Zero-knowledge Proof (ZKP) allows active image authentication to prove image integrity after editing without revealing its source. However, existing ZKP solutions require impractical execution time, leaving a considerable gap between theory and practice. To tackle this, we present a Region-Aware Photo Assurance System based on the nature of image editing with privacy: sensitive information is usually local and relatively small, and thus by cropping and/or adding mosaic to these small regions suffices to protect privacy. Using ZKP for the locally edited region and digital signature for the others can still ensure the integrity of an image, with significantly better efficiency. We comprehensively analyzed the system's performance and showed the advantage of our system compared with the state-of-the-art ZKP-based method, PhotoProof, with 15x/60xfaster on the KeyGen/Proof operations and 25x lower in the Proof size. Furthermore, we protect several real-world images selected in the Redaction dataset with our system. Our system achieves up to 2,700x faster than PhotoProof for a proof generation. We expect the system can become a practical system for real-world applications.
Digital Media Forensic Detection
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
In order to solve the problems of copyrights infringement, high cost and complex process of rights protection in current media convergence center, a digital rights management system based on blockchain technology and IPFS (Inter Planetary File System) technology is proposed. Considering that large files such as video and audio cannot be stored on the blockchain directly, IPFS technology is adopted as the data expansion scheme for the data storage layer of the Ethereum platform, IPFS protocol is further used for distributed data storage and transmission of media content. In addition, smart contract is also used to uniquely identify digital rights through NFT (Non-fungible Tokens), which provides the characteristics of digital rights transferability and traceability, and realizes an open, transparent, tamper-proof and traceable digital rights management system for media convergence center. Several experimental results show that it has higher transaction success rate, lower storage consumption and transaction confirmation delay than existing scheme.
Open access
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
In day-to-day life, everyone is concerned about their security and privacy, and their concern becomes more when it comes to transactions. The technology behind blockchain is quite young. Its efficiency and usefulness have led to claims that it may usher in a new era of breakthrough applications. Technology for digitally encrypting data transfers is fundamental to the blockchain's operation. Protecting the privacy of blockchain users and their transactions is crucial to the technology's success. Hash functions are a crucial component of the blockchain's underlying data structure, guaranteeing both its scalability and security. The blockchain's security may be assessed by analyzing the hash functions it employs in light of several security criteria. This article provides a primer on blockchain, covering such subjects as the technology's function, practical applications, and more. The cryptographic hash functions are introduced briefly, such as whirlpool, MD (message digest), RIPEMD, SHA (secure hash algorithm), BLAKE, etc. The paper concludes with the comparative results. Simulation results demonstrate that the different cryptographic hash algorithms outperform in terms of all the evaluation metrics, such as frequency and throughput.
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Chaos-based Image/Signal Encryption
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Eva Chovancová, Martin Chovanec, Norbert Ádám, Ján Hurtuk
Online voting is a topic that companies have been dealing with for many years. Several countries tried and are still trying to implement such voting system instead of a classical paper election system we know the most nowadays, as it brings many advantages. Blockchain technology became known to people mainly thanks to the Bitcoin cryptocurrency which was created in 2008. Blockchain presented a new solution that was almost ideal for voting purposes. With the use of blockchain, the security and reliability of online voting systems has also increased over time. Voting became transparent. The work focuses on the development of an online voting management system built on such blockchain technology. The introductory part is focused on the blockchain technology and online voting. The work focuses on the design and implementation of a system based on the blockchain technology which allows the administrator to create new votes, start them and stop them.
