Online Social Networks (OSN) have progressed exponentially in terms of both participants and data being shared on the OSN. The OSN is more prevalent, and user profile on OSN has become the second identity in users’ life. The most popular and widely used OSN (i.e., Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) is built on a centralized architecture. The centralized OSN is designed around a centralized server, and users’ data are stored on the server. The centralized OSN poses the risk of a single point of failure, disclosure of sensitive information, and the user has little control over their sensitive data. The distributed OSNs are designed as a solution to single-point-of-failure and data privacy problems. However, it adduces inefficiencies in delivering essential functionalities such as unique identity distribution, data availability and access control services. This research work proposes a novel blockchain-based decentralized OSN (BDOSN) framework. The proposed BDOSN framework ensures data solitude and integrity of data. It also attains confirmable identity for the user and provides friends’ recommendations. Two smart contracts are designed to achieve useful functionalities in this research work. The potentiality of the proposed BDOSN scheme is implemented as an exemplification on solidity-Ethereum-blockchain using our dataset and publicly available data sets. The outcome of experiment illustrate the efficiency and validity of the proposed BDOSN.
Dec 1, 2022·2022 IEEE 24th Int Conf on High Performance Computing & Communications; 8th Int Conf on Data Science & Systems; 20th Int Conf on Smart City; 8th Int Conf on Dependability in Sensor, Cloud & Big Data Systems & Application (HPCC/DSS/SmartCity/DependSys)
Ran Lingqin, Peng Changgen, Dequan Xu, Tan Weijie · 5 authors
Statistical analysis of medical and health data is an important task. However, due to privacy limitations, existing privacy protection systems cannot balance data availability and privacy, that is, ensure data availability while preventing patient privacy leakage. As a distributed ledger shared among nodes of a computer network, blockchain unique feature can provide a powerful security and privacy protection for user data, and homomorphic encryption can be directly to manipulate the characteristics of the ciphertext to ensure the availability of data and privacy, combining both this study proposes a blockchain node classification scheme based on homomorphic encryption. To evaluate the data privacy security on the blockchain, specifically, we store transaction data according to the node classification through the improved Paillier algorithm and node classification, evaluate the risks of the blockchain, and compare the data privacy and security before and after homomorphic encryption. Finally, the feasibility and effectiveness of the algorithm are verified by simulation experiments.
V. Anitha, Orlando Juan Márquez, R. Sudharsan, S. Yoganandan · 5 authors
The aim of this paper is to create a decentralized transparent voting and analysis system that can be implemented with blockchain to provide an efficient and highly secure justifiable method of election systems in countries where traditional physical voting with gameable securities is used, increasing the chances of rigged elections. This system is designed to focus on a secure voting system, lower costs, faster wait times, no disparities due to various erroneous proxies, high scalability, and geographic independence. Overall, an effective election mechanism to strengthen the democratic process. The proposed dApp allows voters to vote from the comfort of their own homes, saving time and reducing the number of false votes registered.
Over the past few years, Ethereum has surfaced as a widely adopted standard Blockchain platform that is increasingly being utilized to develop Decentralized Applications (DApps). By introducing Smart Contracts to software developers and programmers, Ethereum has triggered the development of countless Blockchain solutions. Among its main applications, many involve the exchange of valuable financial assets. Simply put, we cannot afford to base our Blockchain solutions or applications on potentially vulnerable smart contracts. This is where the Security Analysis Tools come into picture, for the timely detection of vulnerabilities in the Smart Contracts. Since this is a recent phenomenon, it offers a lot of research opportunities for us to contribute towards improving the existing state of security analysis tools and resolving their shortcomings. Although most of these tools have been evaluated in terms of effectiveness, installation and reliability; the literature largely lacks the technical usability perspective i.e. execution and evaluation. Therefore, based on a selection criteria, we committed our time to 4 such tools for an extensive usability assessment. We designed our usability study in a manner that combined the advantages of multiple evaluation methods. The results were useful not only in terms of comparative analysis, but also as a validation of the need of identified usability improvements.
