In recent years, with Bitcoin taking the lead, the blockchain technology has been put in the spotlight as it introduced a method for multiple parties to achieve consensus without trust. Nevertheless, the according application is constrained due to its limitations in scalability. In this paper, we proposed a highly scalable consensus model based on majority voting cellular automata, namely the MOCA consensus, with a distinctive blockchain-based distributed ledger in which the state change of each node depends on its neighbors. MOCA consensus origins from the zero-temperature Ising model with spontaneous magnetization achieving scalability of number of nodes with high probability Byzantine fault tolerance.
Youssef Wehbe, Mohammed Al Za’abi, Davor Svetinović
Healthcare-related technology has been growing exponentially, from electronic healthcare records (EHRs) and personal health trackers to population health management tools. Currently, data from these sources is largely archived, analyzed separately or using only cursory integration with other data sources. In this study, we propose a coupled AI-Blockchain EHR management system. The goal is to provide a platform that leverages blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) for (i) secure EHR management, (ii) efficient data integration, and (iii) reliable computer-aided diagnoses. A goal-oriented modeling approach with the Constrained Goal Model (CGM) is used to elicit the system requirements. Questionnaire results for a case study in Abu Dhabi, UAE served for model validation and refinement for maximizing the number of system users.
One needs permission from somebody or someone to do pretty much anything these days. Whether it be parking your car, gaining a license, accessing a stock exchange or, more recently and topically, retaining personal data from a client business card, somebody somewhere insists you provide evidence that you have permission.
This paper explores ‘permissions’, i.e. the actions one is allowed to perform with items, and more specifically, permissions surrounding digital items, which are becoming increasingly complex. In order to effectively manage such permissions in contemporary markets, we believe that a new framework for defining and managing distributed permissions is needed: what one might call a species of ‘information rules’.
The goal of this report is to consider how Smart Ledgers could implement such a permissions framework. We intentionally explore new technical approaches, rather than recommending an evolution of current frameworks and technology. We believe that current technical ‘architectures’, largely based around a central third party and its information technology, are giving way to more distributed architectures. These distributed architectures are based on ‘Smart Ledgers’, multi-organisational databases with a super audit trail, typically containing some embedded computer code.
The research was led by Maury Shenk, Managing Director, Lily Innovation and Professor Michael Mainelli, Executive Chairman, Z/Yen Group.
The report concludes that the criteria for successful permissioning systems appear to be:
Precision – ability to accurately convey permissions;
Breadth – scope to convey any type of permission;
Applicability – comprehensibility and practicality of application in real-world markets and related interactions.
In recent years, Electronic Commerce (E-commerce) applications are attracting many users and merchants to conduct their daily business online which includes payment of bills, online banking, buying tickets and purchasing goods etc. E-commerce transaction security is a major concern for E-commerce websites along with its customers. The basic requirements for any E-commerce transaction are privacy, authentication, integrity and non-repudiation. In this paper, a transaction processing system (TPS) for E-commerce by using a Blockchain technology, zero-knowledge proof and modified elliptic curve cryptography encryption is proposed. Also a denial of service attack detection model for the E-commerce system is proposed which take care of the DoS attack during E-commerce transactions.
Kebira Azbeg, Ouail Ouchetto, Said Jai Andaloussi, Leila Fetjah · 5 authors
Diabetes is one of the most common disease over the world which requires a daily self-care in order to be controlled. Nowadays, diabetes self-management can benefit from the recent advanced technologies such as Internet of things (wearables and medical sensors) to take measurements and track health data. In this paper, we present a platform architecture based on the IoT and Blockchain to facilitate the follow-up of diabetes and to help patients to self-manage it properly. Our architecture combines the IoT with the Blockchain technology in order to collect patients' data, share it with their healthcare teams in a near real-time and in a secure manner while preserving patient's privacy.