Internet Traffic Analysis and Secure E-voting
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
This article discusses Ethereum Ghost Protocol, a technology that promises faster mining speeds. The Ghost protocol enables different crypto miners to create valid blocks concurrently. The article explains why the protocol reduces the delay in traditional blockchains through stale or uncle blocks. It explains why the Ghost Protocol is faster than Bitcoin. It also introduces areas in which Ethereum Ghost Protocol can work, such as insecure environments and Internet of Things (IoT). Besides, the paper defines centralization bias and explains how the Ghost Protocol solves the problem. Since the Ghost Protocol is decentralized and stores information in multiple nodes, it is more secure. Besides, it is scalable and saves storage space. Despite these benefits, this paper discusses two significant challenges, including slow transactions and difficulties in coding. However, the Ghost protocol will enhance cryptocurrency due to the ease of mining, enhanced security, and other benefits to miners. Overall, the paper suggests the need to embrace the Ghost protocol in the blockchain.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
With the advent of decentralised digital currencies powered by blockchain technology, a new era of peer-to-peer transactions has commenced. The rapid growth of the cryptocurrency economy has led to increased use of transaction-enabling wallets, making them a focal point for security risks. As the frequency of wallet-related incidents rises, there is a critical need for a systematic approach to measure and evaluate these attacks, drawing lessons from past incidents to enhance wallet security. In response, we introduce a multi-dimensional design taxonomy for existing and novel wallets with various design decisions. We classify existing industry wallets based on this taxonomy, identify previously occurring vulnerabilities and discuss the security implications of design decisions. We also systematise threats to the wallet mechanism and analyse the adversary's goals, capabilities and required knowledge. We present a multi-layered attack framework and investigate 84 incidents between 2012 and 2024, accounting for $5.4B. Following this, we classify defence implementations for these attacks on the precautionary and remedial axes. We map the mechanism and design decisions to vulnerabilities, attacks, and possible defence methods to discuss various insights.
Open access
5 source records
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
FinTech, Crowdfunding, Digital Finance
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Hala Saeed, Mahmoud Elsisi, Tamer O. Diab, Wageda I. El Sobky · 6 authors
This paper introduces the process of digital signatures and their importance in smart contracts. There are a lot of digital signature algorithms. Some of these algorithms, such as Elgamal algorithm, Schnorr algorithm and Elliptic Curve algorithm, are suitable and efficient to be used in some applications, such as smart contracts and achieve high security andgood results. Schnorr was described by Claus Schnorr. It is based on the intransigence of specific discrete logarithm problems and is renowned for its simplicity. Elgamal algorithm was developed in 1984. It has quick performance, low power consumption, and is resistant to adaptively chosen-cipher text attacks. The Curve signature was developed in 1985. It has a performance that is quicker than Elgamal algorithm. Also, it consumes less power than Elgamal algorithm, and it is more resistant to different types of attacks. On the other hand, others are slow and have low security.
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) aggregates a series of smart medical devices and fully uses the collected health data to improve user experience, medical resource utilization, and full life cycle protection. However, privacy leakage, data loss, and inefficient sharing problems are still serious in the data-sharing process between different smart medical devices. This article first introduces an efficient privacy-preserving model with blockchain to construct a secure data-sharing mechanism between different device nodes. This model utilizes distributed storage form to solve the centralized management problem and provides a fundamental secret reconstruction and retrieval framework. Then, a lightweight$(t,n)$-threshold secret sharing$(t/n$-SS) scheme is designed to strengthen the medical data-sharing security and efficiency. It utilizes the interleaving encode technology to decrease the length of original message into$n$small shares. These small shares are also suitable for data transmission and processing with a more energy-efficient way. It can protect privacy by destroying the data’s semantic meaning. Meanwhile, it only needs less than$t (t\leq n)$shares to recover the original secrets, making the sharing process more efficient. Moreover, the performance evaluations of transaction processing in IoMT show that the proposed model is very stable. The simulation and performance evaluation results show that this$t/n$-SS scheme is energy efficient, storage saving, and strong fault tolerance than similar literature.
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Gyu Chol Kim, Gang Han, Ryong Chol Kim, Yong Bok Jong · 7 authors
We propose a single-tiered hybrid proof-of-work consensus protocol to encourage decentralization in bitcoin. Our new mechanism comprises coupled puzzles from which properties differ from each other; the one is the extant outsourceable bitcoin puzzle while the other is nonoutsourceable. Our new protocol enables miners to solve either puzzle as they want; therefore, blocks can be generated by either puzzle. Our hybrid consensus can be successfully implemented in bitcoin because it is backward-compatible with existing bitcoin mining equipment (more precisely, existing bitcoin mining ASICs).
