Yue Wu, Liangtu Song, Lei Liu, Jincheng Li · 6 authors
Applying blockchain technology to the Internet of Things (IoT) remains a huge challenge. To meet the actual needs of IoT, a lightweight and high-throughput consensus mechanism, combined with blockchain technology, is proposed in this study. Blockchain nodes use the Diffie–Hellman algorithm for key negotiation. Sensors and blockchain nodes can use the shared key to generate HMAC (Hash-based Message Authentication Code) signatures for sensor-aware transactions and use the Verifiable Random Function to implement block nodes. Offline fast election, which is the node that wins the election, becomes the block node. Machine learning methods are also introduced to identify or remove outliers in the sensor data before such data are uploaded to the chain. Experimental results show that the system throughput synchronously increases as the test load increases. Moreover, when the test load is 800 tps, the system throughput reaches the maximum, close to 600 tps. When the test load exceeds 800 tps, the actual system throughput starts to drop, and approximately 90% of transactions have a delay time within 5000 ms. This method can be used in a lightweight IoT system.
In a block channel IoT system, sensitive details can be leaked by means of the proof of work or address check, as data or application Validation data is applied on the blockchain. In this, the zero-knowledge evidence is applied to a smart metering system to show how to improve the anonymity of the blockchain for privacy safety without disclosing information as a public key. Within this article, a blockchain has been implemented to deter security risks such as data counterfeiting by utilizing intelligent meters. Zero-Knowledge Proof, an anonymity blockchain technology, has been implemented through block inquiry to prevent threats to security like personal information infringement. It was suggested that intelligent contracts would be used to avoid falsification of intelligent meter data and abuse of personal details.
In the shipping industry, a significant part of the documents exchanges still have the traditional paper form, mainly due to security concerns, despite the size and modernization efforts of this market. We explore the adoption of the blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies to address document exchange in a fast and secure way.
Juntao Zhao, Yuanfang Chi, Zehua Wang, Victor C. M. Leung · 5 authors
By rendering game scenes on the remote cloud and delivering real-time video to end devices via the Internet, cloud gaming enables players to access game services anytime anywhere despite the hardware capacity of their terminals. However, as a commercial service, the state-of-the-art payment models for cloud gaming are still in their preliminary stages. In this paper, we reveal the shortages of existing cloud gaming pricing models and propose CloudArcade, a token-based cloud gaming system that employs blockchain-empowered cryptocurrency as a payment method for the players using the cloud gaming services. By using cryptocurrency, CloudArcade provides a transparent and resource-aware pricing method, it also enables a time irrelevant silent payment on the floating price to protects users' payment. These features eliminate the quality of experience degradation caused by the spot price in the traditional dynamic pricing model on the QoE-aware service pricing. We also employ the payment channel in CloudArcade to improve the system performance. Discussions on service pricing criteria are put forward, open issues about token issuing and malicious resource speculation are also reviewed. We believe the design of CloudArcade can show a good generality on other QoE-aware and human-centered applications.
A blockchain is a gradually increasing list of "blocks" containing information that are linked together using cryptographic hashes. It is a distributed, decentralized, and public digital ledger technology. Blockchains have caught not only the attention of researchers but also industries that are interested in implementing blockchains into existing products and services. However, performing studies on actual blockchain networks remain challenging as they may involve many nodes or these nodes could be placed in different geographical regions. Simulators for Proof-of-Work blockchain exists to facilitate this, but features such as difficulty adjustment or dynamic hash rate are not available. Using SimBlock, a blockchain network simulator as a base, difficulty adjustment algorithm and the capacity to increase or decrease hash rate dynamically were added to the simulator and the efficacy of the implementation was investigated for two scenarios; fixed hash rate and increasing hash rate periodically, over the length of the simulations. Based on the experiments, higher precision in terms of the average of actual time taken to mine a block were obtained, with a deviation of 0.68% compared to 5.73% in original SimBlock, and a deviation of 7.10% compared to 10.91% in original SimBlock, for fixed hash rate and dynamic hash rate adjustment respectively. Further studies were conducted for data from 2019 where the proposed implementation resulted in less than half the deviation achieved by the original implementation of SimBlock.
Abhilash Kancharla, Zuqiang Ke, Nohpill Park, Hye-Young Kim
The hybrid chain is proposed in this paper to investigate on a new blockchain network that is to be built across private and main nets, namely, a hybrid chain. Note that the hybrid chain is distinguished from the on/off-balanced chain such that the hybrid chain is across two different (e.g., Hypercubes private net vs. Ethereum main net) while the on/off-balanced chain across on-chain and off-chain (e.g., Ethereum main net vs. cloud). It is essential to build a dependable interface in between private and main nets if business to consumer (or vice versa) transactions are demanded for instance. In the course of interfacing across private and main nets, dependability is to be considered as one of the most critical design factors in order to ensure private transactions stay within the private territory and publicized transactions stay public in the main net, and further in order to facilitate a seamless yet dependable execution of transactions across the border. In this context, the efficacy of the privacy of the private net side and the publicity of the main net side will be addressed and modeled by tracing a transaction's stochastic process at a steady state. A protype for an isolated testing across the Ethereum and Hypercubes open source for validation purpose is proposed along with extensive parametric simulations.