The Senate proceedings occasioned by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation against Justice Brett Kavanaugh left the then-nominee calling them a “circus” and observers confused about who was supposed to prove what and by what standard. Since the Senate is ill-suited to sorting out cases and controversies (and since the Ford-Kavanaugh matter will surely not be the last of its kind), the Senate should adopt standards (burdens of proof) for future judicial-nominee proceedings that it borrows from a sister branch—the judiciary. In any proceeding, the burden must be laded—it must be determined which party has the burden in the first place. It must also be weighted—it must be determined how much of a burden is to be imposed. This lading and weighting takes place with regard to both the burden of making out a colorable claim (the burden of production) and also the threshold for deciding in a party’s favor (the burden of persuasion). Courts often lade the burden of persuasion, in particular, on the party that (a) has the lesser interest at stake, (b) precipitates (as distinguished from initiates) the action, or (c) warrants special suspicion and scrutiny. This Article applies these principles to Senate judicial-nominee proceedings, noting that those proceedings sometimes involve two separate inquiries: (1) the qualification (or general suitability) inquiry, and (2) the inquiry into any allegation of specific and potentially disqualifying wrongdoing. The Article posits that, as to the qualification inquiry, the nominee has the burdens of production and persuasion and must show with convincing evidence that he or she is suitable for office. As to the allegation inquiry, although the accuser should have the burden of producing credible evidence to establish a plausible claim of wrongdoing, sound principles mitigate against the accuser bearing the ultimate burden of persuasion. That burden should rest with the nominee, who must show that the allegation is implausible, incredible, or unreasonable. Finally, this Article proposes a sliding scale for determining the precise threshold of proof required to meet this burden, focusing on the three different levels of federal judicial appointments (district judge, circuit judge, and Supreme Court justice) and accounting for the different interests involved as to each.
Blockchain is one of the most heavily invested technologies in recent years. Due to its tamper-proof and decentralization properties, blockchain has become an ideal utility for data storage that is applicable in many real world industrial scenarios. One important scenario is web log, which is treated as sources of technical significance and commercial revenues in major internet companies. In this paper, we illustrate our design of a web log storage system based on HyperLedger. HyperLedger yields higher throughput and lower latency compared with other blockchain systems. Alongside its efficiency advantages., HyperLeger is a permissioned blockchain, which is an ideal fit for enterprise software design scenario.
Cüneyt Gürcan Akçora, Murat Kantarcıoğlu, Yulia R. Gel
Over the last couple of years, Bitcoin cryptocurrency and the Blockchain technology that forms the basis of Bitcoin have witnessed an unprecedented attention. Designed to facilitate a secure distributed platform without central regulation, Blockchain is heralded as a novel paradigm that will be as powerful as Big Data, Cloud Computing, and Machine Learning. The Blockchain technology garners an ever increasing interest of researchers in various domains that benefit from scalable cooperation among trust-less parties. As Blockchain data analytics further proliferates, a need to glean successful approaches and to disseminate them among a diverse body of data scientists became a critical task. As an inter-disciplinary team of researchers, our aim is to fill this vital role. In this tutorial, we offer a holistic view on Blockchain Data Analytics. Starting with the core components of Blockchain, we will discuss the state of art in Blockchain data analytics for privacy, security, finance, and management domains. We will share tutorial notes and further reading pointers on the tutorial website blockchaintutorial.github.io.
There has been a vast increase in incidents related to multimedia copyright and security breaches in the past few years, compromising users' privacy. One such breach involved the seventh season of the TV series “Game of Thrones”, where episodes were illegally downloaded before the official release date etc. Such security breaches raise questions about the approaches and models that currently apply to data privacy and security, where the user saves and distributes his data personally or depends on a third party or stakeholder to manage the distribution rights of sensitive data. When it comes to multimedia, many companies or multimedia owners rely on third parties, distributors and sales persons to monitor their publicity, maintain their popularity and sell their multimedia content. Blockchain technology, which was originally devised for the digital currency (cryptocurrency), has distinct features such as distributed networking, data privacy, trust less computing etc. This technology attracts great interest from the research community due to its innovative properties which can be applied to many business applications, one being access control over data. In this paper, we present a decentralized data management framework that ensures user data privacy and control. We propose a protocol that uses blockchain technology to take control of the user's data. This protocol enables the user to have full control over his multimedia files and he doesn't need to trust a third party. The framework allows the user to not only store data but also to query and share data as well as auditing. Finally, we discuss possible future extensions of blockchain technology as a medium to ensure privacy, data control, auditing and trust management in different areas.
