Yuzhe Tang, Qiwu Zou, Chen Ju, Kai Li · 7 authors
This work presents ChainFS, a middleware system that secures cloud storage services using a minimally trusted Blockchain. ChainFS hardens the cloud-storage security against forking attacks. The ChainFS middleware exposes a file-system interface to end users. Internally, ChainFS stores data files in the cloud and exports minimal and necessary functionalities to the Blockchain for key distribution and file operation logging. We implement the ChainFS system on Ethereum and S3FS and closely integrate it with FUSE clients and Amazon S3 cloud storage. We measure the system performance and demonstrate low overhead.
Many studies have been done to improve the performance of centrally controlled business processes and enhance the integration between different parties of these collaborations. However, the most serious issues of collaborative business processes remained unsolved in these studies - lack of trust and divided data on various confidential ledgers. Blockchain technology has enormous potential to become a new substantial integration method for untrusted collaborative businesses. Using the governing consensus mechanism, blockchain eliminates the necessity of the trusted third party. It provides a distributed shared ledger which facilitates the job of the process monitoring for the parties. The smart contract, as a crucial tool, is used to define the guaranteed autonomous programs. In addition, the privacy of the data can be ensured by using a permissioned blockchain that handles the access control because, in this way, only verifiable participants can have access to the state of the business process and its related information. In this study, the applicability of execution of a real-world untrusted business process on the permissioned blockchain is investigated. Moreover, we determine the advantages of using the permissioned access-controller blockchain as the infrastructure for the collaborative business processes, through implementing the process of Order Processing on the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain platform.
Using blockchain as a decentralized backend infrastructure has been attracting many startups entrepreneurs' and developers' attention. Blockchain records transactions permanently and protects them from undesirable tampering. It provides a reliable tamper-proof database which can be considered as a trustable resource for tracking previous system's state. In this paper, we present our access control application based on Hyperledger Fabric Blockchain and Hyperledger Composer to control access to physical places. The system components and modular architecture are illustrated, and we have extracted metadata include historian transactions' details arising from our demo test. Finally, the performance metrics and resources consumption are provided using Hyperledger Caliper, a benchmark framework for measuring Hyperledger blockchains performance.
Researchers analyzed 23 blockchain implementation projects, each tracked for design decisions and architectural alignment showing benefits, detriments, or no effects from blockchain use. The results provide the basis for a framework that lets engineers, architects, investors, and project leaders evaluate blockchain technologyâs suitability for a given application. This analysis also led to an understanding of why some domains are inherently problematic for blockchains. Blockchains can be used to solve some trust-based problems but arenât always the best or optimal technology. Some problems that can be solved using them can also be solved using simpler methods that donât necessitate as big an investment.
Gbadebo Ayoade, Vishal Karande, Latifur Khan, Kevin W. Hamlen
Due to the centralization of authority in the management of data generated by IoT devices, there is a lack of transparency in how user data is being shared among third party entities. With the popularity of adoption of blockchain technology, which provide decentralized management of assets such as currency as seen in Bitcoin, we propose a decentralized system of data management for IoT devices where all data access permission is en-forced using smart contracts and the audit trail of data access is stored in the blockchain. With smart contracts applications, multiple parties can specify rules to govern their interactions which is independently enforced in the blockchain without the need for a centralized system. We provide a framework that store the hash of the data in the blockchain and store the raw data in a secure storage platform using trusted execution environment (TEE). In particular, we consider Intel SGX as a part of TEE that ensure data security and privacy for sensitive part of the application (code and data).
Sara Rouhani, Luke Butterworth, Adam D. Simmons, Darryl G. Humphery · 5 authors
The set of distributed ledger architectures known as blockchain is best known for cryptocurrency applications such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. These permissionless block chains are showing the potential to be disruptive to the financial services industry. Their broader adoption is likely to be limited by the maximum block size, the cost of the Proof of Work consensus mechanism, and the increasing size of any given chain overwhelming most of the participating nodes. These factors have led to many cryptocurrency blockchains to become centralized in the nodes with enough computing power and storage to be a dominant miner and validator. Permissioned chains operate in trusted environments and can, therefore, avoid the computationally expensive consensus mechanisms. Permissioned chains are still susceptible to asset storage demands and non-standard user interfaces that will impede their adoption. This paper describes an approach to addressing these limitations: permissioned blockchain that uses off-chain storage of the data assets and this is accessed through a standard browser and mobile app. The implementation in the Hyperledger framework is described as is an example use of patient-centered health data management.