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Cryptography and Data Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Blockchain is a decentralized transaction and data management technology first developed for the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. Blockchain technology is gaining popularity due to its core attributes which provides security, anonymity and data integrity without any involvement of third party. Consensus mechanism is a procedure by which all peers in the blockchain network agrees to a common agreement on the current state of the distributed ledger. It plays vital role in increasing efficiency of any blockchain environment. Though we have many consensus mechanisms working currently in different areas but they still lack in parameters like status of validators, latency, node failure etc. In Our proposed algorithm Proof of credibility, we have tried to incorporate all above factors in it. We have also implemented two or more factors of proposed algorithm and have evaluated and compared with existing consensus algorithm. In future research we aim to implement RPoC in any blockchain network and then we will evaluate it in terms of different evaluation parameters such as performance, security, scalability.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Patient clinical information is critical information for a well-being application. Clinical information regularly assumes a significant part in illness examination and is ensnared in persuading values for instructing symptomatic techniques and altering analytic outcomes. Privacy of patient well-being reports is more significant, furthermore, subsequently, specialists have considered numerous safety efforts, counting access control, classification, and uprightness of these records. To take care of the security issue, this paper presents a high-level arrangement in light of changing over clinical information into minimized size, as a watermark before being sent on Blockchain. Along these lines, difficult tasks will be securely performed off-chain, like gathering and preprocessing patient information, while accommodation of this information is finished on an hourly premise chain. We suggest an information stream design that consolidates the IoT with blockchain using the Ethereum platform, utilizing brilliant agreements to access and store information against many assaults. The proposed model is successful in sharing and overseeing patient electronic well-being information. The tests need to be carried out on Ethereum chain arrangements on laptops, and desktops.
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Data security and sharing remains nuisance among many applications like business data, medical data, banking data etc. In this research, block chain technology is built with encryption algorithm for high level data security in cloud storage. Medical data security seems critical aspect due to sensitivity of patient’s information. Unauthorized access of medical data creates major issue to patients. This article proposed block chain with hybrid encryption technique for securing medical data stored in block chain model at cloud storage. New Two fish encryption model is implemented based on RSA Multiple Precision Arithmetic (MPA). MPA works by using library concept. The objective of using this methodology is to enhance security performance with less execution time. Patient data is processed by encryption algorithm and stored at blockchain infrastructure using encrypted key. Access permission allows user to read or write the medical data attached in block chain framework. The performance of traditional cryptographic techniques is very less in providing security infrastructure. Proposed blockchain based Two fish encryption technique provides high security in less encryption and decryption time.
Liam Scholte, Rui Wang, Kwok K. Chung, Michał Aibin
Condominiums and similar properties use a stratum to manage daily operations, and owners fund it through strata fees. While existing strata fee management systems may be able to handle such funds, such systems could be more inherently transparent. It is possible to leverage the digital ledger from blockchain networks and smart contracts to build a fully transparent strata fee management system. This paper proposes designing a strata fee management system based on a smart contract in the Ethereum network. Both strata corporations and homeowners can interact with the smart contract to execute common procedures such as paying strata fees and handling expenses. Using smart contracts for strata fee management, it is believed that the chance of fraud by strata corporations is lowered compared to other systems.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Maurantonio Caprolu, Elmahdi Bentafat, Spiridon Bakiras, Roberto Di Pietro
In this paper we propose UBIC, a novel blockchain-less architecture that preserves the main advantages of classic cryptocurrencies while avoiding their pitfalls. The proposed construction is general-that is, UBIC can be adopted at par with any other cryptocurrency-though UBIC also satisfies the requirements to support state-sponsored financial services, like Universal Basic Income and Central Bank Digital Currency. Indeed, UBIC stands for Universal Basic Income Coin, to highlight one of its most straightforward use-cases. One of the key features of UBIC is that every user participating in the protocol gets fair and equal access to the rewards, regardless of the available resources, e.g., computational power or financial stake. Moreover, by leveraging standard cryptographic techniques, such as homomorphic encryption and verifiable random functions, UBIC ensures full user privacy and trust in the network, while enjoying a highly scalable architecture. Our experimental results confirm the feasibility of the proposed architecture and demonstrate that UBIC is very efficient in terms of transaction verification time. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first blockchain-less cryptocurrency proposal. Other than being interesting on its own, and being particularly fit to support UBI and Central Bank Digital Currency, the architectural solutions and the technical choices discussed in this contribution have the potential to generate high impact and further research in the field.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Cryptography and Data Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
The scale and scope of using IoT has had a rapid growth over the past few years. This growth has raised security and cost challenges of using IoT smart devices in large scale. In this research, we propose a comprehensive framework that addresses these challenges using cryptographic systems and blockchain NFTs. We analyze the credibility and scalability of our framework. In our proposed framework, we securely authenticate IoT devices and bind them to blockchain Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). To uniquely bind each IoT device to an NFT, we use the device's physical unclonable function (PUF). The link between the NFT and the device is difficult to break and can be traced anytime. Our framework also authenticates the device's acquired data using the device's PUF and securely stores the authenticated data on the blockchain. We use an approach that significantly reduces the blockchain costs and analyze it in large scale. Our analysis show that our framework is a secure and cost-effective solution for large-scale IoT authentication and data storage.