With the advancement in computing power and speed, the Internet is being transformed from screen-based information to immersive and extremely low latency communication environments in web 3.0 and the Metaverse. With the emergence of the Metaverse technology, more stringent demands are required in terms of connectivity such as secure access and data privacy. Future technologies such as 6G, Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can mitigate some of these challenges. The Metaverse is now on the verge where security and privacy concerns are crucial for the successful adaptation of such disruptive technology. The Metaverse and web 3.0 are to be decentralized, anonymous, and interoperable. Metaverse is the virtual world of Digital Twins and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The control and possession of users' data on centralized servers are the cause of numerous security and privacy concerns. This paper proposes a solution for the security and interoperability challenges using Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) integrated with blockchain. The philosophy of Self-Sovereign Identity, where the users are the only holders and owners of their identity, comes in handy to solve the questions of decentralization, trust, and interoperability in the Metaverse. This work also discusses the vision of a single, open standard, trustworthy, and interoperable Metaverse with initial design and implementation of SSI concepts.
Abstract Background Increasingly, hospitals and research institutes are developing technical solutions for sharing patient data in a privacy preserving manner. Two of these technical solutions are homomorphic encryption and distributed ledger technology. Homomorphic encryption allows computations to be performed on data without this data ever being decrypted. Therefore, homomorphic encryption represents a potential solution for conducting feasibility studies on cohorts of sensitive patient data stored in distributed locations. Distributed ledger technology provides a permanent record on all transfers and processing of patient data, allowing data custodians to audit access. A significant portion of the current literature has examined how these technologies might comply with data protection and research ethics frameworks. In the Swiss context, these instruments include the Federal Act on Data Protection and the Human Research Act. There are also institutional frameworks that govern the processing of health related and genetic data at different universities and hospitals. Given Switzerland’s geographical proximity to European Union (EU) member states, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) may impose additional obligations. Methods To conduct this assessment, we carried out a series of qualitative interviews with key stakeholders at Swiss hospitals and research institutions. These included legal and clinical data management staff, as well as clinical and research ethics experts. These interviews were carried out with two series of vignettes that focused on data discovery using homomorphic encryption and data erasure from a distributed ledger platform. Results For our first set of vignettes, interviewees were prepared to allow data discovery requests if patients had provided general consent or ethics committee approval, depending on the types of data made available. Our interviewees highlighted the importance of protecting against the risk of reidentification given different types of data. For our second set, there was disagreement amongst interviewees on whether they would delete patient data locally, or delete data linked to a ledger with cryptographic hashes. Our interviewees were also willing to delete data locally or on the ledger, subject to local legislation. Conclusion Our findings can help guide the deployment of these technologies, as well as determine ethics and legal requirements for such technologies.
Muhammad Nazmul Islam, Mubashir Husain Rehmani, Jinjun Chen
The integration of permissioned blockchain such as Hyperledger fabric (HF) and Industrial internet of Things (IIoT) has opened new opportunities for interdependent supply chain partners to improve their performance through data sharing and coordination. The multichannel mechanism, private data collection and querying mechanism of HF enable private data sharing, transparency, traceability, and verification across the supply chain. However, the existing querying mechanism of HF needs further improvement for statistical data sharing because the query is evaluated on the original data recorded on the ledger. As a result, it gives rise to privacy issues such as leaking of business secrets, tracking of resources and assets, and disclosing of personal information. Therefore, we solve this problem by proposing a differentially private enhanced permissioned blockchain for private data sharing in the context of supply chain in IIoT which is known as (EDH-IIoT). First, we integrate differential privacy into the chaincode (smart contract) of HF which evaluates the query and adds a calibrated noise into it. Second, we propose an algorithm to efficiently utilize ϵ through reuse of the privacy budget for the repeated queries. Third, we also propose an algorithm to track the privacy budget (ϵ) and avoid the degrade of privacy preservation in case of multiple queries on the same portion of the ledger's data. Furthermore, the reuse and tracking of ϵ enables the data owner to ensure that ϵ does not exceed the threshold which is the maximum privacy budget (ϵt). Finally, we model two privacy attacks namely linking attack and composition attack to evaluate and compare privacy preservation, and the efficiency of reuse of ϵ with the default chaincode of HF and traditional differential privacy model, respectively. The results confirm that EDH-IIoT obtains an accuracy of 97% in the shared data for ϵ = 1, and a reduction of 35.96% in spending of ϵ.
