Kai Fan, Shangyang Wang, Yanhui Ren, Kan Yang · 7 authors
Internet of Things (IoT) has been developed rapidly to make our life easier. In many IoT applications (e.g., smart homes, healthcare, etc.), all the IoT devices should be synchronized in time. However, some malicious nodes located in the IoT network can influence the time synchronization, which may interrupt the IoT system and lead to serious accidents. Therefore, it is critical and challenging to guarantee the accuracy and consistency of time during the time synchronization among all the IoT devices. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based scheme to assure the security during time synchronization in IoT. Specifically, a publicly verifiable ledger is utilized to record and broadcast time, which can minimize many attacks from external environments. The use of multiple time sources can avoid the vulnerabilities caused by the centralized generation of accurate time. Moreover, the decentralized structure of this scheme has the advantage of adapting the changes of network topology. By employing an improved practical Byzantine fault tolerance consensus mechanism, time synchronization can be implemented efficiently. At last, the analysis results show that our proposed scheme can achieve the desired security with high efficiency.
As Bitcoin's popularity has grown over the decade since its creation, it has become an increasingly attractive target for adversaries of all kinds. One of the most powerful potential adversaries is the country of China, which has expressed adversarial positions regarding the cryptocurrency and demonstrated powerful capabilities to influence it. In this paper, we explore how China threatens the security, stability, and viability of Bitcoin through its dominant position in the Bitcoin ecosystem, political and economic control over domestic activity, and control over its domestic Internet infrastructure. We explore the relationship between China and Bitcoin, document China's motivation to undermine Bitcoin, and present a case study to demonstrate the strong influence that China has over Bitcoin. Finally, we systematize the class of attacks that China can deploy against Bitcoin to better understand the threat China poses. We conclude that China has mature capabilities and strong motives for performing a variety of attacks against Bitcoin.
The rapid growth of Internet of Vehicles (IoV) has brought huge challenges for large data storage, intelligent management, and information security for the entire system. The traditional centralized management approach for IoV faces the difficulty in dealing with real-time response. The blockchain, as an effective technology for decentralized distributed storage and security management, has already showed great advantages in its application of Bitcoin. In this paper, we investigate how the blockchain technology could be extended to the application of vehicle networking, especially with the consideration of the distributed and secure storage of big data. We define several types of nodes such as vehicle and roadside for vehicle networks and form several sub-blockchain networks. In this paper, we present a model of the outward transmission of vehicle blockchain data, and then give detail theoretical analysis and numerical results. This paper has shown the potential to guide the application of blockchain for future vehicle networking.
Dr. Julian Hosp, Toby Hoenisch, Paul Kittiwongsunthorn
Since the creation of Bitcoin in 2009 we have seen a great push towards public and private blockchains. In order to avoid fragmentation, a global network connecting all these blockchains is envisioned. Just like the Internet facilitates communication and the transfer of information, we propose a system, similar in size and reach for payments and transactions: A cryptographically-secure off-chain multi-asset instant transaction network (COMIT) can connect and exchange any asset on any blockchain to any other blockchain using a cross-chain routing protocol (CRP). COMIT is a super blockchain network that allows for instant transactions which are enforced using off-chain smart contracts. It leverages Payment Channels and Hashed Timelock Contracts (HTLC) across chains to solve the problem of double spending attacks without requiring a settlement onto the underlying blockchains. COMIT's connectivity is provided by Liquidity Providers (LP), who operate on one or more blockchains, acting as payment hubs and nodes on a single chain and market makers in a decentralized network for cross-chain asset conversions. This paper lays out how COMIT works, the benefits for Users, Liquidity Providers and Businesses; and how this does not only accelerate the adoption of blockchain technology, but furthermore allows for an integration with the traditional banking system.
Kriptovalute danas više nisu naznaka daleke budućnosti, nego realno sredstvo plaćanja sa stvarnim posljedicama. Bitcoin je svega u par godina postao nositelj jednog novog vremena za trgovinu u kojoj nije potreban posrednik i čije su transakcije u potpunosti anonimne, što čini veliko odstupanje od uobičajene prakse. Sam cilj ovoga rada je vidjeti koliki je stvarni utjecaj kriptovaluta na poslovnu klimu, odnosno konkretno na međunarodno poslovanje. Kroz ovaj rad upoznat ćemo važnost samih kriptovaluta te kroz primjer bitcoina vidjeti koje poboljšanje kroz samo poslovanje on donosi. U prvom dijelu rada predstavit će se kriptovalute te reći nešto o njihovom podrijetlu te vrstama. Drugo poglavlje donosi detaljniji pogled kako bitcoin funkcionira te će biti riječi o vrstama novčanika koje bitcoin nudi te će se u zadnjem, trećem poglavlju, objasniti primjer kriptovaluta u poslovanju.
Deep neural network (DNN) applications require heavy computations, so an embedded device with limited hardware such as an IoT device cannot run the apps by itself. One solution is to offload DNN computations from the client device to nearby edge servers [1] to request an execution of the DNN computations with their powerful hardware. However, there are several issues with the solution. One is an availability issue that how we can provide the edge server with some incentives to run the client' apps. The other is a scalability issue that how we can use more servers when there are more DNN requests. Finally, there is an integrity issue that how the client can trust the result coming from anonymous edge servers. We think the blockchain technology can solve these issues to make edge computing more practical. This paper proposes a novel architecture for DNN edge computing based on the blockchain technology. Existing blockchains such as Ethereum do not support execution of a complex program, so we propose a modified blockchain structure and protocol to overcome the limitation.
Background: The application of the blockchain technology has shown promises in various areas, such as smart-contracts, Internet of Things, land registry management, identity management, etc. Although Github currently hosts more than three thousand active blockchain software (BCS) projects, a few software engineering research has been conducted on their software engineering practices. Aims: To bridge this gap, we aim to carry out the first formal survey to explore the software engineering practices including requirement analysis, task assignment, testing, and verification of blockchain software projects. Method: We sent an online survey to 1,604 active BCS developers identified via mining the Github repositories of 145 popular BCS projects. The survey received 156 responses that met our criteria for analysis. Results: We found that code review and unit testing are the two most effective software development practices among BCS developers. The results suggest that the requirements of BCS projects are mostly identified and selected by community discussion and project owners which is different from requirement collection of general OSS projects. The results also reveal that the development tasks in BCS projects are primarily assigned on voluntary basis, which is the usual task assignment practice for OSS projects. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that standard software engineering methods including testing and security best practices need to be adapted with more seriousness to address unique characteristics of blockchain and mitigate potential threats.
Ubiquitous sensing enabled by Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technologies cuts across many areas of modern day living.This offers the ability to measure, infer and understand environmental indicators, from delicate ecologies and natural resources to urban environments.The proliferation of these devices in a communicating-actuating network creates the Internet of Things (IoT), wherein, sensors and actuators blend seamlessly with the environment around us, and the information is shared across platforms in order to develop a common operating picture (COP).Fuelled by the recent adaptation of a variety of enabling device technologies such as RFID tags and readers, near field communication (NFC) devices and embedded sensor and actuator nodes, the IoT has stepped out of its infancy and is the next revolutionary technology in transforming the Internet into a fully integrated Future Internet.As we move from www (static pages web) to web2 (social networking web) to web3 (ubiquitous computing web), the need for data-on-demand using sophisticated intuitive queries increases significantly.This paper gives very interesting understanding with IoT discussed with making as simple as possible not with the intention to reach concept only up to readers but to become understandable and friendly at students level with some text and basic models.
Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain (BC) technologies have been dominating their respective research domains for some time. IoT offers automation at the finest level in different fields, while BC provides secure transaction processing for asset exchanges. The capability of IoT devices to generate transactions prompts their integration with BC as the next logical step. The biggest challenges in this integration are the scalability of ledger and rate of transaction execution in BC. On one hand, due to their large numbers, IoT devices will generate transactions at a rate which current block chain solutions cannot handle. On the other hand, implementing BC peers onto IoT devices is impossible due to resource constraints. This prohibits direct integration of both technologies in their current state. In this paper, we propose a solution to address these challenges by using a local peer network to bridge the gap. It restricts the number of transactions which enters the global BC by implementing a scalable local ledger, without compromising on the peer validation of transactions at local and global level. The testbed evaluations show significant reduction in the block weight and ledger size on global peers. The solution also indirectly improves the transaction processing rate of all peers due to load distribution.
Decentralized content curation is the process through which uploaded posts are ranked and filtered based exclusively on users' feedback. Platforms such as the blockchain-based Steemit employ this type of curation while providing monetary incentives to promote the visibility of high quality posts according to the perception of the participants. Despite the wide adoption of the platform very little is known regarding its performance and resilience characteristics. In this work, we provide a formal model for decentralized content curation that identifies salient complexity and game-theoretic measures of performance and resilience to selfish participants. Armed with our model, we provide a first analysis of Steemit identifying the conditions under which the system can be expected to correctly converge to curation while we demonstrate its susceptibility to selfish participant behaviour. We validate our theoretical results with system simulations in various scenarios.
In 2008-09, after the subprime mortgage crisis, the governments of several developed countries had to print billions of dollars to bail out banks and insurance companies. Bitcoins, unlike paper currencies, cannot be minted, but can only be mined by bots. Although bitcoin is yet to gain prominence as mainstream currency in India, the technology behind it — the Blockchain technology — has captured the attention of numerous Indian banks. In 2016, ICICI Bank revealed that it successfully executed transactions in global trade finance and remittances using Blockchain technology. Even as developed nations such as Japan and Russia contemplate legalizing the use of bitcoins, India, despite being at the threshold of a digital revolution, is yet to officially recognize the cryptocurrency. However, the biggest impediment that bitcoin supporters perceive to making this currency mainstream is the fact that several nations are treading very cautiously around bitcoin and do not have any concrete regulations governing them. This paper highlights the legal validity of bitcoin in India.
Марат Рашитович Сафиуллин, A.A. Abdukaeva, Leonid Alekseevich Elshin
The accelerated pace of development of the cryptocurrency market and its integration into the system of economic, operational, financial and other processes determines the need for a comprehensive study of this phenomenon. This is particularly relevant because in recent months, at the state level have intensified discussions on the prospects of the legalization of the cryptocurrency market and the possibility of using its tools in the economic activities of economic agents. Despite the sometimes polar views and approaches at the moment among Russian experts regarding the solution to this issue, the development of the crypto-currencies market is extremely high, regardless of its regulation. This determines and actualizes the scientific research in the field of evaluation of the prospects of development of this market, forming the subject of this study in order to predict the possible effects and risks for the national economic system. The purpose of the article is the development of tools of modelling and forecasting the volatility of the cryptocurrency market on the basis of “foreseeing” fluctuations in the value of “digital money” using special models of autoregression (ARMA, ARIMA). The study was based on the application of a class of parametric models. It allowed describing both stationary and non-stationary time series and on this basis to develop a system of prognostic estimates for the prospects of further development of the series under study. With the help of our ARIMA model, which evaluates the parameters of the analyzed time series of the cryptocurrency exchange rate, we developed a system of prognostic assessments for the short term. The authors proved that the application of such models with a high level of reliability predicts future adjustments in the market under study. It leads to a high level of prospects for their use in modelling future parameters of the cryptocurrency market development. This creates a basis for a business to develop adaptive mechanisms for to emerging price index adjustments of “digital money”.
This chapter discusses public sector growth to illuminate the puzzle in political economy regarding effective government constraints and to provide an analysis of the institutional structures that can "tame Leviathan." It argues that altering the institutional structures to be more polycentric would contain important self-generating mechanisms to tame Leviathan. A polycentric organization of government describes a system with many centers of decision-making units that are formally independent of each other and it involves multiple, overlapping systems of autonomous governments. An important feature of what makes an institutional structure "more" or "less" polycentric is the degree of autonomy of the states, localities, or subunits in the society. The features of a polycentric institution complemented by the decentralization of money would move us closer to the reality of a constrained government. Borrowing money and inflating are the remaining choices, and this is what politicians tend to do.
The authors assess the impact of the emotional tonality of bitcoin news on its exchange rate. In particular, we studied the hypothesis of the impact of the readability index of the news text on the volatility of bitcoin. Despite the fact that excessive volatility threatens bitcoin not to become a successful currency, many scientists are interested in the determinants of such volatility. Factors such as speculative investments or the attention of the society are the drivers of the volatility of the exchange rate of bitcoin. In this regard, the question of studying the impact of news on the bitcoin exchange rate is relevant. The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of the emotional tonality of bitcoin news on its exchange rate. The empirical base of the study was quite extensive since it includes more than 1330 news from the Thomson Reuters information base for the period from 19.08.2011 to 16.08.2016 on the bitcoin market. The research methodology includes the sentiment analysis conducted by using the dictionary MacDonald and Loughran and also the analysis of the interdependence of time series-based causal analysis using the test of Granger causation. We present three hypotheses about the impact of news on the bitcoin exchange rate. During the study, two of them were confirmed. We proved the first hypothesis that the negative news had a more significant impact than positive ones, taking into account the five time-lags. The second hypothesis about the impact of positive tonality in the news on the bitcoin exchange rate, using the Granger test for causation, was not confirmed, since the positive values of this test were obtained in two time-lags out of five. We can confirm that the third hypothesis was proved — the high readability index has an impact on the bitcoin volatility for the entire studied period, taking into account all five time-lags. Thus, the assumption about the impact of the emotional tonality of news on the bitcoin exchange rate can be confirmed.
Open access
Market Dynamics and Volatility
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Economic, Social, and Public Health Issues in Russia and Globally
Resumen El sistema de control interno desempena un rol significativo en la administracion y control de recursos. En tal sentido, en el articulo se valora el nivel de confianza que presentan los gobiernos autonomos descentralizados cantonales en Ecuador, segun su situacion actual, partiendo de los fundamentos conceptuales del modelo de control interno COSO (Committee of Sponsoring Organizations). De esta manera, el estudio se realizo a partir de la deteccion de fortalezas y debilidades en la administracion publica, para lo cual se empleo una metodologia cuantitativa y cualitativa, a traves de un cuestionario de control interno previamente validado por expertos y aplicado a la poblacion total de los gobiernos autonomos descentralizados cantonales de la provincia Morona Santiago. Entre los principales resultados se hallan el empleo del marco conceptual COSO para la realizacion de operaciones y la adopcion recurrente de medidas de control institucionales para la salvaguarda de los recursos. Adicionalmente, se destaca la importancia que otorgan las entidades al control interno, a partir de una orientacion integral. Palabras clave: auditoria interna, control interno, informe COSO Abstract The internal control system plays a significant role in the administration and control of resources. In this regard, this article assesses the level of confidence shown by decentralized cantonal autonomous governments in Ecuador, according to their current situation, based on the conceptual foundations of theCOSO (Committee of Sponsoring Organizations) internal control model. In this way, the study was conducted based on the detection of strengths and weaknesses in public administration, for which a quantitative and qualitative methodology was used, through an internal control questionnaire previously validated by experts and applied to the population of decentralized cantonal autonomous governments of the Morona Santiago province. Among the main results are the use of the COSO conceptual framework for carrying out operations and the recurrent adoption of institutional control measures to safeguard resources. Additionally, the importance that entities grant to internal control is highlighted, based on a comprehensive orientation. Keywords: internal audit, internal control, COSO report.
Morit Zwang, Shahar Somin, Alex Pentland, Yaniv Altshuler
The Ethereum blockchain network is a decentralized platform enabling smart contract execution and transactions of Ether (ETH) [1], its designated cryptocurrency. Ethereum is the second most popular cryptocurrency with a market cap of more than 100 billion USD, with hundreds of thousands of transactions executed daily by hundreds of thousands of unique wallets. Tens of thousands of those wallets are newly generated each day. The Ethereum platform enables anyone to freely open multiple new wallets [2] free of charge (resulting in a large number of wallets that are controlled by the same entities). This attribute makes the Ethereum network a breeding space for activity by software robots (bots). The existence of bots is widespread in different digital technologies and there are various approaches to detect their activity such as rule-base, clustering, machine learning and more [3,4]. In this work we demonstrate how bot detection can be implemented using a network theory approach.
Code and law have been entangled in a silent tension ever since the advent of cyberspace. The centralised architecture of cyberspace paved the way for law to prevail. The latest manifestation of this tension, however, appears to be opening up a Pandora’s box. Blockchain and law are on a silent collision course that must be addressed. This paper argues that in bridging the divide between code and law in blockchain, a radical rethink of regulation is imperative.