Yiming Miao, Jeungeun Song, Haoquan Wang, Long Hu · 6 authors
With the increase in natural gas consumption, distributed natural gas supply and transaction have become new development goals of the industrial Internet of Things (IoT) for natural gas. However, there are obvious disadvantages of the existing natural gas pipeline network in aspects of infrastructure warning, multilevel data transmission, automatic transaction, and security. Emerging technologies, such as blockchain, edge computing, and AI have been introduced to address these shortcomings. This article proposes Smart Micro-GaS, i.e., the concept of a cognitive micro natural gas industrial ecosystem based on mixed blockchain and edge computing. Three aspects, multilevel, multiview, and multidimension, are put forward for its design and deployment. Then, based on the most important smart contract algorithm in blockchain, a mixed transaction model for natural gas is established. Finally, a case analysis is conducted on a smart natural gas testbed for data prediction and the proposed smart contract algorithm. The framework proposed in this article makes the natural gas data have multilevel liquidity and realizes diversified transactions.
Blockchain is a digital ledger in which each record known as blocks and that are combined in a single list known as a chain. It is regarded as Bitcoin's backbone technology. It is also regarded as cohesive collections of digital wallets. Blockchains are primarily used by cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and other applications to record these transactions. A blockchain is commonly referred to as a collection of distributed databases that consists of all public transactions, records and digital events then that information is shared among the participants. Every transaction is verified and it cannot be removed. The main features of this technology are reliable, efficient operation, fault tolerance and scalability. Some of the applications are manufacturing, government and finance when the three properties met together (i.e., Efficiency, Scalability and Security). By using several computers, each transaction that is applied to a blockchain is validated. A peer-to-peer network is developed by these systems that are used to validate these forms of blockchain transactions. They work together to ensure that any transaction is legitimate until it is added to the blockchain, and invalid blocks cannot be added to the chain by these systems. When a new block is added, it can be connected to a previous block using a cryptographic hash and the chain cannot be broken and each block is recorded permanently. Blockchain can be used for an exchanging the transaction securely without an intermediate. It enables customer relationship and agile chain values and thereby integrating with IoT and Cloud technology. The functionality of distributed ledger is combined with blockchain security to solve the financial and non-financial industry problems. This paper proposes the blockchain technology with devices and creates a common platform and secure data communication.
Kiril Antevski, Milan Groshev, Gabriele Baldoni, Carlos J. Bernardos
The concept of federation in 5G and NFV networks aims to provide orchestration of services across multiple administrative domains. Edge robotics, as a field of robotics, implements the robot control on the network edge by relying on low-latency and reliable access connectivity. In this paper, we propose a solution that enables Edge robotics service to expand its service footprint or access coverage over multiple administrative domains. We propose application of Distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) for the federation procedures to enable private, secure and trusty interactions between undisclosed administrative domains. The solution is applied on a real-case Edge robotics experimental scenario. The results show that it takes around 19 seconds to deploy & federate a Edge robotics service in an external/anonymous domain without any service down-time.
Recently, the use of blockchain technology in the field of healthcare has increased. Although blockchain technology brought several innovations to healthcare, still there are problems waiting to be resolved. In order to provide alternative solutions to these problems, the use of fog computing together with blockchain technology has been proposed. In this study, the applications of blockchain based fog computing technology in healthcare are investigated. The aim of this study is to provide the readers an idea about the interactive use of blockchain and fog computing in the field of healthcare. For this purpose, firstly, fog computing and blockchain technologies are introduced. Afterwards, the integration of these areas, the advantages and disadvantages of using these technologies in the field of healthcare is discussed and a new system architecture is proposed.
Mahdi Daghmehchi Firoozjaei, Rongxing Lu, Ali A. Ghorbani
Abstract Blockchain‐based applications provide many promising opportunities to overcome the challenges associated with the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystems (eg, centralized architecture, data integrity, and reliability). In particular, blockchain technology offers many desirable features for IoT infrastructures, such as decentralization, trustworthiness, trackability, and immutability. However, while logging all transactions in a distributed blockchain ledger provides transparency, it also makes it possible to compromise user's privacy, thus posing a grand challenge to IoT architects and implementers. Over the past years, a set of solutions have been proposed for various scenarios, to address these privacy issues. In this paper, we survey these solutions, classify, and analyze their advantages and disadvantages. We also introduce an evaluation framework to evaluate the quality of the privacy‐preserving based on an adjustable weighting scheme. Finally, we rate the analyzed solutions based on their privacy ranks, and hope our evaluation can shed light on the future design of privacy‐preserving solutions applicable for blockchain‐based IoT platforms.
