Atish Peshattiwar, A. P. Mohanraj, Anand Gerald A, Dharmalingam S · 6 authors
Blockchain Technology in Supply Chain Management Blockchain can help scale to preparedness and enhance scalability, transparency, interoperability, security, and cost-efficiency. Existing implementations are facing significant challenges, such as considerable computational expense, scalability constraints, issues with interoperability, energy waste, and regulatory compliance. In response, this research presents a next-gen blockchain framework leveraging hybrid blockchain architectures, AI-integrated smart contracts, green consensus algorithms, and cross-platform interoperability strategies to bridge the gaps of the existing systems. In this paper, we present an architecture that incorporates Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKP), Homomorphic Encryption, and Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) for upholding data transparency and privacy without compromising on regulatory compliance. Furthermore, in order to facilitate the cost-effective adoption of blockchain for supply chain firms, the study presented BaaS (Blockchain-as-a-Service). AI-powered adaptive smart contracts to automate logistics operations in real-time are also included in the framework. This research proves that the proposed blockchain framework helps to increase the supply chain security level, decrease operational costs, improve transaction efficiency, and conformity with the regulations of global trade through the case study analysis and simulation testing approaches. The outcome indicates the comparative analysis demonstrating the improvement– a 40% reduction in latency, a 30% decrease in computational costs, and a 50% higher transaction processing speed compared to the existing blockchain technologies with respect to hybrid blockchain model. This research addresses major roadblocks to significant adoption of blockchain, and provides a robust, cost-efficient, and privacy-protective, scalable blockchain solution which can guarantee resilience and transparency of supply chain in current-day logistics networks.
The rapid proliferation of digital financial assets heightens companies’ need for verifiable transparency of operations and timely control, while a gap persists in corporate practice between the use of digital tools and audit maturity, which is especially evident among enterprises of the agro-industrial complex. The aim of the study is to substantiate an approach to auditing and the provability of transactions with digital assets through a combination of cryptographic methods and continuous monitoring aimed at reducing financial and operational risks. The methodological basis includes a comparative analysis of traditional and streaming control procedures, statistical assessment of inspection frequency, anomaly-detection latency, and transaction coverage, as well as qualitative risk appraisal considering the applicability of distributed ledgers, digital signatures, multisignatures, and confidential zero-knowledge proofs. The results have been obtained confirming the advantage of continuous auditing of key metrics, the proportion of operations being audited increases to almost complete coverage, which is accompanied by more frequent detection of violations as a result of better observability of processes. It is established that blockchain provides high traceability and immutability of records; however, overall risk remains dependent on vulnerabilities in key-storage infrastructure and the quality of smart-contract configuration; therefore, organizational regulations for segregation of duties, backup procedures, and staff training are required. The scientific novelty is expressed in integrating cryptographic verification with streaming control as a unified provability framework, in which the digital record is treated as a verifiable artifact and a source of real-time audit evidence. The practical significance lies in proposing a set of implementation rules that help synchronize accounting and control, increase trust among investors and regulators, reduce relative losses from fraud, and lay the groundwork for subsequent automation of consistency tests and visual analytics for managerial decision-making.
Online voting promises greater convenience and accessibility, but moving from supervised polling places to unsupervised settings magnifies the risk of coercion and vote buying. A compelling strategy is to give voters fake credentials: credentials that look and behave like real voting credentials but whose ballots are silently excluded from the tally. Despite its conceptual appeal, practical realizations and usability evidence for fake credentials have remained limited. This dissertation presents Votegral, the first end-to-end verifiable, coercion-resistant online voting system with empirical evidence towards practical usability. Votegral has two components: TRIP and VLT. TRIP is a trust-limited, in-person registration scheme that issues voters a real credential and any number of fake credentials on paper, without trusted hardware. TRIP embeds an interactive zero-knowledge proof into the physical printing process so that real credentials carry sound proof transcripts while fake credentials carry identically formatted but unsound proof transcripts -- distinguishable only by the voter during issuance and not transferable thereafter. VLT is a tallying scheme that constrains ballots to registrar-issued credentials to enable linear-time filtering of fake ballots. VLT also introduces standing votes: a voter facing extreme coercion can, at registration, delegate their voting rights to a publicly registered political party and leave the booth with only fake credentials. Tallying then credits the party's ballot by the number of such delegations and publishes publicly auditable proofs, resulting in both transparency and coercion evidence -- evidence that an aggregate number of voters felt unsafe to leave the registrar with a real credential. Our prototype tallies 1 million ballots in about 14 hours on a 128 core, 256 GB RAM machine; this puts Votegral on par with modern end-to-end verifiable systems such as Swiss Post, while significantly outperforming prior JCJ-style systems such as Civitas. TRIP's end-to-end, voter-observable registration session completes in under 20 seconds on resource-constrained hardware. In our main user study with 150 demographically diverse participants recruited in Boston, Massachusetts, 83% successfully registered and cast a ballot in our mock election. Among the 120 participants exposed to fake credentials, 96% correctly understood the purpose of fake credentials. These promising results suggest a path for practical viability of coercion-resistant, end-to-end verifiable online voting using fake credentials.
The digitization of healthcare information has expanded access to medical data while raising concerns about its security, authenticity, and trustworthiness. This paper explores the role of digital certificates in addressing these challenges, focusing on their potential to verify the credibility of health information and protect sensitive data. It begins with a theoretical overview, emphasizing the importance of certificates in ensuring data authenticity and integrity, particularly in compliance with regulations such as the GDPR.The analysis examines current certificate models like HONcode and PIF TICK, highlighting their limitations in public awareness and practical application. Innovative technologies such as blockchain and zero-knowledge proofs are identified as promising tools for enhancing the security and traceability of health information. Blockchain’s immutability and decentralized verification capabilities, combined with patient-controlled data access via smart contracts, underscore its potential in fostering trust and compliance with privacy standards.The paper outlines essential certification requirements, including technical efficiency through machine learning, content accuracy based on scientific validation, and process transparency. Furthermore, user-centric approaches are emphasized to enhance certificate accessibility and public trust. The study also examines parallels in other industries, such as food and finance, which employ rigorous certification systems for safety and reliability.Ultimately, this research advocates for a hybrid certification model combining automated and expert-driven processes. By leveraging modern technologies and interdisciplinary practices, such a model can address the dual goals of ensuring high-quality health information and fostering user trust in the digital healthcare landscape.
Digital supply chain payments increasingly rely on automated and distributed platforms, yet existing solutions struggle to balance transparency with the confidentiality required by commercial and financial stakeholders. While blockchain-based smart contracts enable tamper-evident settlement and traceability, they often expose sensitive transaction metadata, contractual terms, and risk indicators, limiting adoption in multi-party supply chain environments. This paper presents a privacy-preserving smart and secure contract framework for digital supply chain payments that separates correctness verification from information disclosure. The proposed model combines a permissioned or consortium blockchain with off-chain encrypted data storage, cryptographic commitment schemes, and zero-knowledge proofs to ensure that payment obligations, milestone fulfillment, and financing conditions can be verified without revealing proprietary business details. Tokenized payment obligations represent invoices and receivables on the ledger, while milestone-based smart contracts coordinate delivery confirmation, early financing, dispute resolution, and settlement. Sensitive financial data and documents remain off-chain, anchored to the ledger only through hashes, commitments, and succinct proofs. Optional confidential computing components further enable secure evaluation of dynamic pricing or credit logic. A comprehensive security analysis demonstrates resistance to unauthorized state modification, double financing, insider misuse, and inference attacks under both honest-but-curious and malicious adversary models. Performance evaluation shows that the computational and communication overhead introduced by privacy-preserving mechanisms remains practical for real-world supply chain payment workflows, with low latency, efficient storage growth, and scalable operation across multi-tier ecosystems. The results indicate that the proposed framework provides a viable foundation for secure, privacy-aware, and auditable digital supply chain finance.
