To improve the accuracy of diagnosis and the effectiveness of treatment, a framework of parallel healthcare systems (PHSs) based on the artificial systems + computational experiments + parallel execution (ACP) approach is proposed in this paper. PHS uses artificial healthcare systems to model and represent patients’ conditions, diagnosis, and treatment process, then applies computational experiments to analyze and evaluate various therapeutic regimens, and implements parallel execution for decision-making support and real-time optimization in both actual and artificial healthcare processes. In addition, we combine the emerging blockchain technology with PHS, via constructing a consortium blockchain linking patients, hospitals, health bureaus, and healthcare communities for comprehensive healthcare data sharing, medical records review, and care auditability. Finally, a prototype named parallel gout diagnosis and treatment system is built and deployed to verify and demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the blockchain-powered PHS framework.
With the fast development and expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT), billions of smart devices are being continuously connected, and smart homes, as a typical IoT application, are providing people with various convenient applications, but face security and privacy issues. The idea of Blockchain (BC) theory has brought about a potential solution to the IoT security problem. The emergence of blockchain technology has brought about a change of decentralized management, providing an effective solution for the protection of network security and privacy. On the other hand, the smart devices in IoT are always lightweight and have less energy and memory. This makes the application of blockchain difficult. Against this background, this paper proposes a blockchain model based on hypergraphs. The aims of this model are to reduce the storage consumption and to solve the additional security issues. In the model, we use the hyperedge as the organization of storage nodes and convert the entire networked data storage into part network storage. We discuss the design of the model and security strategy in detail, introducing some use cases in a smart home network and evaluating the storage performance of the model through simulation experiments and an evaluation of the network.
In order to prevent sensitive data tampering in the application of security monitoring, intelligent traffic, and other sensitive Internet of Things, the research on WMSN (wireless multimedia sensor networks) application system based on blockchain and IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) is of great significance. However, WMSN data are characterized by high dimensionality, large scale, and multiple types, so it is challenging to search WMSN data efficiently over blockchain system. This paper proposed a novel One Permutation with Rotation and cross-polytope locality-sensitive hashing (OPRCP) method of approximate nearest neighbor binary query for querying binary hybrid data in the form of WMSN multimedia data (containing two hybrid types of data, such as image-text and image-audio). Firstly, a binary hybrid data index was built with the method of locality-sensitive hashing (LSH) to retain content similarity among original data objects for performing accurate queries. Secondly, the approximate nearest neighbor search strategy was used in place of the nearest neighbor strategy, to reduce querying time. Finally, a binary hybrid data model was employed to cope with multiple types of data in WMSN and carry out collaborative search of binary hybrid data. The experimental results show that compared with other mainstream methods, the proposed OPRCP method is widely adaptive to massive high-dimensional data in multiple types and can improve the accuracy of query results. The OPRCP method exhibits good performance, effectively saves resources, and reduces query time for a variety of datasets. It is an effective solution to the binary hybrid search of approximate neighbors, and it is applicable to the WMSN data search based on smart contracts in WMSN blockchain systems.
The prosperity of Bitcoin has given rise to widespread attention and in-depth research on blockchains. The blockchain provides the fundamental technology for the decentralization, openness, security, independence, anonymity, integrity, and authenticity of diversified applications. The literature selected are mainly from IEEE papers and conference proceedings. This paper deeply analyzes the basic features and categories of blockchain and delineates the practical applications. The aim is to find the development prospects of blockchains through analysis of existing applications and technologies.
Mengting Liu, F. Richard Yu, Yinglei Teng, Victor C. M. Leung · 5 authors
Blockchain technology has been applied in a variety of fields due to its capability of establishing trust in a decentralized fashion. However, the application of blockchain in wireless mobile networks is hindered by a major challenge brought by the proof-of-work puzzle during the mining process, which sets a high demand for the computational capability and storage availability in mobile devices. To address this problem, we propose a novel mobile edge computing (MEC) enabled wireless blockchain framework where the computation-intensive mining tasks can be offloaded to nearby edge computing nodes and the cryptographic hashes of blocks can be cached in the MEC server. Particularly, two offloading modes are considered, i.e., offloaded to the nearby access point or a group of nearby users. First, we conduct the performance analysis of each mode with stochastic geometry methods. Then, the joint offloading decision and caching strategy is formulated as an optimization problem. Furthermore, an alternating direction method of multipliers based algorithm is utilized to solve the problem in a distributed manner. Finally, simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed scheme.
