Governments and financial Institutions worldwide are in deep need to reduce the payment, clearing and settlement cycles of various transactions thereby eliminating operational and financial inefficiencies and mitigating risks. Various consortia have been formed in order to lay the foundation stones, standards to create industry acceptable solutions. Seamless transactions and information sharing between different banks and financial institutions is still a distant dream. This paper presents a novel architecture to seamlessly integrate e-wallets of different banks and participating institutions using blockchains that shall act as a foundation of Digital ledger technology (DLT) for financial sector in India. A swarm based peer-to-peer network is designed for the proposed e-wallet system. The proposed solution shall minimize the load on the Core Banking Solution of the banks thus reducing the load on the servers at the data centers.
Standard security protocols are heavy weight interms of memory foot prints which make all the security protocol unfit for budgeted platforms such as Internet of Things (IoT). The blockchain (BC) is a very efficient architecture to preserve five basic cryptographic primitives, such as authenticity, integrity, confidentiality, availability and non-repudiation. Conventional adoption of blockchain in IoT causes significant energy consumption, delay, and computational overhead which are not suitable for various resource-constrained IoT devices. In our submission we change the basic architecture of blockchain and make it more efficient for IoT application. The article proposes an IoT based smart city architecture which adopted the blockchain technology preserving all the cryptographic security issues. The adoption of blockchain causes very minimal overhead on IoT platform. Comparison of all security parameters with existing literature shows that the architecture is reasonably efficient in terms of security
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Traditional customer loyalty programs in the FastMoving Consumer Goods industry have several bottlenecks such as lost paper-based coupons and payback process complications. This paper presents the design of a blockchain-based customer loyalty program called Promotion Asset Exchange (PAX) framework, to solve bottlenecks in the traditional customer loyalty programs. PAX framework adopts the smart contracts of blockchain technology by using PAX token to digitalize transaction processes. It provides improved usability for users and more detailed information to be gathered from manufacturing companies' perspective.
With the development of Internet-of-Things (IoT) technology, the notion of smart city concept comes to reality. Smart city covers a broad range of scenarios for citizens in their everyday life, such as smart home, smart traffic and smart healthcare. However, considering the IoT technology itself still under security threats, smart city security and resilience is a critical factor for truly embracing the smart age of everyday life. Current technology has a difficult time providing security in smart city architectures because of its decentralized and distributed nature. As a recently new technology, Blockchain uses a decentralized and distributed security approach to adding security to a decentralized and distributed IoT system. This paper presents a blockchain based solution to provide security and resilience in smart cities and analyze potential security concerns in the integration of blockchain technology into smart city infrastructure. Each of the concerns are discussed in detail.
Sofia Alexaki, George Alexandris, Vasilios Katos, Nikolaos E. Petroulakis
Circular, data-driven healthcare is increasingly being considered as an effective model to provide efficient, cost-effective and sustainable healthcare services in the future. Central to this model is the service-dominant “building-block”-type provision of care services to patients, paired with the collaboration of healthcare providers through a common infrastructure. This combination enables the forming of a decentralized, holistic care cycle. Sharing of patient medical informationis pivotal towards reaching this goal; however, preserving medical record integrity and privacy, while at the same time allowing provider interoperability are often conflicting requirements. Blockchains and Smart Contracts can provide the underlying technology to support the decentralized care cycle by addressing patient privacy and medical record integrity, while simultaneously offering efficient interoperability between providers. To demonstrate how this could be achieved, a conceptual medical record access and sharing mechanism is presented which is suitable for a system operating within a regulated healthcare jurisdiction.
Recently, there is a growing trend towards machine learning models that run on client devices such as smartphones, with constraints such as model size and time. Often, the user data on client devices is considered private and so cannot be uploaded to an external server for processing and running the model. Blockchain provides a new way of sharing data that is secure and decentralized. In this paper, we provide a way to use blockchain to run a machine learning model in a decentralized way using various nodes to compute part of the learning task. We apply our system in a smart home IoT setting to generate user customizations based on user activity prediction for IoT devices. We use distributed association rule mining to generate the rules of user activity from the device logs. We describe the system architecture and simulate the system using Ethereum based tools.
