E. Nagarjun, Dharamendra Chouhan, Ismail Zabiulla, Shishir Kumar
In the era of pervasive computing, fog computing has emerged as a paradigm that extends cloud services to the edge of the network, enabling real-time data processing and reducing latency for time-sensitive applications, particularly in the Internet of Things (IoT). However, fog computing faces significant challenges in resource allocation and provisioning due to its limited resources. Efficient resource provisioning in fog nodes is critical, as a well-designed algorithm can significantly reduce response time and energy consumption for application requests. In this paper, we present a novel agent-based resource provisioning algorithm tailored for fog computing environments, utilizing the Contract Net Protocol (CNP) to dynamically allocate tasks to virtual machines (VMs) based on resource availability and task requirements. A smart healthcare case study shows the proposed algorithm reduces network usage by ${2 2. 9 5 \%}$ over SJF and $28.67 \%$ over FCFS, reduces energy consumption by $6 \%$ for both SJF and FCFS, and decreases loop delay by $19 \%$ over SJF and $38.48 \%$ over FCFS.
The IoT devices are growing rapidly, which has led to an exponential rise in the amount of data those devices are producing. There is a pressing need for effective and secure data transfer techniques from IoT devices to the cloud as the amount and complexity of IoT data keep growing. This paper introduces a revolutionary idea that combines fog computing, and blockchain technology and also uses a hybrid consensus mechanism to ensure secured data transmission between IoT and Cloud. Fog computing, a branch of the cloud provides local processing, storage, and communication capabilities. By leveraging fog computing, data transmission latency is reduced, and network congestion is minimized, resulting in improved performance and responsiveness. Blockchain technology is incorporated into the system to guarantee the security of IoT data while it is being transmitted. Blockchain, with its decentralized and immutable nature, provides a transparent and tamper-proof ledger for recording data transactions. Each data transaction from an IoT device is encrypted, timestamped, and appended to the blockchain, creating an auditable and trustworthy record of data transmission. Additionally, a hybrid consensus mechanism using Delegated Proof of Stake and Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance is employed to validate the transaction. This concept addresses the challenges of data security, latency, and integrity in IoT applications, enabling the development of scalable and trustworthy IoT systems across various industries. The efficiency of the proposed system is validated by evaluating performance metrics such as latency, accuracy, precision, recall, F-score, and verification time, and comparing the results with those of existing approaches. The implemented systems, tailored for the healthcare domain, exhibit security measures and an impressive 18% reduction in latency, while enhancing the accuracy by 15% when compared to the conventional approach, as per the experimental results.
• Deploys AIoT and DLT to create novel business models for improved data driven services in smart cities. • Provides understanding on the integration of AIoT and DLT in achieving intelligent mobility services in smart cities. • Bridges the gap between theory and practice by providing insights on the potential benefits of converging AIoT and DLT. • Grounded on the TOE framework this study presents the factors that impacts the convergence of AIoT and DLT in smart cities. • Present use cases on the applicability of AIoT and DLT to support intelligent mobility services in smart cities. The society is witnessing an accelerated large-scale adoption of technology with transformative effects on daily transport operations, with cities now depending on data driven mobility services. Disruptive technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), and decentralized technologies for example Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) are being deployed in smart cities. However, AI is faced with data security and privacy issues due to its centralized mode of deployment. Conversely, DLT which employs a decentralized architecture can be converged with AI to provide a secure data sharing across various IoT thereby overcoming the existing setbacks faced in deploying AI in smart cities. Evidently, the convergence of AI and IoT as AIoT and DLT have great potential to create novel business models for improved data driven services such as intelligent mobility in smart cities. Although research on the convergence of AI, IoT and DLT exists, our understanding of its integration in achieving intelligent mobility services in smart cities remains fragmented as current research in this area remains scarce. This study bridges the gap between theory and practice by providing researchers and practitioners with insights on the potential benefits of converging AIoT and DLT. Grounded on the Technology Organization Environment (TOE) framework this study presents the technological, organizational, and environmental factors that impacts the convergence of AIoT and DLT in smart cities. Additionally, findings from this study present use cases on the applicability of AIoT and DLT to support intelligent mobility services in smart cities.