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Aggelos Kiayias, Cristopher Moore, Saad Quader, Alexander Russell
We describe and analyze a simple protocol for$n$parties that implements a randomness beacon: a sequence of high entropy values, continuously emitted at regular intervals, with sub-linear communication per value. The algorithm can tolerate a$(1-\epsilon)/2$fraction of the$n$players to be controlled by an adaptive adversary that may deviate arbitrarily from the protocol. The randomness mechanism relies on verifiable random functions (VRF), modeled as random functions, and effectively stretches an initial$\lambda$-bit seed to an arbitrarily long public sequence so that (i) with overwhelming probability in k-the security parameter-each beacon value has high min-entropy conditioned on the full history of the algorithm, and (ii) the total work and communication required per value is$O(k)$cryptographic operations. The protocol can be directly applied to provide a qualitative improvement in the security of several proof-of-stake blockchain algorithms, rendering them safe from “grinding” attacks.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Cryptography and Data Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Mirza Kamrul Bashar Shuhan, Tariqul Islam, Enam Ahmed Shuvo, Faisal Haque Bappy · 6 authors
Over the past two decades, the popularity of messaging systems has increased both in enterprise and consumer level. Many of these systems used secure protocols like end-to-end encryption to ensure strong security features such as “future secrecy” for one-to-one communication. However, the majority of them rely on centralized servers owned by big IT companies, which allows them to use their users’ personal data. Also it allows the government to track and regulate their citizens’ activities, which poses significant threats to “digital freedom”. Also, these systems have failed to achieve security attributes like confidentiality, integrity, privacy, and future secrecy for group communications. In this paper, we present a novel blockchain-based secure messaging system named Quarks that overcomes the security pitfalls of the existing systems and eliminates the centralized control. We have analyzed our design of the system with security models and definitions from existing literature to demonstrate the system’s reliability and usability. We have developed a Proof of Concept (PoC) of the Quarks system leveraging Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), and conducted load testing on that. We noticed that our PoC system achieves all the desired attributes that are prevalent in a traditional centralized messaging scheme despite the limited capacity of the development and testing environment. Therefore, this assures us the applicability of such systems in near future if scaled up properly.
Open access
2 source records
cs.CR
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency that uses ryptography for security and operates independently of a entral bank. Its decentralized nature allows for secure and transparent transactions, making it an appealing alternative to traditional fiat currencies. Cryptocurrencies uses block chain technology, which is a distributed ledger that records all transactions on a network of computers. Bit coin was the first cryptocurrency to gain widespread attention, but today there are thousands of different crypto currencies with varying degrees of popularity and acceptance. Despite their potential benefits, cryptocurrencies are subject to volatility, regulatory uncertainty, and security risks, which have led to debates about their future role in the global economy. In this paper we are going to discuss different fraud prospects in cryptocurrency investment faces by users. Here we are listed possible scams happened in past and possibilities in future with cryptocurrency fund. Even we tried to discuss recent available detection & prevention methods for such scams. With the help of our future research perspective we are planning to provide technique to prevent such different scams and saving our valuable money.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Blockchain, as the basis for cryptocurrencies, has recently garnered significant attention. It is a type of immutable distributed ledger technology with key features including decentralization, anti-tampering, transparency, anonymity, and contract-autonomy. These attributes enable transactions to be conducted credibly within a decentralized environment. Such features are instrumental in enhancing services and driving the advancement of blockchain-based applications. The proliferation of blockchain-based applications across various sectors such as financial services, reputation systems, Internet of Things (IoT), among others is evident. However, there remain numerous challenges associated with blockchain technology such as scalability and security that require resolution. This article presents a comprehensive overview of blockchain technology and its applications. It begins by outlining the evolution of blockchain before providing an architectural overview and systematically reviewing the research and application of blockchain technology in diverse fields (including federated learning, reinforcement learning, cloud edge computing, intelligent transportation, power systems, and IoT) from both academic research and industry perspectives. Additionally highlighted are technical challenges alongside recent developments. Finally concluded are some challenges and future directions pertaining to the application of blockchain technology as well as broader perspectives for further study. Received: 24 July 2023 | Revised: 15 September 2023 | Accepted: 10 October 2023 Conflicts of Interest The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to this work. Data Availability Statement Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study. Author Contribution Statement Min An: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Formal analysis, Writing — original draft, Writing — review & editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition. Qiyuan Fan: Methodology, Resources, Supervision. Hao Yu: Methodology. Bo An: Conceptualization, Software, Data curation. Nannan Wu: Conceptualization, Data curation, Visualization, Project administration. Haiyang Zhao: Methodology, Validation, Resources. Xinhao Wan: Validation, Investigation. Jiaxuan Li: Validation, Investigation. Rui Wang: Validation, Investigation. Jingyu Zhen: Software, Formal analysis. Qinyan Zou: Software, Formal analysis. Bin Zhao: Software, Formal analysis.