With the development of blockchain technology, the automatic generation of smart contract has become a hot research topic. The existing smart contract automatic generation technology still has improvement spaces in complex process, third-party specialized tools required, specific the compatibility of code and running environment. In this paper, we propose an automatic smart contract generation method, which is domain-oriented and configuration-based. It is designed and implemented with the application scenarios of government service. The process of configuration, public state database definition, code generation and formal verification are included. In the Hyperledger Fabric environment, the applicability of the generated smart contract code is verified. Furthermore, its quality and security are formally verified with the help of third-party testing tools. The experimental results show that the quality and security of the generated smart contract code meet the expect standards. The automatic smart contract generation will “elegantly” be applied on the work of anti-disclosure, privacy protection, and prophecy processing in government service. To effectively enable develop “programmable government”.
Web 3.0 is the next-generation Internet that enables participants to read, write, and own contents in a decentralized manner. It is mainly driven by blockchain, semantic communication, edge computing, and artificial intelligence, which can construct value networks to achieve participatory economics based on participatory decision making. Web 3.0 can capture the characteristics of blockchain, semantic extraction, and communication to achieve decentralized semantic sharing and transfer information precisely. However, current Web 3.0 solutions focus on the blockchain while overlooking other new technologies' roles in Web 3.0. To further unleash the advantages of semantic extraction and communication in Web 3.0, in this article, we propose a blockchain-based semantic exchange framework to realize fair and efficient interactions. In this framework, we first attempt to tokenize semantic information into Non-Fungible Token (NFT) for semantic exchange. Then we utilize a Stackelberg game to maximize buying and pricing strategies for semantic trading. We also leverage Zero-Knowledge Proof to share authentic semantic information without publishing it before receiving payments, which can achieve a fair and privacy-preserving trading compared with current NFT marketplaces. A case study about urban planning is given to show clearly the proposed mechanisms. Finally, several challenges and opportunities are identified.
Luyen Ngan Van, Anh Hoang Tuan, Phan The Duy, Khoa Tan Vo · 5 authors
Nowadays, the amount of data generated from Internet of Things (IoT) devices is increasing, paving the way for the development of artificial intelligence (AI) applications. However, with the traditional AI approach, users sharing their raw data causes many concerns in terms of privacy leakage. There have been reports that there are privacy violations on private data of users. In the medical field, the creation of devices to help automatically diagnose the user’s disease is gradually becoming a trend in the future. These devices help users monitor their own health, thereby reducing pressure on medical facilities that are often overloaded. However, the healthcare data of individuals will often be very sensitive and rarely shared by users. In addition, the profits generated from machine learning (ML) models mostly belong to the owners of that model. It also becomes an obstacle in encouraging users to share their data. In this article, we propose PriFL-Chain, a privacy-preservation framework to take advantage of data resources of data owners for training ML-based models, while ensuring the privacy of data owners. Specifically, we apply Differential privacy (DP) to federated learning (FL) to train ML models. Users just share the ML model trained on their data instead of sharing the raw data. Furthermore, the contribution activities of users in the system are recorded to the Blockchain to ensure transparency. We also leverage Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) and InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) to reduce the pressure on the central server and reduce data communication costs, making the system more flexible. Experimental results have demonstrated that the combined strategy of FL, Blockchain, IPFS, and MEC can help reduce the cost of training ML models, effectively protect privacy, and utilize data sources of diversity from the community.
The financial sector's adoption of technology-driven data analysis has enhanced operational efficiency and revenue generation by leveraging personal sensitive data. However, the inherent characteristics of blockchain hinder decentralized finance (DeFi) from accessing necessary sensitive user data. To address this challenge, we introduce a protocol that both safeguards user privacy and ensures data availability through the incorporation of homomorphic encryption and zero-knowledge-proof techniques in blockchain technology. This novel protocol helps mitigate privacy risks caused by sensitive data leaks while improving the capital efficiency of the DeFi market. Furthermore, we explore the applicability of these privacy-preserving methods in on-chain ecosystems and cross-border financial applications. Our solution contributes to secure, user-centric solutions for DeFi while upholding principles of decentralization and privacy protection.
