the front page of eBay. Goods and services for sale are categorized and all manner of drugs are available under the following categories: ecstasy, cannabis, dissociatives, psychedelics, opioids, stimulants, benzodiazepines and other. Sellers receive ratings from buyers and comments about the quality of their products, how fast they ship and the level of professionalism and discretion of the transaction. Trust in sellers is built on reputation. Silk Road traders use the anonymous currency Bitcoin [8]. This decentralized international currency operates through peer-to-peer technologies. At the time of writing (October 2011), Silk Road is still online and continuing to expand. Facilitated by a combination of the internet and encryption technologies, buying and selling illegal products is now possible and may increase dramatically in the future. What may stop an exponential increase in the use of anonymous online drug market-places is the hurdle of delivery. At the end of the transaction, the physical product still needs to be sent to the buyer. Sending products between countries allows law enforcement the opportunity to intercept packages and potentially attempt to arrest the would-be importer. Sending products within the same country may make arrest less likely. There are also numerous barriers to entry for people who might want to use Silk Road. Installing and using Tor, buying and using Bitcoins in a secure way and taking the risk of fraud or arrest upon delivery may deter the majority of would-be users. Nevertheless, for the minority who master these concerns and are willing to take the risk, Silk Road has revolutionized how the internet can be used to source drugs. After all, buying drugs in the real world also involves considerable risk. For some, the online equivalent may prove more convenient and secure than arranging a standard deal. There are many unanswered questions about Silk Road. The extent to which law enforcement can stop and disband a site such as this is yet to be seen. The extent to which drug users will use this new technology is also unknown. Needless to say, if anonymous online drug markets do end up expanding into mainstream drug markets, they will pose a real challenge to existing drug laws and policies. We should definitely watch this space. None.