In the last few years, blockchain technology and NFTs have been the subject of much research in different sectors ranging from informatics, to medicine, to economics. Although it is most often associated with cryptocurrencies, due to its features of immutability and durability, this technology has found its place in various fields, including GLAM institutions. This article will review the literature from 2017 to 2022 dealing with blockchain and NFTs in the heritage sector. Topics covered, proposed models, and projects will be highlighted. Archives are currently leading the research into the use of blockchain technology and have already developed models such as TrustChain. However, libraries, museums, and galleries are also beginning to show an interest in the new technology and its potential benefits. Therefore, we also approached the GLAM sector as a whole, to emphasize the importance of the joint development on the advancement of shared approaches and protocols in utilizing blockchain technology to enhance the trustworthy management and preservation of digital resources. This is particularly important because GLAM institutions care for a shared heritage and serve a common audience. In the second part of the article we will discuss the proposed uses of the technology and highlight still unexplored topics that should be elaborated in further research. The aim of this paper is to make a synthesis of previous research and bring the potential of blockchain technology and NFTs closer to experts in the heritage field, given that they are still quite unknown.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Blockchain or distributed ledger technology has attracted great interest from companies in the energy industry. The combination of blockchain and energy is undoubtedly one of the most striking technological innovations in recent years. A typical application area of blockchain in the energy industry is trading and credit. Stakeholders use blockchain technology to promote distributed or wholesale energy transactions and create virtual grids. Consumers can trade between their own devices and resources, with their neighbors and with the grid. The whole process can be automated through smart contracts. In this article, we will discuss some use cases related to the application of blockchain in the energy field.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Internet of Things and AI
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Social recovery schemes enable the recovery of decentralized digital assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum through a social network. These schemes suffer from security issues and limitations including centralization, a conspiracy of one's network, large transaction fees for the user and network, and verifiable connections between the user and the network. To mitigate these issues, the work proposes and implements a novel social recovery scheme based on verifiable secret sharing, smart contract code, encrypted communication, and biometric encryption. The security and performance analysis versus key existing implementations is evaluated in terms of security features and gas fees.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Although data exchange and transparency are encouraged by the Internet, digital information is not protected by it. It has become challenging to publish the Digital Rights Management system in today’s digital environment that can be regarded as well-protected. The value of digital work that is quickly accessible in open-source settings will eventually be zero to the creator. Nonetheless, anyone can download and make copies of content because it is available online. Since the value of data is typically based on how difficult it is to access, the worth of online content gradually declines.It may serve as a good alternative to the aforementioned issues. In this paper, we suggest a blockchain-based approach for a DCM system. In order to keep information transparent and secure, we store thedetails of copyright transactions on the blockchain. Smart Contact replaces the requirement for centralised servers to validate identities and issue licences by ensuring the validity of copyright transactions and issuing licences automatically. The possibility for using blockchain based to address the issue of managing digital copyright. This paper outlines a complete digital copyright management system (DCMS) centred on a public blockchain.
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Abstract This project aims to produce a cryptocurrency blockchain application. An online application can be accessed via this Blockchain Application System. Everyone with a net connection is able to access it throughout the Internet. This programme will assist the user in sending and receiving Ethereum over the blockchain network. A blockchain is a distributed, trustworthy data repository. Public-key cryptography and the Nobel idea are combined to make it work. The legitimate owner of the resource being traded signs each transaction on the blockchain. New currencies (resources) are created and given to an owner. Simply embed the new owner's public key in the transaction and sign it with the owner's private key to get ready for subsequent transactions that deliver those coins to other people. In this manner, a verifiable chain of transactions is established, with each new transaction linking to the previous transaction with the previous owner and having a new owner.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Peer-to-Peer Network Technologies
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
N. Krishnamoorthy, Shakthi Murugan K H, C. Gnanaprakasam, M. Swarna · 5 authors
Voting is the primary right to every citizen and that should be loyal enough to select a correct leader to the respective country. Every person has the duty to choose the proper leader for their nation by exercising their fundamental right to vote. When voting at a polling place that uses paper ballots, citizens must be present in order to deposit their vote. The vast majority of people throughout the world has neglected this need and has avoided doing their civic responsibility. In these cases, electronic voting systems are generally viewed as a viable option. The challenge here is protecting voters' privacy and ensuring their votes get to the right people. This study presented Blockchain Assisted Enhanced Cyber Norms (BAECN), a revolutionary electronic voting system that ensures voters' ballots are cast accurately and without delay. One possible answer is Blockchain technology, which uses a distributed ledger in which many people share ownership of the data. The Bitcoin protocol, also referred as the decentralized Banking network, has incorporated Blockchain technology. To perform a transaction or carry out a transaction over the Blockchain network, gas is the charge that must be paid. One kind of voter fraud in electronic voting systems can be mitigated by the use of Blockchain: the redistribution of voter registration data. The proposed methodology, on the other hand, offers a revolutionary online voting mechanism built on Blockchain technology, which fixes all the issues that were found. This research describes the findings of a real-world use of Blockchain technology implementation of a smart-contracts application that increases election security while also lowering associated costs.