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Cloud Data Security Solutions
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Swarm robotics is a research field in which a group of autonomous robots execute tasks through cooperative works. Sharing information among robots is a central function for an optimal performance of the system. Given that the swarm network structure constantly changes when robots move, it becomes difficult to guarantee on information sharing by all swarm members. We, in this work, propose an approach for information sharing on swarm robotic systems by using Blockchain technology. A function of distributed ledger in Blockchain technology has possibility to solve the information sharing problem and to easily synchronize their state. However, because Blockchain persistently keeps past transactions, the increase of its chain size is one of the serious issues to manage Blockchain technology. In this paper, we introduce a methodology to share information among autonomous robots and demonstrate through experiments that how the differences in data size recorded in the blockchain affect the chain size. As a result, compared with our previous approach, we succeeded in suppressing increase in chain size by using the proposal approach; it was reduced the amount of increase in chain size about 73.0% when each node repeatedly shared about 2.8KB image data by 100 times.
The block chain has achieved great success in bit coin, and its decentralization idea caught highly attention of financial institutions, capital markets and academia. Decentralization is the most fundamental feature of the block chain, but decentralization sacrifices efficiency, while mining leads to high bit coin transaction costs; in some industries, such as the commercial retail, high efficiency and low cost are required. The consensus algorithm is the core technology to achieve non-centralization. This article proposes a DPoS consensus mechanism election algorithm. This algorithm improves the ring-based coordinator election algorithm. First, the algorithm is used to elect the agents, and then the final winner, reach a new consensus, meet the requirements of the block chain performance in the commercial retail sector, reduce transaction costs, and construct a fair, freely competitive, non-monopoly, secure and non-centralized block chain platform.
We propose in this article to study the behavior of investors in the bitcoin market in order to test whether investors' overconfidence is a driver of excess volatility, often associated with the aforementioned market. This paper presents an attempt to deepen the previously published studies by adopting a new ARMA(p,q)-FIEGARCH(1,d,k,1) parametrization capable of capturing the overconfidence element as well as simultaneously accounting for possible long memory effect. The data used in this study consists of daily closing prices along with daily exchange volume of Bitcoin, spanning the period ranging from 01/01/2012 up to 31/05/2018. The results and conclusions drafted in this research paper could help to understand the formation of volatility in the Bitcoin market. Therefore, this kind of studies will enable investors to better predict bubbles and irrational exuberances. The main contribution of the present article is drawn from the broadening of previous studies by adopting a newly constructed model, which combines capturing asymmetric response, long memory along with the overconfidence element.
The aim of this paper is to propose an Internet of Things system that collects, sends, stores, and publishes relevant data using a Raspberry Pi as the smart sensor. Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) from BigchainDB and IOTA are used to store data in a blockchain-like database, and to publish a temporal statistic data summary respectively, in addition to store the data streams in a SQL database. The collection, storage, and publication of the data is free and almost instantaneous. This system can become a source of evidences to different types of stakeholders all around specific businesses getting benefits from keeping the level of trust along its value chain.
Ella Tallyn, Larissa Pschetz, Rory Gianni, Chris Speed · 5 authors
Technologies such as distributed ledgers and smart contracts are enabling the emergence of new autonomous systems, and providing enhanced systems to track the provenance of goods. A growing body of work in HCI is exploring the novel challenges of these systems, but there has been little attention paid to their impact on everyday activities. This paper presents a study carried out in 3 office environments for a 1-month period, which explored the impact of an autonomous coffee machine on the everyday activity of coffee consumption. The Bitbarista mediates coffee consumption through autonomous processes, presenting provenance data at the time of purchase while attempting to reduce intermediaries in the coffee trade. Through the report of interactions with and around the Bitbarista, we explore its implications for everyday life, and wider social structures and values. We conclude by offering recommendations for the design of community shared autonomous systems.