Uchi Ugobame Uchibeke, Kevin A. Schneider, Sara Hosseinzadeh Kassani, Ralph Deters
In recent years, the advancement in modern technologies has not only resulted in an explosion of huge data sets being captured and recorded in different fields, but also given rise to concerns in the security and protection of data during storage, transmission, processing, and access. The blockchain is a distributed ledger that records transactions in a secure, flexible, verifiable and permanent way. Transactions in a blockchain can be an exchange of an asset, the execution of the terms of a smart contract, or an update to a record. In this paper, we have developed a blockchain access control ecosystem that gives asset owners the sovereign right to effectively manage access control of large data sets and protect against data breaches. The Linux Foundation's Hyperledger Fabric blockchain is used to run the business network while the Hyperledger composer modeling tool is used to implement the smart contracts or transaction processing functions that run on the blockchain network.
Deepak K. Tosh, Sachin Shetty, Peter Foytik, Charles Kamhoua · 5 authors
Maintaining data provenance in cloud in a tamper-resistant manner that cannot be breached by malicious parties is a necessity from the current security standpoint. Blockchain technology has emerged as a secure solution to store and share information by offering an immutable distributed ledger service. Its effectiveness hinges on the infrastructure supporting the distributed ledger and consensus protocol that governs the validity of entries in the Blockchain. Hence, Blockchain can be a potential candidate to implement data provenance; however, traditional cryptocurrency-based consensus models become a bottleneck in the cloud environment. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a Blockchain based data provenance architecture (BlockCloud) that incorporates a proof-of-stake (PoS)-based consensus protocol (CloudPoS) for securely recording the data operations occurring in cloud environment. The critical operational phases of the protocol are discussed in depth, which leverages the cloud users' cyber infrastructure resources. A cloud-based testbed environment is created using a local cluster of physical machines managed by Xen hypervisor. Resource elasticity is enabled using Kubernetes setup that interacts with the dockerized containers, which emulate as peers in the Blockchain network. We then evaluate the effectiveness of the protocol in a simulated environment and conduct performance tests of the proposed consensus.
Thomas Locher, Sebastian Obermeier, Yvonne-Anne Pignolet
The functionality that distributed ledger technology provides, i.e., an immutable and fraud-resistant registry with validation and verification mechanisms, has traditionally been implemented with a trusted third party. Due to the distributed nature of ledger technology, there is a strong recent trend towards using ledgers to implement novel decentralized applications for a wide range of use cases, e.g., in the financial sector and sharing economy. While there can be several arguments for the use of a ledger, the key question is whether it can fully replace any single trusted party in the system as otherwise a (potentially simpler) solution can be built around the trusted party. In this paper, we introduce an abstract view on ledger use cases and present two fundamental criteria that must be met for any use case to be implemented using a ledger-based approach without having to rely on any particular party in the system. Moreover, we evaluate several ledger use cases that have recently received considerable attention according to these criteria, revealing that often participants need to trust each other despite using a distributed ledger. Consequently, the potential of using a ledger as a replacement for a trusted party is limited for these use cases.
A blockchain is a datastructure that is an append-only chain of blocks. Each\nblock contains a set of transaction and has a cryptographic link back to\nits predecessor. The cryptographic link serves to protect the integrity of\nthe blockchain. A key property of blockchain systems is that it allows mu-\ntually distrusting entities to reach consensus over a unique order in which\ntransactions are appended. The most common usage of blockchains is in\ncryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.\nIn this thesis we use blockchain technology to design a scalable architec-\nture for a storage system that can provide strong data integrity and ensure the\npermanent availability of the data. We study recent literature in blockchain\nand cryptography to identify the desired characteristics of such a system. In\ncomparison to similar systems, we are able to gain increased performance by\ndesigning ours around a permissioned blockchain, allowing only a predefined\nset of nodes to write to the ledger. A prototype of the system is built on top\nof existing open-source software. An experimental evaluation using different\nquorum sizes of the prototype is also presented.
Bled eConference, organized by University of Maribor, Faculty of Organizational Sciences, has been shaping electronic interactions since 1988. Bled eConference is the oldest, most traditional and well renowned conference in the field with more than 30 years of tradition. The theme of this yearâs conference is dedicated to âDigital Transformation â Meeting the Challengesâ. The evolution of digital technologies and solutions has significantly impacted the way in which business is conducted and have big implications on our lives. Nowadays digital economy calls for transformation of businesses, governments, education and societies as whole. It also calls for enabling policies and politics for cross border and global digital business. In this yearâs conference, we address various aspects of digital transformation and provide directions and guidelines for organizations to meet and overcome these challenges on their way towards successful digital transformation. Themes covered in the papers of these proceedings are focused on: digital transformation; business model innovation; blockchain and social media; big data, data science, and decision support systems; e-health, digital wellness and wellbeing; new applications and organizational models; and novel approaches and cases in education in digital economy.
Jun 1, 2018·2018 5th IEEE International Conference on Cyber Security and Cloud Computing (CSCloud)/2018 4th IEEE International Conference on Edge Computing and Scalable Cloud (EdgeCom)
Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that was introduced to the world in 2008. The underlying technology behind bitcoin as well as the other cryptocurrencies which followed it is blockchain technology. Nowadays, collaborative engineering is gaining tremendous popularity, especially in the information technology industry. In the future, technological giants may have to work with each other to complete large projects of great importance and significance. In such projects, trust management is crucial. With multiple parties involved in such projects, it is important that no party monopolizes the project and adds patches which are not known to the other parties. In addition, no party should have the authority to disclose the full contents of the work to a third party. In this paper, we propose a blockchain based solution to the above issues. The only authentic version of the project would be the one maintained in the blockchain. Collaborators would broadcast the changes they make, and it would be added to the blockchain only after consensus from all parties. We use a threshold key system on private keys so that consensus is achieved. Our proposed system guarantees secure release of the project as well as non-repudiation to collaborators.
In a distributed network environment, companies and institutions have their own sharing resource. To prevent unauthorized users to access these shared resources, cross-domain authentication is necessary. For ensuring the safety and efficiency to access resources in different domain, we propose a blockchain-based cross-domain authentication model called BlockCAM and designed the cross-domain authentication protocol. BlockCAM employs consortium blockchain technology to construct a decentralized network with the root Certificate Authorities as the verification nodes. The hash values of the authorized certificates are stored in each block and the verification process only needs to compare whether the hash calculated by the certificate provided by the user is consistent with the hash stored in the blockchain. The authentication process omits the key encryption and decryption overhead. BlockCAM has the characteristics of decentralization, anonymity and temper-resistant. Analyses show that BlockCAM has the advantage over the existing public key infrastructure (PKI) cross-domain authentication schemes at efficiency.
The Blockchain is evolving as one of the most promising and resourceful technologies of cloud infrastructure security. Blockchain is meant to store, read and validate transactions in a distributed database system. It has the ability to enhance security and confidentiality through undisputable shared distributed ledger on cloud nodes. Tampering of Blockchain is enormously thought-provoking due to the use of cryptographic data structures. In this paper we present Blockchain and compare the various platforms on which blockchain can be implemented. The paper illustrates the use of Blockchain applications for building secure infrastructure of cloud computing.
Blockchain, the underlying technology that powers cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, is gaining so much attention from different industry stakeholders, governments and research communities. Its application is extending beyond cryptocurrencies and has been exploited in different domains such as finance, E-commerce, Internet of Things (IoT), healthcare, and governance. Some key attributes of the technology are decentralization, immutability, security and transparency. This paper aims to describe how permissioned Blockchain can be applied to a specific educational use case - decentralized verification of academic credentials. The proposed Blockchain-based solution, named `CredenceLedger', is a system that stores compact data proofs of digital academic credentials in Blockchain ledger that are easily verifiable for education stakeholders and interested third party organizations.
Healthcare is a big application scenario of blockchain, and blockchains used in healthcare are called health blockchain. In general, blockchain blocks are open and the transactions in them are public. If some privacy data are involved in these transactions, they will be leaked. Owing to healthcare system involving a great deal of privacy data, certain security mechanisms must be built to protect these privacy data in health blockchain. Furthermore, because the core of security mechanisms is the key management schemes, the appropriate key management schemes should be designed before blockchains can be used in healthcare system. Here, according to the features of health blockchain, the authors use a body sensor network to design a lightweight backup and efficient recovery scheme for keys of health blockchain. The authorsâ analyses show that the scheme has high security and performance, and it can be used to protect privacy messages on health blockchain effectively and to promote the application of health blockchain.
Many companies rely on Cloud infrastructures for their computation, communication and data storage requirements. While Cloud services provide some benefits, e.g., replacing high upfront costs for an IT infrastructure with a pay-as-you-go model, they also introduce serious concerns that are notoriously difficult to address. In essence, Cloud customers are storing data and running computations on infrastructures that they can not control directly. Therefore, when problems arise -- violations of Service Level Agreements, data corruption, data leakage, security breaches -- both customers and Cloud providers face the challenge of agreeing on which party is to be held responsible. In this paper, we review the challenges and requirements for enforcing accountability in Cloud infrastructures, and argue that smart contracts and blockchain technologies might provide a key contribution towards accountable Clouds.
Smart contracts that run on blockchains can ensure the transactions are automatically, reliably performed as agreed upon between the participants without a trusted third party. In this work, we propose a smart-contract based algorithm for constructing service-based systems through the composition of existing services.
Blockchains store a massive amount of heterogeneous data which will only grow in time. When searching for data on the Ethereum platform, one is required to either access the records (blocks) directly by using a unique identifier, or sequentially search several records to find the desired information. Therefore, we propose the Ethereum Query Language (EQL), a query language that allows users to retrieve information from the blockchain by writing SQL-like queries. The queries provide a rich syntax to specify data elements to search information scattered through several records. We claim that EQL makes it easier to search, acquire, format, and present information from the blockchain.