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Internet Traffic Analysis and Secure E-voting
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
The traditional data-sharing model relies on a centralized third-party platform, which presents challenges such as poor transaction transparency and unsecured data security. In this article, we propose a blockchain-based traceable and secure data-sharing scheme. Firstly, we designed an attribute encryption-based method to protect data and enable fine-grained shared access. Secondly, we developed a secure data storage scheme that combines on-chain and off-chain collaboration. The InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) is used to store encrypted data off-chain, and the hash value of encrypted data is stored on the blockchain. To improve data security, elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) encryption is performed before the hash value is stored. Finally, we designed a smart contract-based log tracking mechanism. The mechanism stores data sharing records on the blockchain and displays them in a visual form to meet the identity tracking needs of both data sharing parties. Experimental results show that our scheme can effectively secure data, track the identities of both parties sharing data in real-time, and ensure high data throughput.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Blockchain, the underlying technology powering the Bitcoin cryptocurrency, is a distributed ledger that creates a distributed consensus on a history of transactions. Cryptocurrency transaction verification takes substantially longer than it does for conventional digital payment systems. Despite blockchain’s appealing benefits, one of its main drawbacks is scalability. Designing a solution that delivers a quicker proof of work is one method for increasing scalability or the rate at which transactions are processed. In this paper, we suggest a solution based on parallel mining rather than solo mining to prevent more than two miners from contributing an equal amount of effort to solving a single block. Moreover, we propose the idea of automatically selecting the optimal manager over all miners by using the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. This process solves many problems of blockchain scalability and makes the system more scalable by decreasing the waiting time if the manager fails to respond. Additionally, the proposed model includes the process of a reward system and the distribution of work. In this work, we propose the particle swarm optimization proof of work (PSO-POW) model. Three scenarios have been tested including solo mining, parallel mining without using the PSO process, and parallel mining using the PSO process (PSO-POW model) to ensure the power and robustness of the proposed model. This model has been tested using a range of case situations by adjusting the difficulty level and the number of peers. It has been implemented in a test environment that has all the qualities required to perform proof of work for Bitcoin. A comparison between three different scenarios has been constructed against difficulty levels and the number of peers. Local experimental assessments were carried out, and the findings show that the suggested strategy is workable, solves the scalability problems, and enhances the overall performance of the blockchain network.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
This paper explains the composition of the cryptocurrency wallet by analyzing a wallet’s components, functions, categories, the algorithm of signing, and security features as three major components used in the constitute of the cryptocurrency wallet, private key, public key, and address are introduced from their generation process with specific Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm secp256k1 and Keccak hash function. A variety of crypto wallets are divided into different categories by their purpose of use, the form of display, and Internet connectivity, and multiple crypto wallets are explained in the second part of this paper. The elliptic curve secp256k1 is selected in Ethereum for both calculating the public key information and performing signing transactions. This paper details secp256k1 and Keystore used behind the signing process and security of cryptocurrency wallet and outlines potential risks due to the development of computing power and transfer of validation system in Ethereum.
Open access
Chaos-based Image/Signal Encryption
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Mahmoud A. Shawky, Muhammad Usman, David Flynn, Muhammad Ali Imran · 7 authors
Intelligent transportation systems are an emerging technology that facilitates real-time vehicle-to-everything communication. Hence, securing and authenticating data packets for intra- and inter-vehicle communication are fundamental security services in vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs). However, public-key cryptography (PKC) is commonly used in signature-based authentication, which consumes significant computation resources and communication bandwidth for signatures generation and verification, and key distribution. Therefore, physical layer-based secret key extraction has emerged as an effective candidate for key agreement, exploiting the randomness and reciprocity features of wireless channels. However, the imperfect channel reciprocity generates discrepancies in the extracted key, and existing reconciliation algorithms suffer from significant communication costs and security issues. In this paper, PKC-based authentication is used for initial legitimacy detection and exchanging authenticated probing packets. Accordingly, we propose a blockchain-based reconciliation technique that allows the trusted third party (TTP) to publish the correction sequence of the mismatched bits through a transaction using a smart contract. The smart contract functions enable the TTP to map the transaction address to vehicle-related information and allow vehicles to obtain the transaction contents securely. The obtained shared key is then used for symmetric key cryptography (SKC)-based authentication for subsequent transmissions, saving significant computation and communication costs. The correctness and security robustness of the scheme are proved using Burrows–Abadi–Needham (BAN)-logic and Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) simulator. We also discussed the scheme’s resistance to typical attacks. The scheme’s performance in terms of packet delay and loss ratio is evaluated using the network simulator (OMNeT++). Finally, the computation analysis shows that the scheme saves ∼99% of the time required to verify 1000 messages compared to existing PKC-based schemes.