May AlTaei, Nedaa Baker Al Barghuthi, Qusay H. Mahmoud, Sonia Al Barghuthi · 5 authors
A blockchain is a distributed ledger and the underlying technology of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency, allowing it to operate in a decentralized fashion with no intermediaries such as financial institutions. The use of blockchain, however, will be far beyond the financial sector; smart contracts, for example would allow business and legal agreements to be stored and executed online. It is anticipated that blockchain will do to middle- and back-office functions what the Internet and the Web have done to the front-office - automate functions. In this paper, we investigate what Chief Information Officers (CIOs) think of blockchain and how they plan to utilize it for their organizations. We conducted a survey that was completed by 25 CIOs in the United Arab Emirates and found mixed feelings about the technology and barriers for use. In this paper, we also discuss opportunities and challenges in adopting blockchain.
Deva Surya Vivek Madala, Mahabir Prasad Jhanwar, Anupam Chattopadhyay
The security of web communication via the SSL/TLS protocols relies on safe distributions of public keys associated with web domains in the form of X.509 certificates. Certificate authorities (CAs) are trusted third parties that issue these certificates. However, the CA ecosystem is fragile and prone to compromises. Starting with Google's Certificate Transparency project, a number of research works have recently looked at adding transparency for better CA accountability, effectively through public logs of all certificates issued by certification authorities, to augment the current X.509 certificate validation process into SSL/TLS. In this paper, leveraging recent progress in blockchain technology, we propose a novel system, called CTB, that makes it impossible for a CA to issue a certificate for a domain without obtaining consent from the domain owner. We further make progress to equip CTB with certificate revocation mechanism. We implement CTB using IBM's Hyperledger Fabric blockchain platform. CTB's smart contract, written in Go, is provided for complete reference.
There has been increased interest in the use of blockchains to control Internet of Things devices either directly, or through smart contracts. Many blockchains, such as Ethereum and Fabric, have support for smart contracts. The use of public blockchains while attractive due to their decentralization and availability, do pose challenges, such as unpredictable transaction latencies and cryptocurrency price fluctuations. Transactions in the Ethereum network, such as invokations of smart contracts used to control an IoT device, have no fairness or eventuality guarantees. In this work we describe a “spam attack” method available to parties with sufficient cryptocurrency reserves to delay a statistically significant portion of transactions submitted to the Ethereum network. This paper derives estimations on the costs and effects of such an attack, and is based on an analysis of historical transactions.
Jiemin Zhong, Haoran Xie, Di Zou, Dickson K.W. Chui
The blockchain technology has been a hot topic recently due to the skyrocketed price of Bitcoin, and many people have noticed the underlying technology of this cryptocurrency and applied it in diverse areas like finance or commerce industry. However, the application of blockchain in education is limited, which is a pity as the blockchain technology can address many issues like insufficient user interactivity and system interoperability in the e-learning systems. This paper aims to propose a conceptual model for e-learning systems and use word-learning community as an example by adopting the blockchain technology to address the above issues. The potential applications of blockchain are introduced and discussed, and a system evaluation is conducted based on an ISO quality model to verify the effectiveness of the proposed model.
Organizations are interested in transferring their cyber-risks to insurers aiming to mitigate the cost of cyber-threats. However, cyber-insurance has not been widely accepted due to several obstacles. First, the lack of reliable data to measure the cyber-risks makes it hard to calculate the insurance premium. Second, there are legal and procedural hurdles for assessing the organizations security posture deterring insurer for auditing. On the other hand, the blockchain technology has been extensively popularized due to its ability to provide transparency and security. Blockchain applies the distributed ledger to store transaction histories, and the information is stored across a network of computers instead of on a single server. In order to improve the application of the cyber-insurance, in this research, we propose a new framework to insure a cyber-product using the blockchain technology. First, a vendor initiates a request for insuring a cyber-product, then the interested insurers participate in a sealed-bid auction by bidding their preferred premium for the insurance service. The auction winners will be selected as the insurers, and they receive tokens in return of their obligations. In the case of an indemnity request, the auditor checks the validity of a request, then calls the claim function to retrieve the corresponding amount from the funds collected from the insurers. Furthermore, we propose a new method to implement a sealed-bid auction for the insurance crowdfunding in smart contract.
Blockchain is an innovative distributed ledger technology which has attracted a wide range of interests for building the next generation of applications to address lack-of-trust issues in business. Blockchain as a service (BaaS) is a promising solution to improve the productivity of blockchain application development. The existing BaaS solutions mostly focus on easier and faster deployment of blockchain applications. However, design of blockchain applications is challenging to developers as it requires development experiences and deep understanding of blockchain technologies. Therefore, this paper summarises a set of design patterns and delivers them as a service to support design of blockchain application. We present a service platform which applies design patterns for data management and smart contract design of blockchain applications to address the scalability and security issues of blockchain. The platform also provides two auxiliary services, including key management and file comparison, which are often needed in blockchain applications. The feasibility of the proposed solutions is evaluated using a real-world quality tracing use case.
Mu Yang, Andrea Margheri, Runshan Hu, Vladimiro Sassone
Cloud federation is an emergent cloud-computing paradigm that allows services from different cloud systems to be aggregated in a single pool. To support secure data sharing in a cloud federation, anonymization services that obfuscate sensitive datasets under differential privacy have been recently proposed. However, by outsourcing data protection to the cloud, data owners lose control over their data, raising privacy concerns. This is even more compelling in multi-query scenarios in which maintaining privacy amounts to controlling the allocation of the so-called privacy budget. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based approach that enables data owners to control the anonymization process and that enhances the security of the services. Our approach relies on blockchain to validate the usage of the privacy budget and adaptively change its allocation through smart contracts, depending on the privacy requirements provided by data owners. Prototype implementation with the Hyperledger permissioned blockchain validates our approach with respect to privacy guarantee and practicality.
Most enterprise blockchain applications rely on real world trust relationship such as the business in financial institutions, entertainment industry, supply chain industry, transportation, education, healthcare services, etc. Hyperledger aims to advance blockchain technology that confederate in the cross-industry to open standard platform for distributed ledgers, which can transform the way business transactions are controlled globally. As we know currently the model of blockchain have permissionless blockchain and permissioned blockchain, which the permissionless blockchain such as Bitcoin cryptocurrency that anyone can operate a node and participate through spending CPU cycle and demonstrating a proof of work. On the other hand, permissioned blockchain model control who participates in validation and in the protocol. More over these nodes typically have established identities and form a consortium. Therefore, to make the innovation application that need the authority and permission for submitting the transaction we will select the hyperledger fabric framework to develop our project. Hence this paper will focus to study to develop a prototype of healthcare service application in dental clinic service. In order to keep records transactions that are accessible and controlled the authority by participants which it has a transaction id number that generate by hash number mechanism running by hyperledger composer. This application will create a trust relationship wherein the goal is to set up a set of participants in an ecosystem that it needed in health care service in the field of sharing the medical equipment and transaction that can save a variety of costs and make an interoperability process in the clinics.
Daniela Mechkaroska, Vesna Dimitrova, Aleksandra Popovska‐Mitrovikj
Bitcoin and Smart Contract are the first major applications of the BlockChain technology. But, with increasing the number of transactions, the process of verification on every transaction is very slow. This is the reason for a third major innovation called a BlockChain scaling. The scalability is a process of taking certain steps in accelerating the performing of transactions in this new technology. In this paper we analyze the possibilities for BlockChain scalability and we examine the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed solutions.
To reach international climate goals, the research about energy consumption have to focus more on existing buildings. In the building sector, the increase of energy efficiency of buildings will not be sufficient to reduce the consumption of fossil resources significantly. Therefore the application of renewable energies have to increase as well. Seasonal heat storage systems can support this process because the storage enables heat supply and heat demand to be decoupled time-wise. Nevertheless, innovative systems, which are using renewable energy for heating, are always in a competition with conventional heating systems, which are using gas or oil. They must be equally efficient in technical and economic aspects. For that reason, this study is focused on the comparison of a heat supply with seasonal heat storage systems in connection with a solar thermal system and a heating system with gas. For this comparison a technical system and an operating model was established. This system was analyzed by his economic parameters with complete finance plans. As a result, it is shown, that sustainable heat supply is not much more expensive than conventional heat supply. In addition, the social acceptance of different stakeholder is affected by these parameters. Therefor expert interviews with investors were done.