Micael Ferreira, Sven Rodrigues, Catarina I. Reis, Marisa Maximiano
Bitcoin continues to get more and more attention from the media, mainly because of the volatility of its value and insignificantly associated with the technological innovation. This cryptocurrency is supported by an immutable database and is distributed throughout a network of thousands of nodes, known as Blockchain. One way to ensure that all the concepts behind the Blockchain technology and infrastructure are seized is to conduct the development of one of the most popular context applications for it: a wallet for well-known cryptocurrencies. Yet Another Bitcoin Wallet (YABW) is a hybrid application available for both Android and iOS, which was developed with the Ionic and Angular frameworks. This application communicates with Bitcoin Blockchain to send, receive and store bitcoins; provides a set of features focused on security and user experience, and is available on the Play Store and Apple Store. A rather relevant issue that is becoming a major subject of current research is the application of the Blockchain infrastructure to other contexts that are neither directly connected to cryptocurrencies, nor are finance related. The implementation of a proof-of-concept application proposes the use of a blockchain for a specific case study: the exchange of meal vouchers of an institution amongst students. This is achieved using the decentralized platform Ethereum, which allows us to create a Smart Contract using the Solidity programming language to create a token that follows the Ethereum Request for Comment (ERC), the ERC-20 standard and represents the meal vouchers. This second application uses the architecture defined for YABW, reusing major components and custom developing specific modules to enhance the required features. There is still a lot of research to be done on the non-financial applicability of the Blockchain infrastructure and technology, but for the moment, we have left further evidence that it is possible and is a relative straight-forward process to accomplish from the technological perspective.
Evolving networking scenarios include multi-administrative domain network services as drivers of novel business opportunities along with emerging operational challenges. As a potential approach to tackle upcoming requirements providing basic primitives to encompass analytics, automation, and distributed orchestration, we investigate blockchain-based decentralized applications (DApps) in the context of operational phases in support of multi-administrative domain networking. We present and discuss a generalized framework for multi-domain service orchestration using blockchain-based DApps and then showcase proof-of-concept prototype experiments based on best of breed open source components that demonstrate DApp functionalities as candidate enablers of multi-domain network services. We then analyze three use case scenarios pursued by ongoing work at standards development organizations, namely MEF, 3GPP, and ETSI NFV, discussing standardization opportunities around blockchain-based DApps.
Marko Hölbl, Aida Kamišalić, Muhamed Turkanović, Marko Kompara · 6 authors
Blockchain technology enables the creation of a decentralized and distributed environment in which transactions and data are not controlled by a central authority. Simultaneously transactions are secure, ubiquitous and trustworthy due to the used cryptographic principles. In this paper, we present a global decentralized blockchain-based platform and ecosystem called EduCTX. The platform enables managing, assigning and presenting credentials for individuals and educational institutions as well as other potential stakeholders such as companies, institutions and organizations. Further it enables the development of own digital services, which offers organizations the opportunity to automate the evaluation of individuals' skills and knowledge. The EduCTX platform is implemented on the blockchain platform Ethereum on a consortium-based network of Ethereum run nodes. The platform enables a globally efficient, simplified and ubiquitous environment to avoid language and administrative barriers.
The explosive development of mobile communications and networking has led to the creation of an extremely complex system, which is difficult to manage. Hence, we propose an AI-powered network framework that uses AI technologies to operate the network automatically. However, due to the separation between different mobile network operators, data barriers between diverse operators become bottlenecks to exploit the full power of AI. In this paper, we establish a mutual trust data sharing framework to break these data barriers. The framework is based on the distributed and temper-proof attributes of blockchain. We implement a prototype based on Hyperledger Fabric. The proposed system combines supervision and fine-grained data access control based on smart contracts, which provides a secure and trustless environment for data sharing. We further compare our system with existing data sharing schemes, and we find that our system provides a better functionality.
Blockchain is an immutable and shared database of time–stamped transactions that supports decentralization and strong consistency support over many authoritative domains where trust is a major factor. The above advantage of Blockchain makes it potentially suitable for a diverse set of applications in many sectors like healthcare, education and finance. In this paper, we propose a globally trusted blockchain based educational framework among various stakeholders like universities, companies and other higher educational institutions that agree to collaborate as a part of the framework. This framework aids to verify academic certificates and course credits of a student registered in a university which can be digitally transferred among the stakeholders. This ensures a global view of a student’s performance by achieving consistency among the local copies of educational certificates and credits. The proposed framework will assign tokens on successful completion of courses as credits of registered students in various universities. The transferred credits will act as transactions mined as blocks and added to longest chain. It will work in a homogeneous environment where all stakeholders collaborate irrespective of the hurdles of legal and administrative policies.