This conceptual paper overviews how blockchain technology is involving the operation of multi-robot collaboration for combating COVID-19 and future pandemics. Robots are a promising technology for providing many tasks such as spraying, disinfection, cleaning, treating, detecting high body temperature/mask absence, and delivering goods and medical supplies experiencing an epidemic COVID-19. For combating COVID-19, many heterogeneous and homogenous robots are required to perform different tasks for supporting different purposes in the quarantine area. Controlling and decentralizing multi-robot play a vital role in combating COVID-19 by reducing human interaction, monitoring, delivering goods. Blockchain technology can manage multi-robot collaboration in a decentralized fashion, improve the interaction among them to exchange information, share representation, share goals, and trust. We highlight the challenges and provide the tactical solutions enabled by integrating blockchain and multi-robot collaboration to combat COVID-19 pandemic. The framework of our conceptual proposed can increase the intelligence, decentralization, and autonomous operations of connected multi-robot collaboration in the blockchain network. We overview blockchain potential benefits to defining a framework of multi-robot collaboration applications to combat COVID-19 epidemics such as monitoring and outdoor and hospital End to End (E2E) delivery systems. Furthermore, we discuss the challenges and opportunities of integrated blockchain, multi-robot collaboration, and the Internet of Things (IoT) for combating COVID-19 and future pandemics.
Dixon Vimalajeewa, Subhasis Thakur, John G. Breslin, D.P. Berry · 5 authors
The use of Internet of Things (IoT) with the Internet of Nano Things (IoNT) can further expand decision making systems (DMS) to improve reliability as it provides a new spectrum of more granular level data to make decisions. However, growing concerns such as data security, transparency and processing capability challenge their use in real-world applications. DMS integrated with Block Chain (BC) technology can contribute immensely to overcome such challenges. The use of IoNT and IoT along with BC for making DMS has not yet been investigated. This study proposes a BC-powered IoNT (BC-IoNT) system for sensing chemicals level in the context of farm management. This is a critical application for smart farming, which aims to improve sustainable farm practices through controlled delivery of chemicals. BC-IoNT system includes a novel machine learning model formed by using the Langmuir molecular binding model and the Bayesian theory, and is used as a smart contract for sensing the level of the chemicals. A credit model is used to quantify the traceability and credibility of farms to determine if they are compliant with the chemical standards. The accuracy of detecting the chemicals of the distributed BC-IoNT approach was >90% and the centralized approach was <80%. Also, the efficiency of sensing the level of chemicals depends on the sampling frequency and variability in chemical level among farms.
Aamir Iqbal, Mohammad Amir, Vinod Kumar, Aftab Alam · 5 authors
In modern era, a wide range of smart industries is being focus on automation-based applications. Various technologies are rapidly implementing in Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) for manufacturing sectors that helping to achieve advanced schedule production framework and on time delivery of products. The integration of IIoT platforms with the blockchain are challenging service in manufacturing system. The primary objective of this article is to characterize various issues and challenges that are implementing IIoT and blockchain in industries. The proposed work is an integration of IIoT and blockchain in industrial processes for solving the security issues in real-time. Also, identifying various enablers of blockchain and issues of IIoT from smart industries manufacturing using a survey tool is formed in the form of questionnaire. Based on these responses Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) technique has been implemented for categorizing these challenges into cause and effect. In this paper, we introduce the general layout with their key issues and challenges of IIoT and blockchain that signifies the safety requirements to design the IIoT and blockchain. Further, we describe how IIoT can be integrated to the blockchain for smart Industrial applications. Finally, various recommendations are the proposed to upcoming IIoT and blockchain developments. The proposed work will be highly beneficial for the smart industries to develop a next generation IIoT and blockchain based framework.
Blockchain Technology has been relevant to the industry since the advent of Bitcoin in the year 2009. In recent years, it has been an important field of study and research as it has the potential to transform a wide range of industries. Recent studies reveal that Electronic Health Records (EHR) are susceptible to problems like Data Breaching, Interoperability and Information Asymmetry leading to poor accessibility of a patient's medical history. This paper focusses on the implementation of permissioned blockchain in EHR management by providing a decentralized, cost-efficient and a secure environment. The aim of our proposed architecture is to improve the scalability of Blockchain used in EHR to provide an improvised access to a patient's health record.