K. Vijayakumar, A. S. Chethan, M S Muneshwara, M. S. Swetha · 6 authors
In today's rapidly evolving healthcare landscape, the integration of cutting-edge technologies such as IoT and wearable devices has led to significant advancements, particularly in the realm of remote patient monitoring. Despite these advancements, the traditional client/server architecture prevalent in current implementations presents substantial challenges related to security and privacy, leaving healthcare systems vulnerable to various attacks. Consequently, stringent regulatory and security measures are imperative to safeguard health data. To address these challenges and meet regulatory requirements, transitioning to a distributed architecture is essential. Blockchain technology, renowned for its distributed nature and robust security features, offers a promising solution to mitigate the security risks inherent in IoT-based systems. Motivated by these considerations, this study introduces HealthLink—a secure healthcare framework that seamlessly integrates IoT and Blockchain technologies.HealthLink is designed to facilitate remote patient monitoring, particularly for chronic diseases that require continuous oversight. The framework prioritizes security, scalability, and processing efficiency. Security measures include the use of re-encryption proxies combined with Blockchain for hash data storage, while access control is managed through smart contracts. To enhance Blockchain scalability, an off-chain IPFS-based database is employed for data storage, and the Ethereum Blockchain-based proof of authority is leveraged to expedite data storage processes. As a practical demonstration, we apply the HealthLink system to diabetes management, presenting execution results through system interfaces. Experimental findings highlight substantial enhancements in the security of healthcare systems compared to conventional methodologies, underscoring the potential of HealthLink to revolutionize remote patient monitoring and data security in healthcare.
Communication between vehicles, known as Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication, plays a critical role in enhancing traffic management and road safety by facilitating the real-time exchange of vital information. While traditional methods like Dedicated Short-Range Communication (DSRC) and Long-Term Evolution (LTE) have proven effective, they are not without limitations, particularly concerning privacy and security. Emerging technologies such as 5G and Blockchain offer promising solutions to address these challenges. This study explores the integration of Blockchain technology into V2V communication systems to improve data security, reliability, and privacy. Blockchain’s decentralized nature inherently ensures data integrity and transparency, while smart contracts automate processes, guaranteeing secure and efficient data transmission. The proposed framework targets the optimization of V2V communication by leveraging Blockchain’s unique features, including data security, immutability, and decentralization. The primary objective is to develop a Blockchain-enabled system that facilitates secure communication channels between vehicles. This system will incorporate functionalities such as user and vehicle registration, authentication, and efficient communication algorithms. This research contributes significantly to the establishment of a robust V2V communication framework, ultimately paving the way for improved road safety and traffic management.
Blockchain technology's decentralized and immutable data storage has changed a number of sectors. But typical blockchain networks scalability issues prevent them from being widely used for large-scale applications. By dividing the blockchain network into smaller, more controllable sections known as shards, sharding has become a viable remedy for scalability issues. This paper offers a thorough introduction to sharding as a blockchain network scalability solution. We explore the basic ideas of sharding as well as its advantages, drawbacks, and several sharding strategies. We also analyze experimental results and real-world implementations to assess how well sharding contributes to increased blockchain scalability. Lastly, we talk about possible developments in sharding approaches and future research paths to further improve the scalability of blockchain networks.
Chi Xu, Peifeng Zhang, Xiaofang Xia, Linghe Kong · 6 authors
Blockchain-based vehicular edge computing (VEC) is regarded as a promising computing paradigm that can enhance the computing capabilities of mobile vehicles while ensuring security during task offloading. However, the blockchain consensus for secure task offloading inevitably increases the communication and computation resource consumption. More importantly, the frequent handover among roadside units during the fast movement of vehicles also raises the communication cost for blockchain consensus. To address these issues, this article proposes intelligent secure task offloading and caching (ISTOC) scheme for VEC networks. Specifically, we first establish a digital twin-assisted VEC network that migrates the blockchain consensus process from the physical space to the cyber space, supporting the dynamic handover of vehicles. Correspondingly, we propose a lightweight blockchain scheme named diffused delegated Byzantine fault tolerance (d2BFT). Then, aiming at simultaneously reducing the task processing latency and improving the blockchain transaction throughput, we formulate the joint blockchain, communication, computation, and caching (B3C) optimization problem subject to task division, communication bandwidth, computing frequency, cache storage, task deadline, and blockchain stability. Due to the nonconvexity of B3C, we transform it into a Markov decision process, and propose a multiagent double actor-critic (MADAC) algorithm in light of the distributed characteristic of blockchain. Through offline training and online execution, we jointly optimize the task division, communication bandwidth, computing frequency and cache storage allocation, block size, and block generation interval for ISTOC. Experimental results show that the proposed MADAC-based ISTOC scheme can stably converge with a much higher reward than the benchmark schemes based on MADDPG, soft actor-critic, deep deterministic policy gradient, and TD3. The improvement of MADAC-ISTOC over SAC-ISTOC is more than 25.93%.
The paper introduces SoulCert, a decentralized application that leverages blockchain technology to address the challenges of academic certification. Utilizing soul-bound non-fungible tokens (NFTs), SoulCert provides a secure and transparent system for issuing, verifying, and managing tamper-proof academic credentials. The system extends the ERC721 standard with additional functionalities from ERC5192 for locking and unlocking tokens, ensuring the integrity and authenticity of certificates. The paper discusses various Ethereum token standards, their use cases, and the methodology behind SoulCert, highlighting its potential to revolutionize the academic certification process. The paper also presents performance comparison between different operation within SoulCert and economic feasibility for real world application.