Pietro Tedeschi, Giuseppe Piro, Jose Antonio Sanchez Murillo, Nemanja Ignjatov · 7 authors
Blockchain is emerging as a promising technology that is able to support transparent, secure, and immutable transactions traceability in decentralized networks. Its usage in many application domains, including the Internet of Things, is gaining the attention of even more researchers and industries worldwide. In line with current research interests, the work presented in this letter has been carried out in the context of the European H2020 symbIoTe project. Among its main features, the symbIoTe framework offers bartering functionalities across a federation of Internet of Things platforms. This letter extends the baseline implementation of bartering functionalities and formulates a novel methodology that properly integrates and takes advantages from the Blockchain technology. Even if the proposed approach is general, the main facets characterizing the conceived approach are illustrated through a fictional use case envisaging the provisioning of Intelligent Transportation System and air pollution services in a Smart City.
Sandi Gec, Dejan Lavbič, Marko Bajec, Vlado Stankovski
Today, container-based virtualization is very popular due to the lightweight nature of containers and the ability to use them flexibly in various heterogeneously composed systems. This makes it possible to collaboratively develop services by sharing various types of resources, such as infrastructures, software and digitalized content. In this work, our home made video-conferencing (VC) system is used to study resource usage optimisation in business context. An application like this, does not provide monetization possibilities to all involved stakeholders including end users, cloud providers, software engineers and similar. Blockchain related technologies, such as Smart Contracts (SC) offer a possibility to address some of these needs. We introduce a novel architecture for monetization of added-value according to preferences of the stakeholders that participate in joint software service offers. The developed architecture facilitates use case scenarios of service and resource offers according to fixed and dynamic pricing schemes, fixed usage period, prepaid quota for flexible usage, division of income, consensual decisions among collaborative service providers, and constrained based usage of resources or services. Our container-based VC service, which is based on the Jitsi Meet Open Source software is used to demonstrate the proposed architecture and the benefits of the investigated use cases.
Envisioned 5G use cases arise challenges around the realization of inter-domain relationships beyond traditional Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) peering, e.g. end-to-end service deployments tailored to specific business needs (a.k.a. slices). Blockchain technologies bring consensus among decentralized non-trusting counterparts as a shared ledger, offering potential approaches for multi-administrative domain networking seeking agile, transparent end-to-end sliceable Service Level Agreements (SLAs). This demo showcases an experimental prototype based on best of breed open source components (e.g., Ethereum, OVS, Neo4j, Ryu/OpenFlowv1.3, ARIA/TOSCA) illustrating blockchain Decentralized Application (DApp) functionalities for life cycle management of multi-administrative domain network services.
This article surveys blockchain-based approaches for several security services. These services include authentication, confidentiality, privacy, and access control list (ACL), data and resource provenance, and integrity assurance. All these services are critical for the current distributed applications, especially due to the large amount of data being processed over the networks and the use of cloud computing. Authentication ensures that the user is who he/she claims to be. Confidentiality guarantees that data cannot be read by unauthorized users. Privacy provides the users the ability to control who can access their data. Provenance allows an efficient tracking of the data and resources along with their ownership and utilization over the network. Integrity helps in verifying that the data has not been modified or altered. These services are currently managed by centralized controllers, for example, a certificate authority. Therefore, the services are prone to attacks on the centralized controller. On the other hand, blockchain is a secured and distributed ledger that can help resolve many of the problems with centralization. The objectives of this paper are to give insights on the use of security services for current applications, to highlight the state of the art techniques that are currently used to provide these services, to describe their challenges, and to discuss how the blockchain technology can resolve these challenges. Further, several blockchain-based approaches providing such security services are compared thoroughly. Challenges associated with using blockchain-based security services are also discussed to spur further research in this area.
Alfonso Panarello, Nachiket Tapas, Giovanni Merlino, Francesco Longo · 5 authors
The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the interconnection of smart devices to collect data and make intelligent decisions. However, a lack of intrinsic security measures makes IoT vulnerable to privacy and security threats. With its "security by design," Blockchain (BC) can help in addressing major security requirements in IoT. BC capabilities like immutability, transparency, auditability, data encryption and operational resilience can help solve most architectural shortcomings of IoT. This article presents a comprehensive survey on BC and IoT integration. The objective of this paper is to analyze the current research trends on the usage of BC-related approaches and technologies in an IoT context. This paper presents the following novelties, with respect to related work: (i) it covers different application domains, organizing the available literature according to this categorization, (ii) it introduces two usage patterns, i.e., device manipulation and data management (open marketplace solution), and (iii) it reports on the development level of some of the presented solutions. We also analyze the main challenges faced by the research community in the smooth integration of BC and IoT, and point out the main open issues and future research directions. Last but not least, we also present a survey about novel uses of BC in the machine economy.