Mohammad Saim, Mohd Mamoon, Ilma Shah, Abdus Samad
The proposed work is a blockchain-based E-Voting system which is designed to incorporate privacy, authenticity, and verifiability in the electoral process. Solidity programming language is used to implement smart contracts stored on the Ethereum blockchain which are executed automatically when predefined conditions are met. An Ethereum-based E-Voting decentralised application is deployed which authenticates users with the help of biometric factors and verifies it with the existing E-Aadhaar database.In this model, the paper presents the novel idea of deploying an upgradable smart contract where the election manager can decide whether the voting application would require either a version change, virtual upgrades or feature modifications in the future. This is achieved by using the OpenZeppelin plugin deployed on truffle which uses the concept of ‘‘proxy pattern.’’ This methodology helps us to improve and enhance the logic of smart contracts that are normally non-editable once deployed. The parameters used for authentication include the user’s EmailID, Registration ID(Aadhar), and facial scan for biometric verification along with other details related to the voter’s biodata.
Abstract This paper argues that the widespread belief that interactions between blockchains and their users are trust‐free is inaccurate and misleading, since this belief not only overlooks the vital role played by trust in the lack of knowledge and control but also conceals the moral and normative relevance of relying on blockchain applications. The paper reaches this argument by providing a close philosophical examination of the concept referred to as trust in blockchain technology, clarifying the trustor group, the structure, and the normatively loaded nature of this trust relation. The paper ends by critically reflecting on two of the most promising values (decentralization and transparency) that can invite users’ trust in blockchain technology, arguing that there is a tension between the pressing values that are intended to be achieved by developers and the predicament situations caused by current blockchain implementations.
Salfarina Abdullah, Al Dulaimi Moatasem Abdulmajeed Alwan, Yusmadi Yah Jusoh
The efficiency of blockchain technologies in managing transactions using distributed ledgers provides new age of government services. This enhances citizen-government transparency to establish public-sector trust by preventing fraud. However, using and adopting blockchain in e-Government context was insufficiently explored in previously published literatures. This paper systematically reviews relevant works to illustrate blockchain issues, challenges, while detecting the new directions for future research of using blockchain applications in e-Government. Discussed literatures explained that adopting blockchain applications to build e-Government services still has obvious lack in empirical evidence. Predominantly, major challenges facing blockchain adoption are summarized in scalability, flexibility and security aspects. organizationally, acceptability issues in blockchain and demanding new models of e-government are illustrated as major obstacles against the adoption. Furthermore, the lack in legislations and helping regulatory represents the major environmental obstacles against the adoption.
Usman Khalil, Owais Ahmed Malik, Wee-Hong Ong, Mueen Uddin
Smart city architecture brings all the underlying architectures, i.e., Internet of Things (IoT), Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs), Internet of Cyber-Physical Things (IoCPT), and Internet of Everything (IoE), together to work as a system under its umbrella. The goal of smart city architecture is to come up with a solution that may integrate all the real-time response applications. However, the cyber-physical space poses threats that can jeopardize the working of a smart city where all the data belonging to people, systems, and processes will be at risk. Various architectures based on centralized and distributed mechanisms support smart cities; however, the security concerns regarding traceability, scalability, security services, platform assistance, and resource management persist. In this paper, private blockchain-based architecture Decentralized Smart City of Things (DSCoT) is proposed. It actively utilizes fog computing for all the users and smart devices connected to a fog node in a particular management system in a smart city, i.e., a smart house or hospital, etc. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been utilized for representation to define smart device attributes. NFTs in the proposed DSCoT architecture provide devices and user authentication (IoT) functionality. DSCoT has been designed to provide a smart city solution that ensures robust security features such as Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability (CIA), and authorization by defining new attributes and functions for Owner, User, Fog, and IoT devices authentication. The evaluation of the proposed functions and components in terms of Gas consumption and time complexity has shown promising results. Comparatively, the Gas consumption for minting DSCoT NFT showed approximately 27%, and a DSCoT approve() was approximately 11% more efficient than the PUF-based NFT solution.