Han Deng, Xiangwei Meng, Jun Guo, Erhui Xi · 5 authors
Purposed to collect and store human physiological data, WBANs as a telemedicine system play a significant role in sensor networks. The complex network environment presents a formidable challenge to the stability of the system and the security of the database. The traditional centralized architecture is to store the registration data of the sensor node and the patient's physiological data in the hub node. When the hub node is subjected to Denial of Service attacks (DoS) and Distributed Denial of Service attacks (DDoS), there will be a single point of failure, so that the sensor node cannot establish a communication connection with the hub node. In this paper, a cloud server layer architecture based on blockchain technology is proposed for WBNAs to ensure system stability and patient data security. Meanwhile, Ciphertext-Policy Attribute-Based Encryption (CP-ABE) scheme is used to ensure patient physiological data safety.
Online teaching has become mandatory across the globe during the COVID-19 pandemic situations. Hence, there is a need to uplift the online teaching technology for data privacy preservation and transparency in the system. Various online teaching schemes have been proposed by various authors, but they lack in handling decentralised governance, transparency, trust and communication issues. Blockchain (BC) Technology has emerged to provide decentralised solution in solving the real-time problems. Motivated by these facts, in this paper, we propose a BC-based decentralised online teaching scheme known as BDoTs. The security and data privacy issues in BDoTs are resolved by developing smart contracts (SCs) over BC. Moreover, the data storage cost issues are handled by the Inter Planetary File System (IPFS) protocol for Off-Chain data storage. Moreover, we present a real-time BC simulation and deployment of SC in Truffle suite. Results show that the proposed scheme performs better in comparison to the state-of-the-art schemes in terms of scalability, data storage cost, and packet loss.
Dominik Welte, Axel Sikora, Daniel Schönle, Jan Stodt · 5 authors
Blockchain and Industry 4.0 have the potential to revolutionize the way entities work together in the industrial environment. Former paper-based and manual tasks, such as maintenance, will be replaced by smart contracts in combination with automatic data collection. We consider different data sources and possibilities integrating them into a blockchain ecosystem in consideration of integration and security aspects. We identify potential security threats around the blockchain and propose potential countermeasures. Finally, we provide three solutions to protect blockchain users against three threats targeting data corruption, data protection and input falsification.
Subhi Alrubei, Edward A. Ball, Jonathan Rigelsford
The increased implementation of Edge Computing technology has provided The Internet of Things (IoT) with the ability of real-time data processing and tasks execution requested by smart devices. To support this processing the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into IoT is considered one of the most promising approach. While AI helps in the analyses of the data, blockchain technology provides a robust environment within which to create a secure, distributed way to share and store data. This paper proposes an architecture that combines the strengths provided by edge computing, AI, and blockchain technologies to provide robust, secure, and intelligent solutions for secure and faster data processing and sharing. The pandemic created by the rapid spread of the novel Coronavirus COVID-19, as well as the tracking of viruses in water sewage to help control the spread of such viruses, were used as our case study for exploring this architecture. To secure the proposed architecture a new concept for consensus mechanism based on Honesty-Based Distributed Proof of Work (DPOW) were devised and tested.
Xintong Ling, Zheng Gao, Yuwei Le, Li You · 7 authors
In this work, we propose a satellite-aided permissionless consensus protocol for scalable space-terrestrial blockchains. We design its working principle and workflow by taking full advantage of satellites for extensive coverage and ubiquitous connectivity. Based on the proposed protocol, we demonstrate how such a space-terrestrial blockchain grows and evolves through several typical cases in the presence of adversarial nodes, user misbehavior, and transmission outage. Taking proof of work (PoW) as a benchmark, we assess the system security by considering both adversarial miners and possible colluding satellites. Then, we analyze the maximum blockchain throughput under network capacity limits and evaluate the impact of information propagation delay via a Markov model. Simulation results support that the proposed satellite-aided consensus protocol achieves higher throughput and exhibits greater scalability than PoW.
Building a traditional factory into a smart factory is one of the goals of “Industry 4.0”. As factories move towards smart development, the existing network security systems can no longer meet the needs of enterprises and users. Aiming at the hidden dangers of information leakage and illegal access to the data of cryptographic production facilities and products in the smart factory, the article combines the core technology of the Internet of Things radio frequency identification (RFID) technology and blockchain technology, and proposes a blockchain-based technology, the lightweight password security authentication mechanism of the smart factory RFID system, which has the characteristics of lightweight, anti-data leakage, and low management cost. It can ensure the safe and reliable access of industrial data while preventing the application of RFID in smart factories. Security issues such as replay attacks, man-in-the-middle attacks, and server spoofing attacks also provide new ideas for the research on data security protection for smart factories.