Open access
Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs)
Advanced Authentication Protocols Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Smart contracts are programs that are executed on the blockchain and can hold, manage and transfer assets in the form of cryptocurrencies. The contract's execution is then performed on-chain and is subject to consensus, i.e. every node on the blockchain network has to run the function calls and keep track of their side-effects including updates to the balances and contract's storage. The notion of gas is introduced in most programmable blockchains, which prevents DoS attacks from malicious parties who might try to slow down the network by performing time-consuming and resource-heavy computations. While the gas idea has largely succeeded in its goal of avoiding DoS attacks, the resulting fees are extremely high. For example, in June-September 2022, on Ethereum alone, there has been an average total gas usage of 2,706.8 ETH ≈ 3,938,749 USD per day. We propose a protocol for alleviating these costs by moving most of the computation off-chain while preserving enough data on-chain to guarantee an implicit consensus about the contract state and ownership of funds in case of dishonest parties. We perform extensive experiments over 3,330 real-world Solidity contracts that were involved in 327,132 transactions in June-September 2022 on Ethereum and show that our approach reduces their gas usage by 40.09 percent, which amounts to a whopping 442,651 USD.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Cryptography and Data Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
S.B. Gopal, M Jayaprasath, C. Poongodi, S Johnson. · 6 authors
Voting is a crucial component of daily living in the modern world. Everyone belongs to social groups, which might vary in size, and in the majority of them, voting has a significant impact on key decisions. Technology advancements have simplified the voting process. Present voting system has lot of issues concerning to transparency, privacy etc., To solve these issues, both the polling and counting of ballots can be done using blockchain technology. In-depth information is provided on the development of the BlockVote electronic voting system. Application of Ethereum technology in e-voting leads to scalability issues. POW (proof of work) mining concept leads to inefficient time management operation. This study has proposed a Hyperledger fabric framework for the implementation of e-voting application. The Hyperledger Fabric network is a middleware program and an interface that make up the system. Both of the smart contracts: EVotingContract and CodesContract are a part of the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain. The connection between the blockchain network and the user interface is made possible by a gateway application.
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Internet Traffic Analysis and Secure E-voting
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
With the advent of the era of big data, privacy computing analyzes and calculates data on the premise of protecting data privacy, to achieve data 'available and invisible'. As an important branch of secure multi-party computation, the geometric problem can solve practical problems in the military, national defense, finance, life, and other fields, and has important research significance. In this paper, we study the similarity problem of geometric graphics. First, this paper proposes the adjacency matrix vector coding method of isomorphic graphics, and use the Paillier variant encryption cryptography to solve the problem of isomorphic graphics confidentiality under the semi-honest model. Using cryptography tools such as elliptic curve cryptosystem, zero-knowledge proof, and cut-choose method, this paper designs a graphic similarity security decision protocol that can resist malicious adversary attacks. The analysis shows that the protocol has high computational efficiency and has wide application value in terrain matching, mechanical parts, biomolecules, face recognition, and other fields.
Open access
Biometric Identification and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a rapidly growing technology due to the demand for automation in various industries, such as healthcare, manufacturing, and home automation etc. As IoT devices continue to proliferate, authentication and access control remain a major challenge. By verifying the identity of the device and the user, authentication helps prevent fraudulent activities and ensure that the IoT data is not tampered with. The existing works are dependent on a centralized server which can become overwhelmed by large users, making them difficult to scale. In this work, we greatly utilize the characteristics of Blockchain to authenticate the user in the Software-Defined Network based IoT (SDN-IoT) network. The SDN provides centralized management of growing IoT devices. Blockchain is a decentralised and tamper-proof method for storing and sharing authentication information making it suitable for the system. We generate a digital token for each device access request through Smart Contract. The token manager on the Smart Contract validates the token for each user before giving access to it. The Smart Contract can revoke the token on unsuccessful authentication from the user to avoid an attack on the system. We conduct an experiment on the potency of the proposed work by testing the Smart Contract based on authentication delay, transaction cost and ability to resist the attack. The experiment result shows that the proposed work is a promising solution for authentication in SDN-IoT networks.