Cryptography has been essential in securing communication and safeguarding sensitive information since ancient times. This paper offers a thorough review of the evolution of cryptographic techniques, tracing their journey from early encryption methods like Egyptian hieroglyphs, the Spartan scytale, and the Caesar cipher, to contemporary advancements in quantum-resistant security. The study emphasizes the shift from classical cryptographic methods, such as substitution and transposition ciphers, to advanced mathematical algorithms like AES, RSA, and ECC, which have significantly enhanced data security in today's digital landscape. The paper also examines key milestones in the history of cryptography, including the widespread adoption of cryptographic standards in the 20th century, the emergence of public-key cryptography, and the implications of quantum computing on existing security frameworks. Furthermore, it discusses modern cryptographic innovations, such as blockchain technology, homomorphic encryption, post-quantum cryptography, zero-knowledge proofs, and quantum key distribution, which are influencing the future of secure communications. A comparative analysis of classical, modern, and emerging cryptographic techniques is provided, highlighting their strengths, weaknesses, and applications across various fields like finance, healthcare, and cyber-security. The paper concludes by addressing future directions in cryptographic research, underscoring the necessity for resilient and scalable security solutions to combat evolving cyber threats. This review serves as a valuable resource for researchers, cyber-security professionals, and policymakers looking for insights into the historical development and future direction of cryptographic technologies.
The reproducibility of scientific simulations is one of the key challenges of scientific research. Current best practices involve version-controlled code, tracking dependencies, specifying hardware configurations, and sometimes using Docker containers to enable one-click simulation setups. However, these approaches still fall short of achieving true reproducibility. For example, Docker depends on the underlying host kernel, and high-performance computing (HPC) codes often link with specific kernel modules and headers. Over time, changes in host kernel versions can render Dockerized simulations unusable. Furthermore, non-deterministic simulations, such as Monte Carlo methods, may not yield identical results even when rerun on the same hardware with the same code.This talk explores the potential of blockchain technology to address these challenges. By running simulations natively on-chain (via smart contracts) and emitting logs of each state transition, we can achieve reproducibility while also verifying the simulation's authenticity (associating the original author of the simulation and the reporting author).Other potential ideas include using zero-knowledge proofs to hash the call stack and the stack memory into a Merkle tree or also to think about the tokenisation of compute.We will delve into the technical feasibility and potential benefits of this approach, including its implications for trust, transparency, and the future of scientific research.
Jamil Raja, D Hema Ruba, Sai Krishna, K Manasa · 6 authors
Blockchain technology has become a disruptive force that is quickly reshaping supply chain management by providing greater transparency, security, and efficiency. As promising as the Blockchain is, previous research fails to provide solutions for bringing Blockchain into real-world practice, for getting it up to mass scale, and for ensuring that it meets the regulators’ requirements and these factors limit a more widespread adoption of Blockchain. By offering a review of blockchain-based supply chain management initiatives, their pros and cons, and addressing under-researched topics related to optimized consensus mechanisms, interoperability solutions, and AI-driven solutions integration, this research fills the gaps to decrease inefficiencies in supply chains. As part of the latter, the study presents zero-knowledge proofs, decentralized identity verification and cross-chain protocols as potential solutions to address security concerns and enhance interoperability among multiple chains. Also, a deeper implementation roadmap is provided, enabling pragmatic applicability in real business operations across the global supply chain. By analyzing cases, the study emphasizes the practical contributions of blockchain in traceability, fraud prevention, inventory optimization, and automated contract execution. The results highlight blockchain as a scalable, secure, and legally compliant technology for solving modern supply chain problems, filling the gap between theory and practical adoption.