Agri-food trade has a profound impact on social stability and sustainable economic development. However, there are several technological problems in current agricultural product transactions. For example, it is almost impossible to improve the efficiency of transactions and maintain market stability. This paper designs a novel Food Trading System with COnsortium blockchaiN (FTSCON) to eliminate information asymmetry in the food trade, in order to establish a sustainable and credible trading environment, the system uses consortium blockchain technology to meet the challenge of different authentications and permissions for different roles in food trade. Meanwhile, we have used the online double auction mechanism to eliminate competition. We also have designed a improved Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (iPBFT) algorithm to improve efficiency. In addition, a case study based on a series of data from Shandong Province, China indicate that the FTSCON can achieve profit improvement of merchants. Therefore, the proposed system proved to have high commercial value.
Identity is the combination of many different attributes, constantly changing over time, and linked to your reputation, that is how trustworthy you are, as well as your shadow reputation (with whom you are dealing). Not only do humans have an identity, but also organisations and things. Our existing identity is flawed and an upgrade to our identity system is long overdue. However, we can bring identity to the 21st century by creating a self-sovereign identity, which uses blockchain to make identity data immutable, verifiable, and traceable. A self-sovereign identity can be described according to the 5Ps: personal, private, persistent, protected, and portable.
Marco Conoscenti, Antonio Vetrò, Juan Carlos De Martin, Federico Spini
The Lightning Network (LN) is one of the most promising off-chain scaling solutions for Bitcoin, as it enables off-chain payments which are not subject to the well-known blockchain scalability limit. In this work, we introduce CLoTH, a simulator for HTLC payment networks (of which LN is the best working example). It simulates input-defined payments on an input-defined HTLC network and produces performance measures in terms of payment-related statistics (such as time to complete payments and probability of payment failure). CLoTH helps to predict issues and obstacles that might emerge in the development stages of an HTLC payment network and to estimate the effects of an optimisation action before deploying it. We conducted simulations on a recent snapshot of the HTLC payment network of LN. These simulations allowed us to identify network and payments configurations for which a payment is more likely to fail than to succeed. We proposed viable solutions to avoid such configurations.
Blockchain is a disruptive technology and it will have a massive impact on how we live, work, and build our societies. Distributed ledgers facilitate trustless, peer-to-peer transactions, removing the need for intermediaries and making data immutable, verifiable, and traceable. Blockchain technology will do for transactions what the internet has done for the sharing of information. Leaders, organisations, and societies that want to innovate and lead the pack should be aware of Blockchain and how it will change everything. Chapter 10 summarises how it can contribute to solving some of the world’s biggest challenges and offers a road map for business adoption.
Blockchain is based on a P2P network, supporting decentralized consensus of current cryptocurrencies. Since bitcoin and altcoins all utilize an underlying blockchain, they are therefore greatly affected by the performance of the P2P network. In bitcoin, the miners are engaged in a time-sensitive competition to solve a Proof-of-Work problem to extend the blockchain. This consequently raises a critical problem to minimize the time between the propagation of a winning block and the beginning of the next round of the competition. This paper proposes a method that selects a node's closest neighbors to make messages propagate in the whole network in time. The method measures the distance from a node to its neighbor using transmission latency; thus, the lower the latency, the closer the neighbor. Simulations showed a good rate of decrease in average propagation latency and maximum propagation latency, compared to the classic method. Furthermore, this paper not only proposes the principle of establishing connections based on latency, but also evaluates the influence of the number of simultaneously established connections.
Fedor Muratov, Andrei Lebedev, Nikolai Iushkevich, Bulat Nasrulin · 5 authors
Consensus in decentralized systems that asynchronously receive events and which are subject to Byzantine faults is a common problem with many real-life applications. Advances in decentralized systems, such as distributed ledger (i.e., blockchain) technology, has only increased the importance of finding performant and secure solutions to consensus of state machine replication in decentralized systems. YAC is a practical decentralized consensus algorithm, that solves the problems of inefficient message passing and strong leaders that occur in classical Byzantine fault tolerant consensus algorithms. The algorithm is open source and currently is used to provide Byzantine fault tolerant consensus for the Hyperledger Iroha blockchain project. We provide proofs of safety and liveness, as well as empirical results showing that our algorithm can scale to dozens of validating peers.
Marian Gidea, Daniel Goldsmith, Yuri A. Katz, Pablo Roldan · 5 authors
We analyze the time series of four major cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum,\nLitecoin, and Ripple) before the digital market crash at the end of 2017 -\nbeginning 2018. We introduce a methodology that combines topological data\nanalysis with a machine learning technique -- $k$-means clustering -- in order\nto automatically recognize the emerging chaotic regime in a complex system\napproaching a critical transition. We first test our methodology on the complex\nsystem dynamics of a Lorenz-type attractor, and then we apply it to the four\nmajor cryptocurrencies. We find early warning signals for critical transitions\nin the cryptocurrency markets, even though the relevant time series exhibit a\nhighly erratic behavior.\n
The blockchain represents emerging technologies and future trends. For the traditional social organization and mode of operation, the development of the blockchain is a revolution. As a decentralized infrastructure and distributed general ledger agreement, the blockchain presents us with a great opportunity to establish data security and trust for automation and intelligence development in the Internet of Things (IoT) and it creates a new un-centralized programmable smart ecosystem. Our research synthesizes and analyses extant articles that focus on blockchain-related perspectives which will potentially play an important role in sustainable development in the world. Blockchain applications and future directions always attract more attention. Blockchain technology provides strong scalability and interoperability between the intelligent and the physical worlds.
Mario Dobrovnik, David M. Herold, Elmar Fürst, Sebastian Kummer
Despite the claim that blockchain will revolutionise business and redefine logistics, existing research so far is limited concerning frameworks that categorise blockchain application potentials and their implications. In particular, academic literature in transport and logistics to date has not sufficiently distinguished between blockchain adoption (‘what to adopt’) and the identification of the right business opportunity (‘where to start’). In response, this paper (1) uses Rogers’ (2003) ‘attributes of innovation framework’ to identify potential blockchain applications and (2) presents a framework explicating four transformation phases to subsequently categorise the identified areas of application according to their effects on organisational structures and processes. Using academic and practitioner literature, we classify possible applications for adoption and provide a framework to identify blockchain opportunities in the logistics industry, thereby helping managers to systematically assess where to start building organisational capabilities in order to successfully adopt and deploy blockchain-based technology.
A wide range of services and applications can be improved and/or solved by\nusing distributed ledger technology (DLT). These services and applications have\nwidely varying quality of service (QoS) requirements. However, most existing\nDLT systems do not distinguish different QoS requirements, resulting in\nsignificant performance issues such as poor scalability and high cost. In this\nwork, we present vDLT -- a service-oriented blockchain system with\nvirtualization and decoupled management/control and execution. In vDLT,\nservices and applications are classified into different classes according to\ntheir QoS requirements, including confirmation latency, throughput, cost,\nsecurity, privacy, etc. This is a paradigm shift from the existing\n"blockchain-oriented" DLT systems to next generation "service-oriented" DLT\nsystems. Different QoS requirements are fulfilled by advanced schemes inspired\nby the development of the traditional Internet, including classification,\nqueuing, virtualization, resource allocation and orchestration, and\nhierarchical architecture. In addition, management/control and execution of\nsmart contracts are decoupled to support QoS provisioning, improve\ndecentralization, and facilitate evolution in vDLT. With virtualization,\ndifferent virtual DLT systems with widely varying characteristics can be\ndynamically created and operated to accommodate different services and\napplications.\n
Background/Objectives: The blockchain has been applied to many fields. Users are concerned about its security. The primary goal of this study is supporting the security service to protect DDoS attack.Methods/Statistical analysis: To provide security service in the blockchain, the security model is suggested. This model can filter out illegitimate traffic and exchange information with other security switches to determine whether a connected node is a normal node or an abnormal node. Each procedure of the proposed model has been described. Also, two different attack types are used to show the operation process of suggested model.Findings: Cyberattacks attempting to impact technology services availability continue to increase. Thus, DDoS is one of the most common type of attacks can also cause the most disruption to internet services. But blockchain has the characteristics of decentralization and peer to peer. This makes it harder to disrupt than conventional distributed application. Nevertheless, DDoS attacks remain a persistent threat. Therefore, a security model is suggested which can effectively block and respond to DDoS attacks.Improvements/Applications: The suggested model makes it possible to protect the spam transaction attacks in blockchain network.
Big data technology has brought innovation and convenience to many areas, such as medical diagnosis, financial investment and smart travel. However, one of the most urgent challenges is how to collect massive private data from end customers effectively without invasion of privacy. In this paper, a framework, called Trusted Big Data Collection and Trade (TBDCT) system, is proposed to provide a fair and trusted platform for every participant in big data world. Firstly, by adopting technology of Physical Unclonable Function (PUF), data is binded with the 'fingerprint' of the sensor to identify the authenticity of source. Secondly, private network attached storage embedded with Trusted Security Module (TSM) is used to guarantee the trustability of collecting process. Lastly, blockchain is implemented in this system to provide uncentralized accounting and trading platform. With this framework, private data can be traded and the conflict between private data shortage and invasion of privacy can be mitigated. The experiment demonstrates the feasibility of the proposed TBDCT.
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
This paper explains how Blockchain technology and cryptocurrency could be enhancing the financial reporting process, and therefore improve corporate governance model of transparency and monitoring. The technology and forces behind the adoption of Blockchain are discussed as they relate to accounting, auditing and corporate governance. To demonstrate such applications examples from revenue recognition are used to illustrate how Blockchain can improve financial reporting, and transparency and monitoring aspects of the corporate governance.
Authentication is the issue most talked about nowadays. Comparing with Blockchain we want to research the justification for the blockchain technology to be used in enterprise log analysis and the appearance of blockchain technology to develop and make remarkable change in enterprise log analysis.
The main utility of blockchain networks stem from their ability to offer a trusted platform for execution of processes. The default blockchain implementation, where an immutable log of all transactions is maintained by every participant, is (i) inefficient, and (ii) does not scale well. This paper outlines several strategies to improve the scope and scale of processes that can be executed in a blockchain.
George-Andrei Dima, Andrei-Gabriel Jitariu, Claudio Pisa, Giuseppe Bianchi
The media has brought to the attention of the general public the issue of subjects claiming titles (e.g. academic degrees) which they have not achieved. Verifying these identity claims can be a cumbersome task. In this paper we show how identity claims can be supported through a permissioned blockchain. Although our approach can be applied to multiple contexts, we focus on the scenario where educational institutions provide graduation titles to subjects. The subjects can then demonstrate the possession of the given titles through transactions in the blockchain. We validate the feasibility of our approach through an implementation, named Scholarium, based on MultiChain, and provide a security analysis of the proposed system.
IoT utilization in daily lives is very potential and can be applied in various fields, unfortunately the implementation in the social field still lacking. The large number of orphanages in Indonesia caused information distribution not easily available, however donors find it difficult to get the right information about food reserves, especially rice stock in orphanages. This paper proposes an IoT-based system where rice stocks in orphanages can be detected by Raspberry pi which is connected to sensors, data information from raspberry-pi connected to the network that can be accessed and monitored by mobile applications. This application designed for service providers, donors and rice suppliers. Donors send rice through financial transactions with service providers, and rice suppliers will ship items to the orphanage. Blockchain technology is applied to all parties in order to be transparent and reduce transaction manipulation.
Aleksandr Zelensky, Viacheslav Voronin, Evgeny A. Semenishchev, Iliya Svirin · 5 authors
In distributed high-performance systems that allow processing large data sets, the important task is the analysis and verification of the video data. The problem of confirming data is relevant for many areas. The need for this arises when fixing offences, banking, remote management, confirmation of actions, etc. In this paper, we describe an approach to verifying video received by a mobile device like mobile phone, tablet or PC, equipped with a camera and controlled by the operating system (Windows, Android or iOS). The proposed algorithm uses the procedure of entering the Swype code using the movement mobile camera. To improving the accuracy, we use additional information from different mobile sensors like accelerometer, gyro, barometer, and GPS. In the process of data verification, video transmission to the server is not perform what ensures the privacy of the captured video data. The server and mobile device stores data about the file size, the date of its recording, the time, the data device and its position.
Currency Recognition and Detection
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Blockchain technology is digitally revolutionizing the transfer and storage of assets. It is forming the backbone of all modern exchange and database reliant applications. The reliance on blockchain is pivoted on its property of being immutable. This prevents possibilities of corruption, fraud, and theft observed in current systems. Our study reviews the Blockchain technology and articulates the need and concept, which establishes it as a suitable alternative to conventional methods, its distinct types, the actors involved, the working of blockchain and the execution of a transaction on the blockchain. The main methods of finding consensus are explained. A brief comparison to centralized systems has been done and its strengths and weaknesses have been outlined. Furthermore, its applications in various domains are discussed in detail. An overview of currently live applications in these domains like bitcoin for cryptocurrency is made, and the role of blockchain in these applications is discussed. We also lay out its future scope and vulnerabilities including lack of regulation and potential security flaws. This study is relevant to both the novice and informed reader, as the need, basic fundamentals and the concept behind the technology and the advanced applications and protocols are discussed in detail.
In this work, we propose using edge computing and caching to enhance wireless communications in terms of bandwidth and delay by leveraging concept of mobile 3C systems (communications, computing, and caching). First we argue that without leveraging concepts of edge computing and caching, the huge burden of data transmission and processing necessary for smart city applications and concept is going to exhaust the current wireless infrastructure. Then we demonstrate the need to merge edge computing with caching to enhance wireless communication needed for massive data collection in smart cities. To address the security concerns of using IoT in smart cities, we propose using a blockchain database to secure communication between the smart city and home devices and sensors. This will provide the scalability that is necessary for data transfer between the massive number of nodes in IoT that current security protocols do not provide.
With ubiquitous adoption of connected sensors, actuators and smart devices are finding inroads into daily life. Internet of Things (IoT) authentication is rapidly transforming from classical cryptographic user-centric knowledge based approaches to device signature based automated methodologies to corroborate identity between claimant and a verifier. Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) based IoT authentication mechanisms are gaining widespread interest as users are required to access IoT devices in real time while also expecting execution of sensitive (even physical) IoT actions immediately. This paper, delineates combination of BlockChain and Sensor based PUF authentication mechanism for solving real-time but non-repudiable access to IoT devices in a Smart Home by utilizing a mining less consensus mechanism for the provision of immutable assurance to users' and IoT devices' transactions i.e. commands, status alerts, actions etc.
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security