Smart contracts are a method for implementing direct democracy in virtual worlds. However, it is not clear whether voting preferences in the virtual world will mirror real-world voting preferences. We present a within-subject study in which participants were asked to allocate voting power in two scenarios. The first scenario probed participants’ opinion about the divisibility of voting rights. The second scenario presented participants with the case of unequal allocation of voting power in a virtual world, enforced by smart contracts. In both scenarios, participants allocated voting power and rated the fairness of their decision. Our study finds that participants’ voting preferences in the virtual world scenario did not mirror their real-world preferences and beliefs. Voting systems in the metaverse need to be carefully designed to align with human values and ethics.
Securing and managing medical data in hospitals is one of the significant challenges still existing in healthcare. There can be different kinds of patients staying in hospitals with various diseases. All these medical data records need to be secured appropriately for future use and verification. In the hospital, there will be essential documents such as criminal cases and postmortem reports, although it is unclear if they are being handled properly or not. Even the hospital staff can alter these data. This paper proposes a blockchain-based secured medical data management system to manage access to each medical record in a network of hospitals. The proposed system has three main access management categories: one for securing general (fever or cold) medical report, category 2 for postmortem or crime reports security and category 3 for securing cancer /brain death /genetic disorder reports. Sensitive clinical data should not be visible to patients with cancer or genetic disorders as these patients have a higher rate of suicide attempts. Hence, the data is accessible only to doctors, family members, and researchers. The data related to the crime or postmortem reports have only limited access for those with legal permission to access and verify these types of reports. So through blockchain distributed ledger technology and smart contracts, we could store the data in a tamper-proof manner and manage the user access to these data.
In the recent development of the online cryptocurrency mining platform, Coinhive, numerous websites have employed “Cryptojacking.” They may need the unauthorized use of CPU resources to mine cryptocurrency and replace advertising income. Web cryptojacking technologies are the most recent attack in information security. Security teams have suggested blocking Cryptojacking scripts by using a blacklist as a strategy. However, the updating procedure of the static blacklist has not been able to promptly safeguard consumers because of the sharp rise in “Cryptojacking kidnapping”. Therefore, we propose a Cryptojacking identification technique based on analyzing the user's computer resources to combat the assault technology known as “Cryptojacking kidnapping.” Machine learning techniques are used to monitor changes in computer resources such as CPU changes. The experiment results indicate that this method is more accurate than the blacklist system and, in contrast to the blacklist system, manually updates the blacklist regularly. The misuse of online Cryptojacking programs and the unlawful hijacking of users' machines for Cryptojacking are becoming worse. In the future, information security undoubtedly addresses the issue of how to prevent Cryptojacking and abduction. The result of this study helps to save individuals from unintentionally becoming miners.
Weizheng Wang, Yaoqi Yang, Zhimeng Yin, Kapal Dev · 8 authors
Given the explosive growth of portable devices, mobile crowdsensing (MCS) is becoming an essential approach that fully utilizes pervasive idle resources to accomplish sensing tasks. The traditional MCS relies on the centralized server for task handle is susceptible to a single point of failure. Targeting this security issue, researchers have proposed a series of blockchain-based MCS. However, nodes in the blockchain suffer from high computation cost for data processing. Simultaneously, most blockchain-based MCS systems lack an efficient incentive mechanism for service requesters and workers. In this work, we integrate the smart contract and mobile devices to establish a secure, interactive, and fair blockchain-based MCS system called BSIF. To prevent illegitimate participants, BSIF requests all users to verify their identities using private keys from the registration phase. In the case of worker location privacy leakage, the location-based symmetric key generator is adopted to coordinate a session key for target range worker selection. Besides, we transfer the data evaluation process to the requester side (e.g., a personal computer), reducing computation cost in the blockchain nodes. Due to the homomorphic feature of the Paillier Cryptosystem and common interest, the requester cannot violate the directives from the blockchain. Subsequently, the Stackelberg game is adopted to investigate the participation level of the workers and the fair reward mechanism for the requesters to achieve a dynamic balance. Finally, the security analysis and performance evaluation demonstrate that our BSIF can defend against possible adversaries while significantly cutting overhead and giving participants the utmost incentive.