Due to advanced technological development, the application of blockchain is not just for financial services. It has inherent potential uses in various industries, including healthcare, supply chain, industrial goods, E-commerce, and others. Any group or individuals agree in a blockchain network to make transactions on the basis of a consensus mechanism. The critical role of the consensus mechanism is that it improves the efficiency and security of the blockchain system. Proof of Work (PoW), Proof of Stake (PoS), Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS), Proof of Authority (PoA), Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) and some other recent proof of concepts such as Proof of Burn (PoB), Proof of Learning, Proof of Luck (PoLu), etc. are the various existing consensus algorithms. However, there are problems with these algorithms including centralization risk, security, efficiency, and waste of resources. Proof of Work (PoW) consumes high computational power to solve the cryptographic puzzle and makes the system more costly. Proof of Stake (PoS) encourages high-stakes node selected as a validator to propose and validate the new block in the blockchain, which promotes inequality and monopolies. The paper introduces Round Robin Proof of Stake (RRPoS) based on the existing Proof of Stake (PoS) that involves block creation in a round-robin fashion to increase the chances of high- to low-stakes validators for the validation of the proposed block. The proposed consensus algorithm is able to ascertain the existence of malicious validator nodes and eliminate them to enhance system security. The performance analysis demonstrates that RRPoS is better and more efficient than PoW and PoS.
Zero-knowledge layer 2 protocols emerge as a compelling approach to overcoming blockchain scalability issues by processing transactions through the transaction finalization process. During this process, transactions are efficiently processed off the main chain. Besides, both the transaction data and the zero-knowledge proofs of transaction executions are reserved on the main chain, ensuring the availability of transaction data as well as the correctness and verifiability of transaction executions. Hence, any bugs that cause the transaction finalization failure are crucial, as they impair the usability of these protocols and the scalability of blockchains. In this work, we conduct the first systematic study on finalization failure bugs in zero-knowledge layer 2 protocols, and define two kinds of such bugs. Besides, we design fAmulet, the first tool to detect finalization failure bugs in Polygon zkRollup, a prominent zero-knowledge layer 2 protocol, by leveraging fuzzing testing. To trigger finalization failure bugs effectively, we introduce a finalization behavior model to guide our transaction fuzzer to generate and mutate transactions for inducing diverse behaviors across each component (e.g., Sequencer) in the finalization process. Moreover, we define bug oracles according to the distinct bug definitions to accurately detect bugs. Through our evaluation, fAmulet can uncover twelve zero-day finalization failure bugs in Polygon zkRollup, and cover at least 20.8% more branches than baselines. Furthermore, through our preliminary study, fAmulet uncovers a zero-day finalization failure bug in Scroll zkRollup, highlighting the generality of fAmulet to be applied to other zero-knowledge layer 2 protocols. At the time of writing, all our uncovered bugs have been confirmed and fixed by Polygon zkRollup and Scroll zkRollup teams.
The polar region communication network is modeled as a delay-tolerant payment channel network and a multi-path routing system is assumed to operate. Among the most appropriate models for sharing and managing such collected scientific and technological information, a distributed ledger-based information distribution service model would be one. In this paper, we analyzed the delay-tolerant payment channel network based on a partially$\Delta$-synchronized blockchain model. In this study, we analyze how communication network delay can affect the delay-tolerant payment channel protocol. For the security transfer analysis of the blockchain-to-blockchain consensus algorithm, we assume that the protocol including slashing operates in a partially$\Delta$-synchronous and permission-less setting. This paper proposes upper bounds of the attacker's share and safe areas according to private attacks in a delay-tolerant communication network situation.
In the rapidly evolving domain of connected vehicles, ensuring robust security and efficient data management is paramount. Traditional centralized architectures struggle with latency, scalability, and vulnerability to single points of failure. This research proposes a novel Blockchain-Integrated Security Framework (BISF) for fog networking in connected vehicles. The BISF leverages blockchain technology to enhance data integrity, transparency, and security while utilizing fog computing to reduce latency and improve real-time data processing. The proposed framework integrates smart contracts for automated trust management and distributed ledgers for immutable data records. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of BISF in enhancing security, reducing latency, and improving overall network performance compared to traditional centralized approaches.