Nazrul M. Ahmad, Abdul Razak, Subarmaniam Kannan, Ibrahim Yusof · 5 authors
Identity Management (IDM) in cloud-based Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications is critical in many businesses. However, most conventional IDM systems are costly and hinder the innovation and greater customer experience. By using blockchain, a new way of managing the identities is proposed. This paper presents an initiative to improve IDM by integrating face recognition approach and blockchain technology in an integrated IoT -cloud application. To illustrate the proposed initiative, a decentralized campus wide printing service is chosen as a use case. In this use case, face recognition is used as an entry point to the service. Since face recognition involves a lot of complex computations and machine learning, this process is executed on a cloudlet, hence minimizing the need for massive data transfer to a distant cloud. Once a user's login information is digitally verified via immutable blockchain, smart contract is deployed to keep track of the user's printing activities. The integration of blockchain in this service has decentralized the IDM, automated the service, and kept the service inexpensive and transparent.
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
This paper discusses the application of the blockchain technology to wireless communications, in particular, for enhancing the security of vehicular communications. The idea that the blockchain will become a key solution for ensuring security and data consistency has long been controversial, even in more traditional areas such as finance or real-estate, for example. In this paper, an analysis of the two opposing sides is put forward and a review of the key aspects that need further evolution to ensure the blockchain's survival is presented. In the context of vehicular communications existing blockchain applications are examined with focus on certificate and reputation management, and message forwarding promotion. In this scope, the future of the blockchain is debated with emphasis on the key limitations of public implementations.
Ying Liu, Kai Zheng, Paul Craig, Yuexuan Li · 6 authors
In this paper we describe an evaluation to test the reliability of a blockchain based Internet of Things application using a continuous-time Markov chain model. The factors affecting the reliability in our system include the number of devices, the reliability of individual devices, and the underlying consensus algorithm etc. The effect of some factors on overall system reliability is tested, and we find that the total number of devices has the most significant factor to affect overall system reliability. So that we can improve system reliability according to the affecting factors.
Designing blockchain architecture is still an open question and encounters a lot of challenges such as scalability, security, high utilization and so on. In this paper, we propose Chameleon, a scalable and adaptive permissioned blockchain architecture. We adopt the principles of non-forking, high security, scalable and high utilization to design the Chameleon to be suitable for next generation blockchain architecture. In Chameleon, we introduce credit value which can only be acquired through honest behavior to enhance the security of the consensus algorithm. We also introduce the QoS of transactions to meet the various needs of different users. While previous work using sharding to improve the scalability, they either store all transactions in every area or just work independently, it either causes too much redundant data or low resource utilization. Combined with the cloud storage, Chameleon partition the nodes into different area according to different scenario, every area process their own transactions and can also cooperate with each other dynamically to improve transaction throughput and resource utilization.
Ziyan Wang, Xinghua Dong, Yi Li, Li Fang · 5 authors
It is a research hotspot that using blockchain technology to solve the security problems of the Internet of Things (IoT). Although many related ideas have been proposed, there are very few literatures with theoretical and data support. This paper focuses on the research of model construction and performance evaluation. First, an IoT security model is established based on blockchain and InterPlanetary File System (IPFS). In this model, many security risks of traditional IoT architectures can be avoided, and system performance is significantly improved in distributed large capacity storage, concurrency and query. Secondly, the performance of the proposed model is evaluated through the average latency and throughput, which are meaningful for further research and optimization of this direction. Analysis and test results demonstrate the effectiveness of the blockchain-based security model.
Since Bitcoin’s launch in early 2009, the industrial and academic interest in Blockchain and other cryptocurrencies have grown rapidly. Blockchains have been applied in many areas outside of finance such as healthcare, commerce and judiciary already. This technology promotes the creation of a decentralized environment where transactions and data are not under the control of any third-party organization. Blockchain is a fundamentally new technology that could revolutionize the future of transaction-based exchanges. Extensive research is being done in order to implement this technology various sectors. Blockchain technology comes with an edge of inbuilt auditability, trust and transfer of value which also makes it irresistible. \nThis work explores an agent based Blockchain-based Education System through mathematical modeling and simulation tools. The model is constructed to explore how Blockchain technology can be used to verify credit score of students, identify the occurrence and prevention of potential attacks. Along with technical characteristics of Bitcoin and Blockchain; cost, time and behavioural considerations of the system are also made. This is followed by analysing of the number of transactions, size of blockchain, network efficiency, cost analysis of the system along with the network efficiency. The proposed model, based on the blockchain technology shifts the education grading and credit rewarding system from the analog and physical world into a globally efficient, transparent and universal version. The work contributes a foundation for advancing current understanding of blockchain systems, and to further the development of simulation models of blockchains.