The concept of “digitalization” came into use relatively recently, but in many respects the further development of the Russian economy will depend on it. Design of conceptual approaches and practical algorithm for adaptation of new technologies to the functioning peculiarities of the financial system is of great importance for ensuring competitive advantages of Russia, including those at the international level. The article presents the prospects for applying modern technologies in the activities of state audit institutions, which are designed to ensure financial stability and contribute to the formation of a solid foundation for the economic growth of the country. The purpose of the research is to identify the prospects for automation of control procedures, taking into account the level of development of modern technologies to prevent violations in the financial sector. In the process of research, general scientific empirical methods were used: observation, comparison, collection and study of data; analysis and synthesis, a method of scientific abstraction. The chosen approach allowed to ensure the reliability and validity of the conclusions drawn. According to the results of the research the prospects for using the national accounting digital unit in the purpose of the control are outlined; the technological possibilities and legal restrictions of creation of the state distributed ledger technology are revealed; the system for assessing risky transactions that could lead to financial violations is proposed; key characteristics of the system of conducting decentralized accounting are formulated; the expected result of the implementation of the proposed models of automation of control procedures in the Russian practice is assessed. The authors have proved the expediency of creating a state distributed ledger technology for financial control purposes. The expected result of the implementation of these proposals is estimated as more than 50% of the annual violations identified by the state audit institutions.
Open access
Economic and Technological Developments in Russia
Digitalization and Economic Development in Agriculture
Nur Sakinah Burhanuddin, Fadhlan Hafizhelmi Kamaru Zaman, Ahmad Ihsan Mohd Yassin, Nooritawati Md Tahir
Two of the most familiar method of voting is through voting polls and online voting. The main problem with conventional method is the insecurity of the votes to be untemper. Another problem of voting methods is the existence of fraud in voting system. This paper is to propose a method in overcoming these flaws and problems by using the Blockchain technology. Blockchain technology is a secured database and has very high security. The technical concept of the Blockchain technology has many advantages and benefits that could be applied to many technical sectors and have the possibility in changing the world. The concept for this project is to develop a cryptocurrency implementation in the voting system. From there, the transaction votes are kept in the blockchain could be illustrated by examining the block hashes. The outcome of the project shows a transaction of coins from one voter’s wallet into two candidates’ wallet. The transactions were approved through a process of mining and the transactions of coins were a success. The data of the transactions were kept in the blockchain where unique blockhash, which acted as the block’s fingerprint were generated. From there, the integrity of the blockchain technology is illustrated.
Nor Ashikin Mohamad Kamal, Mohd Hanif Md Saad, C. S. Kok, Amir Hussain
Internet of Things (IoT) has been implemented in most advance technologies as part of the emerging 4th industrial revolution, and recently, blockchain technology is being welcomed. These rapid growing technologies giving a big challenge to the students. As such, learning these new technologies should be made easy and simple. However, current education does not specifically offer a curriculum to empower skills and knowledge in IoT and blockchain technology. The aim of this research is to develop learning kit that can provide suitable training to understand concept of IoT and blockchain technology. The kit consists of three parts namely “brain”, “muscle” and “cloud”. Raspberry Pi is used as “brain” of operation that will be interact with the Caiser Cloud platform. A testbox operates as “muscle” to provide simple data input. The input from testbox will be sent, stored and displayed on a platform created using Xojo software. The results show that the learning kit is successfully interact with Caiser Cloud platform and can be used as a training tools for education purpose.
Fadhlan Hafizhelmi Kamaruzaman, Ahmad Ihsan Mohd Yassin, Azlee Zabidi, Fadhlan Hafizhelmi Kamaru Zaman · 7 authors
In recent years, an individual under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto devised a revolutionary technology called blockchain as the engine behind the first decentralized virtual currency called Bitcoin. A radical concept departing from government-centric controlled currencies, Bitcoin has emerged as a disruptive technology with the power to revolutionize business and its processes. Advantages of the blockchain include decentralized control, immutability, elimination of central authority and solution of concurrency problems in traditional databases. Leveraging on the advantages of blockchain technology defined above, this paper discusses the potential application of blockchain technology for storage of Islamic marriage certificates. Marriage certificates are documents issued to couples to legally recognize their marriage. Due to its paper-based nature, there is significant risk for them to be forged or frauded. These issues can be addressed effective using blockchain. The proposed application was implemented using smart contracts on a simulated Ethereum platform. A smart contract is designed to execute automatically under certain predefined conditions. The use of smart contracts eliminate manipulation by a single party. In addition, the immutable concept of blockchain ensures that data integrity is always preserved, greatly reducing the risk of fraud. Â