Rickard Elsen, Muhammad Rikza Nashrulloh, Ade Sutedi
Since the widespread use of cryptocurrency, blockchain technology start to be adapted in various applications. Some businesses are already adopting blockchain technology because of its advantages such as data integrity and privacy. One of them is Web 3.0. Web 3.0 puts forward data decentralization so that users can choose what data will be sent to the server. User data is provided locally with the help of a crypto wallet and the server just receives wallet info. With this mechanism, user privacy can be maintained directly by the user himself. All data will be processed at the users' end first before being sent to the server. With the new mechanism of web 3.0 and the advantages of blockchain, we build an application to authenticate students' login activities and grant roles to them based on their wallets. In this paper, we use the prototyping model as the method to build the application. We managed to utilize students’ wallet addresses as credentials. And with the help of Web3 module, we managed to decentralize the authentication process. And as a result of the successful authentication process, students can access their data based on their roles.
Suzana Mesquita de Borba Maranhao Moreno, Jean-Marc Seigneur
The traditional way to prove someone’s address using formal documents like utility bills may not be feasible for some people, like those living in very poor neighborhoods, because they do not have these documents. In this paper, we propose an alternative way to prove someone’s address using a decentralized social trust solution. Because our design choices, this solution is able to work offline and does not need a logically centralized repository of all issued proof-of-address, in oppose to what would be achieved by using existing accretionary ID solutions. We validated this proposal by building a mobile application, using it in a real experiment in a Brazilian favela, and collecting mobile data. We also interviewed 20 people to complement our validation and help to guide the next steps of this work. The experiment showed that the solution is viable and easy to use. It is possible to adopt an approach like the one proposed to prove other facts, like gender, sex and income. These proofs may be used for different initiatives, like social programs, purpose-driven lending or other decentralized finance services.
A coalition of IoT devices, such as the smart houses, smart health care system, the smart device and many more, can share resources through communication lines. The Internet is integrated with the physical world over existing network infrastructure, allowing intelligent devices to share data more efficiently. As IOT devices have specific characteristics such as having low processing power, limited memory and energy, securing access to them requires special requirements. Because of their complex management of access, and their incredulity due to centralized control, conventional access control systems do not offer the security of data that IoT systems need. Blockchain technology is expected to enhance the IoT technology by ensuring trust and reducing overall overhead. We can address IoT's architectural shortcomings by including transparency, data encryption, auditable data, operational resilience, and immutability. In this paper, the most relevant findings are presented in the area of understanding blockchain applications to solve authorization and access control issues in IoT environments. Additionally, future suggestions and ideas are discussed in an effort to improve authentication and access control solutions over time.
Robin Singh Bhadoria, Arka Prabha Das, Abul Bashar, Mohammed Zikria
A democratic election is a crucial event in any country. Therefore, the government of the country is concerned with creating more competitive and fairer elections. This paper discusses the survey and scope of Blockchain technology adoptions in conducting elections. A distributed digital ledger is used in the Blockchain technology that is utilized for recording transactions happening between two parties. Ledger conducts this processing in an efficient and effective manner with latest secure mechanism of encryption algorithms. Therefore, the data stored in several blocks in each transaction is secure, transparent, and tamper-proof, which ultimately improves the transparency and voter confidentiality. This paper demonstrates how the benefits of the Blockchain technology such as immutability, transparency and end-to-end verifiability can be utilized by the national governments around the world to ensure fair democratic elections. In short, we aim to present a rigorous mechanism of a Blockchain based e-voting system, its efficiency based on different consensus algorithms and the overall progress and analysis based on some critical parameters to anticipate the feasibility of the successful implementation of the proposed e-voting system.