With the underlying technology of Bitcoin or other crypto-currencies and its rapid growth nowadays, many places have begun accepting Bitcoin payments in hot debate. It is hardly to deny the emerging success of the creation Blockchain platform behind of Bitcoin in the field of mathematics, finance, banking, and healthcare. The paper aims to create a diagrammatic conceptual model of medical app using Blockchain technology to manage all database of patients and doctors when they have a surgery. The model is built based on the gap of previous models which are mostly using Blockchain in banking and finance sector. Focusing on the development of mission space conceptual models, this paper will continue to propose a simulation space conceptual models in current studies, especially in the context of very few models applied blockchain in healthcare. After creation of this model, an app on smartphone using Bitcoin in payment could be created to facilitate doctors' management of all their patients directly and effectively as well as helping patients have a good comparison of cost, procedure or preparation of pre and post-surgery. Hopefully this paper will contribute to the given field the conceptual model for medical stakeholders including researcher, public health authorities, etc. to participate in the network as Blockchain "miners", to synthesize anonymous data as mining rewards, in return for sustaining and securing the network via Proof of Work.
The blockchain systems are analyzed under the context of the personal health record system (PHRs) requirements. The transparent property of blockchain may cause the privacy and confidentiality concerns for PHRs. The append-only storage of blockchain can be a barrier for implementing the revocability of consent in PHRs. Moreover, the health care data can be very large exceeding the practical storage capabilities of the current blockchain usages. The most important issues of blockchain include the limited storage, privacy, consent revocation, performance, energy consumption and scalability. A blockchain based secret-data sharing model is proposed by using a proxy re-encryption technique to support the PHRs in this work. Some potential attacks which can attempt on the proposed model and how the model can handle such attempts is also discussed.
With the development of internet of things (IoT) network in recent years, while the centralization data management brings longer delay while has more safety troubles. Moreover, once a single device is attacked, the system crashes. So, blockchain technique which could realize safety distributed data management is introduced. However, the consensus mechanism of blockchain consumes huge computation resources. And the storage of entire ledger also consumes huge storage resources of the blockchain nodes. Due to the limited capacity of IoT devices, the nodes cannot afford the computation resources to reach consensus and caching resources. This paper introduces an architecture of edge computing based blockchain network which makes use of the computation and caching capacity of edge server to help the IoT devices in reaching consensus and storing data.
The development of Vehicular Ad-hoc NETwork (VANET) has brought many conveniences to human beings, but also brings a very prominent security problem. The traditional solution to the security problem is based on centralized approach which requires a trusted central entity which exists a single point of failure problem. Moreover, there is no approach of technical level to ensure security of data. Therefore, this paper proposes a security architecture of VANET based on blockchain and mobile edge computing. The architecture includes three layers, namely perception layer, edge computing layer and service layer. The perception layer ensures the security of VANET data in the transmission process through the blockchain technology. The edge computing layer provides computing resources and edge cloud services to the perception layer. The service layer uses the combination of traditional cloud storage and blockchain to ensure the security of data.
In the area of IoT (Internet of Things), more and more intelligent devices are being connected to the Internet. These intelligent devices have been producing a huge amout of useful data over time, however there is still a lack of a platform which can efficiently transfer and utilize the value of the massive IoT data. Blockchain is able to transfer value with a relative low cost, which makes it possible for the data from smart devices to create economic value. This work of this paper is to design a high performance blockchain platform, using technologies such as distributed network architecture, intelligent devices node mapping, as well as PBFT-DPOC consensus algorithm to realize the decentralized autonomy of intelligent devices.
Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networking is a decentralized network topology that enables parties to communicate directly without central servers. The main obstacle preventing the heavy deployment of the P2P topology is the Network Address Translation (NAT) which serves as a solution for the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses. Methods proposed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to solve the NAT traversal issues include Simple Traversal of UDP through NATs (STUN) and Traversal Using Relay NAT (TURN). STUN is limited by the type of deployed NAT, and TURN is limited by the peers' discovery mechanism which is application dependent. In this paper we propose a Blockchain-based platform that enables TURN servers to act as relays for Internet of Things (IoT) devices behind NAT. It also provides End-to-End (e2e) security for Constrained and Non-Constrained IoT devices. Results showed that the system has minimal impact on the existing network and can be a potential solution for advancing IoT deployment.
Aug 1, 2018·2018 17th IEEE International Conference On Trust, Security And Privacy In Computing And Communications/ 12th IEEE International Conference On Big Data Science And Engineering (TrustCom/BigDataSE)
Blockchain technology though originally designed for keeping financial ledgers, recently has found applications in many different fields including healthcare. Sharing healthcare data for research purposes will boost research innovation in this area. That being said, healthcare data sharing raises many privacy and security issues for the Patients who share their data. In this work, we present the potential of Blockchain technology to facilitate (i) private and auditable healthcare data sharing and (ii) healthcare data access permission handling by proposing a blockchain-based system architecture design.