Beyond cryptocurrencies, blockchain technologies have shown great potential in enabling a wealth of decentralized applications (DApps), including but not limited to trustworthy auction, election, autonomous organization. While public blockchains are well recognized to allow participants mutually unbeknownst to achieve consensus, financial/business organizations also find great interest in consortium blockchains for better organizational collaborations. We will touch both types of blockchain and corresponding applications in this tutorial. In particular, we will summarize existing blockchain technologies and applications, elaborate the principles of designing and implementing secure DApps, and analyze the security concerns therein. Through concrete examples, we will discuss common practices and pitfalls, such as on-chain/off-chain interaction, randomness generation, and various corner cases. If time permits, we will also go through the implementation of the cloud-based blockchain backbone that powers this tutorial, possibly covering a layered architecture, and discuss deployment choices and security issues along the way. The tutorial will be interspersed with revisiting the security and implementation rules, so that participants are expected to readily apply the tutorial content into real-world practice. The design principles elaborated in this tutorial will be transferable to participants' development of secure and trustworthy blockchain applications and systems in their own workplaces.
A blockchain framework is presented for addressing the privacy and security challenges associated with the Big Data in smart mobility. It is composed of individuals, companies, government and universities where all the participants collect, own, and control their data. Each participant shares their encrypted data to the blockchain network and can make information transactions with other participants as long as both party agrees to the transaction rules (smart contract) issued by the owner of the data. Data ownership, transparency, auditability and access control are the core principles of the proposed blockchain for smart mobility Big Data.
Kristián Košťál, Tomáš Krupa, Martin Gembec, Igor Veres · 6 authors
This article is focused on the area of energy efficiency of cryptocurrencies. Nowadays, nearly two thirds of all cryptocurrencies use Proof of Work (PoW) consensus algorithm to add new blocks to blockchain network. The energy sustainability of whole networks using PoW algorithm is very doubtful. Furthermore, we can see that lots of cryptocurrencies are trying to implement and move to more efficient consensus algorithms like Proof of Stake (PoS). Therefore, in this article we present three potential scenarios to perform transition between PoW and PoS.
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
One of the ways in which a city can become smarter is to grow a local economy around the sharing of data from IoT devices and other open data that can be used in applications to improve the lives of its citizens. Prior work and ongoing projects have examined or are currently focused on the development of centralized data marketplaces for smart cities. Here we explore how a decentralized data marketplace could be created using blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies. We consider the possible benefits of such a decentralized architecture, identify different elements that such a decentralized marketplace should have, and show how they could be potentially integrated into a comprehensive solution. We also present a simple smart contract implementation of a decentralized registry where data products can be posted by data owners for retrieval by potential buyers.
Health-related data analysis plays an important role in self-knowledge, disease prevention, diagnosis, and quality of life assessment. With the advent of data-driven solutions, a myriad of apps and Internet of Things (IoT) devices (wearables, home-medical sensors, etc) facilitates data collection and provide cloud storage with a central administration. More recently, blockchain and other distributed ledgers became available as alternative storage options based on decentralised organisation systems. We bring attention to the human data bleeding problem and argue that neither centralised nor decentralised system organisations are a magic bullet for data-driven innovation if individual, community and societal values are ignored. The motivation for this position paper is to elaborate on strategies to protect privacy as well as to encourage data sharing and support open data without requiring a complex access protocol for researchers. Our main contribution is to outline the design of a self-regulated Open Health Archive (OHA) system with focus on quality of life (QoL) data.
Xiaochen Zheng, Raghava Rao Mukkamala, Ravi Vatrapu, Joaqun Ordieres-Mere
With the advent of rapid development of wearable technology and mobile computing, huge amount of personal health-related data is being generated and accumulated on continuous basis at every moment. These personal datasets contain valuable information and they belong to and asset of the individual users, hence should be owned and controlled by themselves. Currently most of such datasets are stored and controlled by different service providers and this centralised data storage brings challenges of data security and hinders the data sharing. These personal health data are valuable resources for healthcare research and commercial projects. In this research work, we propose a conceptual design for sharing personal continuous-dynamic health data using blockchain technology supplemented by cloud storage to share the health-related information in a secure and transparent manner. Besides, we also introduce a data quality inspection module based on machine learning techniques to have control over data quality. The primary goal of the proposed system is to enable users to own, control and share their personal health data securely, in a General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliant way to get benefit from their personal datasets. It also provides an efficient way for researchers and commercial data consumers to collect high quality personal health data for research and commercial purposes.
Blockchain is so far well-known for its potential applications in financial and banking sectors. However, blockchain as a decentralized and distributed technology can be utilized as a powerful tool for immense daily life applications. Healthcare is one of the prominent applications area among others where blockchain is supposed to make a strong impact. It is generating wide range of opportunities and possibilities in current healthcare systems. Therefore, this paper is all about exploring the potential applications of blockchain technology in current healthcare systems and highlights the most important requirements to fulfill the need of such systems such as trustless and transparent healthcare systems. In addition, this work also presents the challenges and obstacles needed to resolve before the successful adoption of blockchain technology in healthcare systems. Furthermore, we introduce the smart contract for blockchain based healthcare systems which is key for defining the pre-defined agreements among various involved stakeholders.
Amjad Aldweesh, Maher Alharby, Ellis Solaiman, Aad van Moorsel
A defining feature of the Ethereum blockchain is its ability to execute smart contracts, providing a Turing complete programming model for distributed applications in non-trusted environments. The successful operation of the Ethereum blockchain depends on whether the miners' incentives (in the form of fees) to execute contracts is proportional to the miners' cost (in terms of energy usage, and thus CPU usage). In general, if the received fee is not proportional to the computational cost, miners would prefer some tasks over others, thus potentially adversely affecting the continuing dependable operation of the blockchain. In this paper we design a benchmark to compare smart contract execution time with the award a miner would receive, to determine if incentives align. We present the design of the benchmarking approach and provide initial results for the Python Ethereum client running on a Mac. The results indicate that for functions in Ethereum's most popular contracts the difference of reward per CPU second can be up to a factor of almost 50. In addition, contract creation, which is done once for each new contract, can be up to 6 times more lucrative than the regular execution of contract functions. Potentially, these discrepancies result in misaligned incentives that impact the dependable operation of the blockchain.
Bitcoin, merkezi otoriteye ihtiyaç duymayan, dağıtık ve dijital bir para birimi olarak, son yıllarda finans dünyasındaki popüler konuların başında gelmektedir. İlk dönemde Bitcoin’in finansal özelliklerine duyulan ilgi, zaman içerisinde Bitcoin’e hayat veren blok zinciri teknolojisine doğru kaymaya başlamıştır. Hemen her gün yeni bir uygulama alanını duymaya başladığımız blok zinciri teknolojisi alanındaki akademik araştırmalar sınırlı sayıdadır. Ülkemizde de gerek uygulama gerekse akademik anlamda yeterli sayıda çalışma olmadığını söyleyebiliriz. Bu inceleme, blok zinciri teknolojisini sistematik olarak gözden geçirerek, kullanım alanlarını, açık noktalarını ve gelecek beklentilerini tartışmaktadır.
Yongjun Ren, Yepeng Liu, Sai Ji, Arun Kumar Sangaiah · 5 authors
In this paper, the blockchain technology is utilized to build the first incentive mechanism of nodes as per data storage for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In our system, the nodes storing the data are rewarded with digital money. The more the data stored by the node, the more the reward it achieves. Moreover, two blockchains are constructed. One is utilized to store data of each node and another is to control the access of data. In addition, our proposal adopts the provable data possession to replace the proof of work (PoW) in original bitcoins to carry out the mining and storage of new data blocks, which greatly reduces the computing power comparing to the PoW mechanism. Furthermore, the preserving hash functions are used to compare the stored data and the new data block. The new data can be stored in the node which is closest to the existing data, and only the different subblocks are stored. Thus, it can greatly save the storage space of network nodes.
Blockchain is a decentralized technology. It has extensive power to solve business problems. Cryptography secures the records in a blockchain transaction and each transaction is tied to previous transactions or records. Blockchain transactions are validated by algorithms on the nodes. A single entity cannot create a transaction. Finally, blockchains provide transparency, giving each participant the ability to monitor the transactions at any time. Smart contract make secure transaction which helps to avoid third party disruption. Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts. This enables developers to create markets move funds in accordance with instructions given long in the past. The main features of blockchain are Decentralization, Immutability Faster dealings, Transaction and validation happens in seconds etc..