Digital forensics has intelligently evolved into cloud forensics, which protects against cybercrime. However, centralized evidence gathering and maintenance reduces the credibility of digital evidence. This article suggests a unique digital forensic architecture for the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud combining rapidly expanding Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Blockchain technologies to address this serious issue. Blockchain helps to store the gathered evidence, which means it is shared among many peers in the proposed forensic architecture. The Secure-Ring-Verification-based Authentication (SRVA) technique is recommended to ensure security from suspicious accounts. The Harmony Search Optimization (HSO) technique helps to produce secret keys that strengthen the cloud environment. Depending on their level of sensitivity, all information is encrypted and kept on a cloud server. Sensitive Aware Deep Elliptic Curve Cryptography (SAD-ECC) method was used for encryption. In the cloud, a piece of information is saved, and the SDN manager creates the blocks and stores the history of that piece of data as metadata. Utilizing Secure Hashing Algorithm-3 (SHA-3), a Merkle Hash Tree is constructed for each block. The proposed technology uses Fuzzy-based Smart Contracts (FSCs) to enable clients to trail their data. At last, evidence analysis is made possible by creating a Logical-Graph of Evidence (LGoE) using data collected through Blockchain. The network simulator-3.26 and java (for cloud and Blockchain) environment are used for experiments. A thorough investigation shows that the suggested forensic architecture exhibits favorable response, evidence insertion, and verification times.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Smart contracts refer to small programs that run in a decentralized blockchain infrastructure. The blockchain system is trustless, and the determination of common variables is done by consensus between peers. Developing applications that require generating random variables becomes significantly challenging—for instance, lotteries, games, and random assignments. Many random number generators (RNGs) for smart contracts have been developed for the decentralized environment. The methods can be classified into three categories: on-chain RNG, Verifiable Random Function (VRF), and the Commit–reveal scheme. Although the existing methods offer different strengths and weaknesses, none achieves the three important requirements for an ideal RNG solution: security, applicability, and cost efficiency. This paper proposes a novel RNG approach called Native VRF, which offers application development simplicity and cost efficiency while maintaining strong RNG security properties. Experimental results show that Native VRF has the same security properties as the widely used RNG methods, i.e., Randao and Chainlink VRF. On top of that, our work offers a much simpler setup process and lower hardware resources and developer expertise requirements. Most importantly, the proposed Native VRF is compatible with all Ethereum virtual machine (EVM) blockchains, contributing to the overall growth of the blockchain ecosystem.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Anton Wahrstätter, Matthew D. Solomon, Ben DiFrancesco, Vitalik Buterin · 5 authors
Stealth addresses represent an approach to enhancing privacy within public and distributed blockchains, such as Ethereum and Bitcoin. Stealth address protocols employ a distinct, randomly generated address for the recipient, thereby concealing interactions between entities. In this study, we introduce BaseSAP, an autonomous base-layer protocol for embedding stealth addresses within the application layer of programmable blockchains. BaseSAP expands upon previous research to develop a modular protocol for executing unlinkable transactions on public blockchains. BaseSAP allows for the development of additional stealth address layers using different cryptographic algorithms on top of the primary implementation, capitalizing on its modularity. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed protocol, we present simulations of an advanced Secp256k1-based dual-key stealth address protocol. This protocol is developed on top of BaseSAP and deployed on the Ethereum test network as the first prototype implementation. Furthermore, we provide cost analyses and underscore potential security ramifications and attack vectors that could affect the privacy of stealth addresses. Our study highlights the flexibility of the BaseSAP protocol and provides insights into the broader implications of stealth address technology in the realm of blockchain privacy.