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Cryptocurrencies offer various benefits in terms of privacy protection and cross-border transactions, but they have also been used for illicit activities such as money laundering due to their anonymous nature and the difficulty of cross-border regulation. Additionally, the unethical actions of some virtual asset service providers (VASPs), such as rug pulls and the embezzlement of user funds, have further eroded the trust between users and VASPs. Implementing identity management on blockchains can help restore trust between users and VASPs. However, current solutions have privacy concerns as identity providers have access to the asset balances and transaction records of each user’s wallet account, and no solution can support all public blockchains unconditionally. To address these issues, this paper proposes a multi-chain aggregated identity scheme. In this scheme, the identity provider will issue a non-fungible token (NFT) for users who have undergone verification, and wallet accounts from different blockchains will be added to a cryptographic accumulator. The accumulator value is then bound to the identity NFT through a smart contract by the user. This allows the user to prove to others that the identity of the wallet account owner has been verified. The use of accumulators also allows users to combine proof for multiple wallets into a single proof, which significantly improves the efficiency and provides a way for VASPs such as centralized exchanges to demonstrate Proof of Reserves (PoR) to users. Importantly, this scheme preserves privacy as neither the identity provider nor the VASPs can link the user’s real identity with the wallet accounts. Only regulators can access the user’s identity data held by the identity provider and the user’s wallet account held by the VASP to link real identities with wallet accounts for the purpose of sanctions or criminal investigations. Additionally, the scheme supports all blockchains by allowing wallet accounts from any public blockchain to be added to the accumulator. Furthermore, the NFT implementation in the scheme helps prevent identity loss or theft, as it can only be transferred by the identity provider.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Cryptography and Data Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Now there are variable type of digital data, contents and real time signals are coming from multiple IoT sensors which is called dynamic big data and these trading are operating on the decentralized system in our life. One of unique transaction model, Non Fungible Token (NFT) become popular now, and it has a high financial value in areas such as arts and intellectual property right, sometime. But, NFT trading system requires a secured system policy. NFT exchange marketplace system should have a high availability and security for P to P node transfer and confirmation policy. This paper proposes smart contract mechanism and its implementation to confirm for blockchain transaction on the autonomous decentralized layer one voting blockchain system. The voting blockchain system architecture is shown and its smart contract implementation using Geth code is also shown in this paper.
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Internet Traffic Analysis and Secure E-voting
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Blockchain is a recently developed advanced technology. It has been assisted by a lot of interest in a decentralized and distributed public ledger system integrated as a peer-to-peer network. A tamper-proof digital framework is created for sharing and storing data, where the linked block structure is utilized to verify and store the data. A trusted consensus method has been adopted to synchronize the changes in the original data. However, it is challenging for Ethereum to maintain security at all blockchain levels. As such, “public–private key cryptography” can be utilized to provide privacy over Ethereum networks. Several privacy issues make it difficult to use blockchain approaches over various applications. Another issue is that the existing blockchain systems operate poorly over large-scale data. Owing to these issues, a novel blockchain framework in the Ethereum network with soft computing is proposed. The major intent of the proposed technology is to preserve the data for transmission purposes. This new model is enhanced with the help of a new hybrid algorithm: Adaptive Border Collie Rain Optimization Algorithm (ABC-ROA). This hybrid algorithm generates the optimal key for data restoration and sanitization. Optimal key generation is followed by deriving the multi objective constraints. Here, some of the noteworthy objectives, such as information preservation (IP) rate, degree of modification (DM), false rule (FR) generation, and hiding failure (HF) rate are considered. Finally, the proposed method is successfully implemented, and its results are validated through various measures. The recommended module ensures a higher security level for data sharing.
Open access
2 source records
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Manal Abdullah Alohali, Mohammed Aljebreen, Fuad Al-Mutiri, Mahmoud Othman · 8 authors
The real world is bounded by people, hospitals, industries, buildings, businesses, vehicles, cognitive cities, and billions of devices that offer various services and interact with the world. Recent technologies, including AR, VR, XR, and the digital twin concept, provide advanced solutions to create a new virtual world. Due to the ongoing development of information communication technologies and broadcast channels, data security has become a major concern. Blockchain (BC) technology is an open, decentralized, and transparent distributed database that can be maintained by the group. BC’s major features are high credibility, decentralization, transparency, versatility, autonomy, traceability, anonymity, intelligence, reward mechanisms, and irreversibility. This study presents a blockchain-driven image encryption technique using arithmetic optimization with a fractional-order Lorenz system (BDIE-AOFOLS). The BDIE-AOFOLS technique uses the FOLS method, which integrates the Arnold map, tent map, and fractional Lorenz system. Besides this, an arithmetic optimization algorithm (AOA) was carried out for the optimum key generation process to achieve the maximum PSNR value. The design of an AOA-based optimal generation of keys for the FOLS technique determines the novelty of the current work. Moreover, the cryptographical pixel values of the images can be stored securely in the BC, guaranteeing image security. We compared the outcomes of the proposed BDIE-AOFOLS technique against benchmark color images. The comparative analysis demonstrated the improved security efficiency of the BDIE-AOFOLS technique over other approaches, with a mean square error of 0.0430 and a peak signal-to-noise ratio of 61.80 dB.
Open access
Chaos-based Image/Signal Encryption
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques