Blockchain Papers

Aafaf Ouaddah

No abstract is available for this record.

Hany F. Atlam, Gary Wills

No abstract is available for this record.

Hankun Shi, Xuelin Wang

As a new decentralized infrastructure, blockchain has received attention and research in various fields. The decentralization, openness, autonomy and anonymity of the blockchain are of great significance to the development of the shipping industry. This paper outlines the characteristics and key technologies of the blockchain and introduces the infrastructure model of the blockchain. Combined with the characteristics of blockchain and shipping industry, this paper expounds the application status of blockchain in the shipping industry, analyzes the application prospects of the shipping industry to exploit the advantages of blockchain, and proposes the application barriers in the process of integration. This presents the development path of the blockchain in the shipping industry.

Tiago Quaini, Alex Roehrs, Cristiano André da Costa, Rodrigo da Rosa Righi

Electronic health records (EHR) are usually maintained in a centralized way by health organizations, leaving aside an integration between different health organizations to view the complete health history of a given patient. This lack of EHR integration prevents patients and physicians to have a unified view of medical records, which are often stored in different health organizations. Recent studies have proposed using Blockchain technology in distributed architectures due to its security and integration properties. In this context, this article proposes an application architecture using Blockchain technology for distributed EHR integration, which is called UniRec (Unified Medical Records). In the proposed model we seek to understand its effectivity, performance and applicability, using a case study methodology. We developed a prototype, which is evaluated using a test scenario. The prototype proved to be effective for distributed EHR integration, allowing one healthcare institution to view an EHR previously added by different providers, after being granted permission. During the test scenario execution, we obtained an average response time of 2.77 seconds, 961.6 MiB of memory consumption, 21.5% CPU usage and a total disk usage of 34.6 MB. The results reinforce the potential and feasibility of employing Blockchain for managing and storing medical data.

Cleverence Kombe, Mussa Ally, Anael Sam

Blockchain technology is a distributed electronic ledger of digital records, events or transactions that are cryptographically secure, extremely hard to forge, and updateable through a consensus protocol agreeable to all connected nodes. [1] The technology uses decentralized consensus algorithms to control database consistency. The database is purely distributed in nature and is shared to all nodes connected to the network. Transactions in the databases are bundled together for specified period of time to form a block of certain number of transactions.

Hua Zhang, Xin Zhang, Ziqing Guo, Huawei Wang · 6 authors

With the rapid development of the Internet of things (IoT), more and more IoT devices are connected and communicate frequently. In this background, the traditional centralized security architecture of IoT will be limited in terms of data storage space, data reliability, scalability, operating costs and liability judgment. In this paper, we propose an new key information storage framework based on a small distributed database generated by blockchain technology and cloud storage. Specifically, all encrypted key communication data will be upload to public could server for enough storage, but the abstracts of these data (called "communication logs") will be recorded in "IoT ledger" (i.e., an distributed database) that maintained by all IoT devices according to the blockchain generation approach, which could solve the problem of data reliability, scalability and liability judgment. Besides, in order to efficiently search communication logs and not reveal any sensitive information of communication data, we design the secure search scheme for our "IoT ledger", which exploits the Asymmetric Scalar-product Preserving Encryption (ASPE) approach to guarantee the data security, and exploits the 2-layers index which is tailor-made for blockchain database to improve the search efficiency. Security analysis and experiments on synthetic dataset show that our schemes are secure and efficient.

Haiyang Yu, Zhen Yang, Richard Sinnott

The idea of big data has gained extensive attention from governments and academia all over the world. It is especially relevant for the establishment of a smart city environment combining complex heterogeneous data with data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Big data is generated from many facilities and sensor networks in smart cities and often streamed and stored in the cloud storage platform. Ensuring the integrity and subsequent auditability of such big data is essential for the performance of AI-driven data analysis. Recent years has witnessed the emergence of many big data auditing schemes that are often characterized by third party auditors (TPAs). However, the TPA is a centralized entity, which is vulnerable to many security threats from both inside and outside the cloud. To avoid this centralized dependency, we propose a decentralized big data auditing scheme for smart city environments featuring blockchain capabilities supporting improved reliability and stability without the need for a centralized TPA in auditing schemes. To support this, we have designed an optimized blockchain instantiation and conducted a comprehensive comparison between the existing schemes and the proposed scheme through both theoretical analysis and experimental evaluation. The comparison shows that lower communication and computation costs are incurred with our scheme than with existing schemes.

Yu‐Jia Chen, Li‐Chun Wang, Shu Wang

This paper proposes a blockchain-based data checking scheme to protect data integrity in Internet of Things (IoT). Traditional data integrity schemes such as symmetric key approaches and public key infrastructure (PKI) suffer from the single-point of failure and network congestion due to the centralized architecture. Motivated by the distributed data authentication in blockchain, we propose to adopt blockchain to ensure the data integrity in IoT networks. However, the existing blockchain scheme cannot be directly applied to IoT nodes with limited computing and network resources. Hence, we develop a stochastic blockchain scheme to limit the number of cooperative nodes and distribute the load to IoT edge nodes. In our scheme, the IoT data are broadcast by randomly selected cooperative nodes, thereby introducing uncertainty to the attacker and improving the system security level. Finally, we propose a lightweight mining process to make only the IoT edge nodes compete for block generation and share the block with other nodes. If our scheme is used in the case of having 9,000 legitimate nodes and 1,000 compromised nodes, only three cooperative nodes can achieve the probability of successful defense over 99 percent.

Pradip Kumar Sharma, Neeraj Kumar, Jong Hyuk Park

The digitalization and massive adoption of advanced technologies in the automotive industry not only transform the equipment manufacturer's operating mode, but also change the current business models. The increased adoption of autonomous cars is expected to disrupt government regulations, manufacturing, insurance, and maintenance services. Moreover, providing integrated, personalized, and on-demand services have shared, connected, and autonomous cars in the smart city for a sustainable ecosystem. To address these issues in this paper, we propose a blockchain-based distributed framework for the automotive industry in the smart city. The proposed framework includes a novel miner node selection algorithm for the blockchain-based distributed network architecture. To evaluate the feasibility of the proposed framework, we simulated the proposed model on a private Ethereum blockchain platform using captured dataset of mined blocks from litecoinpool.org. The simulation results show the proof-of-concept of the proposed model that can be used for wide range of future smart applications.

Muhammad Salek Ali, Massimo Vecchio, Miguel Pincheira, Koustabh Dolui · 6 authors

The blockchain technology has revolutionized the digital currency space with the pioneering cryptocurrency platform named Bitcoin. From an abstract perspective, a blockchain is a distributed ledger capable of maintaining an immutable log of transactions happening in a network. In recent years, this technology has attracted significant scientific interest in research areas beyond the financial sector, one of them being the Internet of Things (IoT). In this context, the blockchain is seen as the missing link toward building a truly decentralized, trustless, and secure environment for the IoT and, in this survey, we aim to shape a coherent and comprehensive picture of the current state-of-the-art efforts in this direction. We start with fundamental working principles of blockchains and how blockchain-based systems achieve the characteristics of decentralization, security, and auditability. From there, we build our narrative on the challenges posed by the current centralized IoT models, followed by recent advances made both in industry and research to solve these challenges and effectively use blockchains to provide a decentralized, secure medium for the IoT.

Mouhamad Almakhour, Layth Sliman, Abed Ellatif Samhat, Walid Gaaloul

International audience

U. M. Ramya, PALUKURI SINDHUJA, RA Atsaya, B. Bavya Dharani · 5 authors

No abstract is available for this record.

Suruchi Mann, Vidyasagar Potdar, Raj Shekhar Gajavilli, Anulipt Chandan

The mining and metals industry is a critical component of the global economy. However, many operational and commercial practices remain inefficient and antiquated, leading to critical data omissions, security vulnerabilities, and even corruption. Mining supply chain faces several challenges like traceability, transparency, interoperability between supplier platforms and so on. Traditional systems are inefficient and hence this paper explores the use of an emerging digital technology named blockchain. The blockchain is a distributed digital ledger that keeps a record of every transaction securely and reliably without the need of third parties that reduces the exposure of the data to hackers. Blockchain technology improves productivity by replacing the standard contract with smart contracts. This paper outlines several key applications of blockchain for the mining industry.

Amir Taherkordi, Peter Herrmann

Thanks to its decentralized structure and immutability, blockchain technology has the potential to address relevant security and privacy challenges in the Internet of Things (IoT). In particular, by hosting and executing smart contracts, blockchain allows secure, flexible, and traceable message communication between IoT devices. The unique characteristics of IoT systems, such as heterogeneity and pervasiveness, however, pose challenges in designing smart contracts for such systems. In this paper, we study these challenges and propose a design approach for smart contracts used in IoT systems. The main goal of our design model is to enhance the development of IoT smart contracts based on the inherent pervasive attributes of IoT systems. In particular, the design model allows the smart contracts to encapsulate functionalities such as contractlevel communication between IoT devices, access to data-sources within contracts, and interoperability of heterogeneous IoT smart contracts. The essence of our approach is structuring the design of IoT smart contracts as self-contained software services, inspired by the microservice architecture model. The flexibility, scalability and modularity of this model make it an efficient approach for developing pervasive IoT smart contracts.

Anik Islam, Md. Fazlul Kader, Soo Young Shin

Existing education systems are facing a threat of question paper leaking\n(QPL) in the exam which jeopardizes the quality of education. Therefore, it is\nhigh time to think about a more secure and flexible question sharing system\nwhich can prevent QPL issue in the future education system. Blockchain enables\na way of creating and storing transactions, contracts or anything that requires\nprotection against tampering, accessing etc. This paper presents a new scheme\nfor smart education, by utilizing the concept of blockchain, for question\nsharing. A two-phase encryption technique for encrypting question paper (QSP)\nis proposed. In the first phase, QSPs are encrypted using timestamp and in the\nsecond phase, previous encrypted QSPs are encrypted again using a timestamp,\nsalt hash and hashes from previous QSPs. These encrypted QSPs are stored in the\nblockchain along with a smart contract which helps the user to unlock the\nselected QSP. An algorithm is also proposed for selecting a QSP for the exam\nwhich picks a QSP randomly. Moreover, a timestamp based lock is imposed on the\nscheme so that no one can decrypt the QSP before the allowed time. Finally,\nsecurity is analyzed by proving different propositions and the superiority of\nthe proposed scheme over existing schemes is proven through a comparative study\nbased on the different features.\n

Byung-Wan Jo, Rana Muhammad Asad Khan, Yun‐Sung Lee

The Internet-of-things (IoT) and blockchain are growing realities of modern society, and both are rapidly transforming civilization, either separately or in combination. However, the leverage of both technologies for structural health monitoring (SHM) to enable transparent information sharing among involved parties and autonomous decision making has not yet been achieved. Therefore, this study combines IoT with blockchain-based smart contracts for SHM of underground structures to define a novel, efficient, scalable, and secure distributed network for enhancing operational safety. In this blockchain-IoT network, the characteristics of locally centralized and globally decentralized distribution have been activated by dividing them into core and edge networks. This division enhances the efficiency and scalability of the system. The proposed system was effective in simulation for autonomous monitoring and control of structures. After proper design, the decentralized blockchain networks may effectively be deployed for transparent and efficient information sharing, smart contracts-based autonomous decision making, and data security in SHM.

Gabriel Axel Montes, Ben Goertzel

No abstract is available for this record.

Alina Buzachis, Massimo Villari

In recent years, the rapid development of Cloud, Edge and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies has accelerated the advancement trends forcing applications and information systems (IS) to evolve. In this new ecosystem, ISs are federated and usually highly distributed becoming complex and very dynamic that have to extend not only through the Cloud/Edge and IoT layers but also the federated organizational boundaries. In this context, Osmotic Computing (OC) is a new paradigm driven by the significant increase in capacity/capability of resources in highly distributed and federated environments, that solves problems related to the deployment, networking and security of microservices called MicroElements (MEL) that are composed and interconnected over Cloud/Edge and IoT infrastructures with specified levels of QoS and security constraints. In this federated collaborative system, each organization needs to have proper administration and security policies to maintain data security while allowing selective sharing of resources. Classical models of access control are not effective in protecting resources while allowing users to access to the resources within their privileges. Blockchain is an underlying technology that could help organizations to improve access control systems through consensus mechanisms, and underlying features of immutability, transparency, auditability, and cryptography. In this work, we propose a MELs orchestration approach through a Software Defined Membrane (SDMem) that leverages Blockchain facilities obeying the osmosis principles.

Yu Zeng, Xing Zhang, Rizwan Akhtar, Changda Wang

In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), provenance is vital for assessing data's trustworthiness, detecting the misbehaviors conducted by adversaries or troubleshooting communication failures. The provenance can be encoded through fingerprinting the node IDs along a packet path where the packets are generated, forwarded and/or aggregated. Because WSNs are resource-tightened networks, most of the known provenance schemes applied in WSNs address the issues on how to reduce the provenance size with various compression techniques only. However, reducing the provenance size at a sensor node also costs too much energy. In addition, such schemes did not take the secure and persistant provenance storage for consideration in a long term. To fill the gap, we propose a blockchainbased data provenance scheme (BCP) of compression free, where the provenances are stored distributively on the nodes along the packet path and the BS can retrieve the provenance on demand through a query process. An edge computing based monitor network consisting of high performance nodes (H-nodes) is deployed above or nearby the WSNs, which keeps the WSN's provenance data in a blockchain-based database. The security and authenticity of the provenances are then protected. What's more, the WSN is released from consuming much energy in handling provenance data, which is more superior to all the previous schemes. Both the simulation and experiment results show that our scheme BCP is more energy efficient and secure than those of the known distributed data provenances.

Md. Adib Muhtasim, Syeda Ramisa Fariha, Rayhan Rashid, Nabila Islam · 5 authors

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network formed by electronic objects having embedded sensors, software and network connectivity in them. Although they can collect and exchange data, they are prone to both cyber-attack and physical tampering. Thus, it is essential to encrypt their communications, by addressing new challenges such as impersonating "things" or nodes, denial-of-sleep attacks that drain batteries, to denial-of-service attacks (DoS). A peer-to-peer model can eliminate the dependency of a centralized data center. A Blockchain is a model for a distributed database of records of all transactions or digital events that have been executed and shared among participating nodes. In it, digital signatures are validated instead of physical signatures. With a decentralized approach implemented with cryptographic algorithms, blockchain oversees a secure transaction between IoT devices and coordinates them. This paper explores one of the processes of incorporating blockchain with a very vulnerable centralized IoT structure. IoT devices are represented as aircrafts in which the engine data and various data from the aircrafts' sensors are sent to the airports for analysis. After analysis, the analyzed data is sent to nearby airports and also to that particular aircraft. The paper analyzes how the blockchain network is created, the time latency of sending the data of the IoT devices through this blockchain network and some parts of the analysis process which is required for aircraft maintenance.

Pranita Upadhyaya, Sanjib Kumar Upadhyay, Bishikha Subedi, Bhawana Subedi · 5 authors

In present days, data security and citizen privacy are the vulnerable areas globally. Amongst them, healthcare systems are the most targeted ones. In Nepal, among the few e-health systems available, most are disconnected, fragmented and cyber security aspect is overlooked, creating even more risk. To effectively guide health care systems and make it more citizen-centric, centralized secured online healthcare system is essential. This study proposes a centralized, permissioned Blockchain based secured healthcare system using hyperledger for developing countries. This system follows distributed storage technology to facilitate better availability, redundancy and strong confidentiality using cryptographic encryption. Besides, this technique creates a transparent yet secure and immutable data storage and sharing platform. It optimally and effectively contributes to the transfer of health information that is cost effective. Regarding it, a pilot study was performed taking a tertiary care hospital; Hospital for Children, Eye, ENT and Rehabilitation Services (CHEERS) and its community hospital at Chapagaun. It was validated using the balanced scorecard to confirm its cost-effective performance. Nineteen most essential key progress indicators were chosen for study. From this study, it was deduced that transforming internal business process of a hospital setting by implementing proposed healthcare system results in 75% customer satisfaction as well as 63% financial gain. This approach uplifts the healthcare organizations and their financial status. It, in turn, sets a benchmark for a secured health care system of developing countries as a whole.

Tiffany Hyun‐Jin Kim, Joshua Lampkins

This paper introduces a system for providing integrity, authenticity, and privacy of data transactions for resource-limited Internet of Things (IoT) smart devices using blockchain (BC) and Multi-Party Computation (MPC). In particular, we introduce two mechanisms: one provides privacy and integrity protections on the data being collected by the smart devices, such as medical records or diagnostic data, and the other provides authenticity and integrity of data going into the smart devices, such as software updates. Our experimental results indicate that our proposed mechanisms incur small overhead in terms of storage, communication, and computation, indicating their feasibility to IoT devices with limited storage, computational, and communicational capabilities.

Yuma Sakakibara, Yuta Tokusashi, Shin Morishima, Hiroki Matsutani

Blockchain is core technology for cryptocurrency and it is possible to become fundamental platform for industry and business. Especially, a blockchain-based digital asset transfer system using Internet of Things (IoT) products has recently been considered as a new practical platform, but the protocol limits performance. Previous research has improved performance by proposing new protocols, but further improvement is necessary for dealing with increasing transactions via IoT products. Therefore, we propose an in-Network Interface Card (in-NIC) processing approach using a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) to improve performance of a blockchain-based transfer system. To be more concrete, we design and implement a prototype NIC with a key-value data store written in a P4 language on the FPGA that has four 10Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) network interfaces. The prototype system supports frequently-used commands (CREATE, ISSUE, TRANSFER and REFER) for transferring digital asset. It reduces time for processing a kernel network protocol stack and accessing the data store. In fact, we measured throughput and latency of our prototype system compared to those of a blockchain software application. As a result, we found that our solution is able to obtain throughput 6.04 times higher on average and latency 15.4 times lower on average for all typical blockchain operations.

Ravishankar Chamarajnagar, Ashwin Ashok

The proliferation of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices has opened up plethora of opportunities for smart networking and connected applications. The large distribution of IoT devices within a finite geographical area and the pervasiveness of wireless networking presents an opportunity for such devices to collaborate. This paper proposes the idea of opportunistic collaboration among mobile IoT devices to share their services and excess computing resources. Opportunistic collaboration among devices over wireless networking requires proper coordination and agreements among the devices in a purely distributed manner. To facilitate the distributive collaboration, we propose a decentralized architecture design using blockchain technology. Through experimental evaluation of a prototype collaborative mobile-IoT system involving RaspberryPis and a Dell IoT edge gateway, we show that our proposed distributed collaborative approach is feasible and comparable to a non-collaborative edge- computing approach from a latency perspective.