Background The healthcare industry is significantly transforming toward digital and smart healthcare. Blockchain, as an emerging distributed collaborative paradigm, offers a promising solution for ensuring trustworthiness and high availability of services in this evolving healthcare. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive survey of blockchain-based applications in smart healthcare. Methods We first present real-world blockchain use cases in smart healthcare and related fields, outlining the motivations for this study. Next, we review cutting-edge blockchain applications in various domains, including health data sharing, public health management, drug supply chains, insurance claims, and the Internet of Medical Things. A detailed analysis of several blockchain-based healthcare data sharing scenarios is included. Results The findings illustrate the diverse applications of blockchain technology in enhancing healthcare systems, along with a detailed examination of challenges related to technical implementation and adoption. Conclusion We discuss the challenges facing blockchain integration in smart healthcare and propose potential solutions to guide future research in this area.
Alexandr Kuznetsov, Emanuele Frontoni, Marco Arnesano, Kateryna Kuznetsova
Blockchain-based sensor networks offer promising solutions for secure and transparent data management in IoT ecosystems. However, efficient set membership proofs remain a critical challenge, particularly in resource-constrained environments. This paper introduces a novel OR-aggregation approach (where “OR” refers to proving that an element equals at least one member of a set without revealing which one) for zero-knowledge set membership proofs, tailored specifically for blockchain-based sensor networks. We provide a comprehensive theoretical foundation, detailed protocol specification, and rigorous security analysis. Our implementation incorporates optimization techniques for resource-constrained devices and strategies for integration with prominent blockchain platforms. Extensive experimental evaluation demonstrates the superiority of our approach over existing methods, particularly for large-scale deployments. Results show significant improvements in proof size, generation time, and verification efficiency. The proposed OR-aggregation technique offers a scalable and privacy-preserving solution for set membership verification in blockchain-based IoT applications, addressing key limitations of current approaches. Our work contributes to the advancement of efficient and secure data management in large-scale sensor networks, paving the way for wider adoption of blockchain technology in IoT ecosystems.
Deokkyu Kwon, Seunghwan Son, Kisung Park, Ashok Kumar Das · 5 authors
Multi-domain vehicle to grid (V2G) is a network environment in which numerous service providers offer charging and discharging services to EV users. This can enhance energy management and traffic flow for efficient intelligent transportation systems (ITS). However, the combination of multiple domains can suffer from various security vulnerabilities, highlighting the need for robust countermeasures. Moreover, existing multi-domain V2G protocols utilized a central trusted authority (TA) which can create a single point of failure (SPOF), or required high computational resources. In this paper, we propose a multi-domain authentication protocol for secure and efficient V2G services using consortium blockchain. The proposed protocol provides lightweight intra-domain authentication using hash functions and XOR operators. Furthermore, the proposed protocol ensures secure cross-domain authentication by integrating elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) and physical unclonable function (PUF). Therefore, the proposed protocol can establish trust, enable efficient communications, and prevent congestion at charging stations. To validate security robustness, comprehensive evaluations are conducted using “Real-Or-Random (ROR) model”, “Scyther tool”, and informal analyses. Comparative computational overheads of the proposed and related protocols are measured using “Multiprecision Integer and Rational Arithmetic Cryptographic Library (MIRACL)” testbed experiments. Additionally, a simulation of the practical deployment is conducted using “Network Simulator-3 (NS-3)”. Results indicate that the proposed protocol can improve ITS by providing secure and efficient services for multi-domain V2G environments.
Rahul Ganpatrao Sonkamble, Anupkumar M. Bongale, Shraddha Phansalkar, Deepak Dharrao
An Electronic Health Record (EHR) store essential and sensitive patient's medical information. Since health information is highly confidential data, it should be accessible with the consent of the patient. Blockchain based EHR management system offers improvised privacy and patient-centric approach. EHR management systems are available with multiple blockchain platforms. Generally, EHRs are maintained at several independent blockchain platforms. EHR management systems should be capable of securely exchange data on cross platform blockchain network. The interoperability in such blockchain platforms should facilitate seamless cross-chain interaction and information exchange. This article proposes a method that facilitates secure EHR exchange on Ethereum and Hyperledger fabric network using hepatitis dataset. The key contributions of the proposed method include:•Hash lock based interoperable cross-chain method for EHR exchange across Ethereum and Hyperledger fabric.•Additional security to the EHR is ensured by partitioning EHR as on-chain (blockchain platform) and off-chain InterPlanetary File System (IPFS)•Secure Password Authentication-Based Key Exchange (SPAKE) based session management for EHR exchange across two parties.The proposed patient centric method is validated to ensures the successful exchange of patient EHR across Ethereum and Hyperledger fabric.
Internet of Drones (IoD) has become crucial due to the surge of drone-based applications. In a dynamic wireless network, drones often share data with multiple users, which is vulnerable to various security threats, e.g., eavesdropping, privacy leakage, and impersonation. Ensuring secure sharing of drone operation data is a critical issue. Existing schemes employ blockchain to ensure accountability in untrusted IoD contexts. However, drones perform excessive operations, e.g., consensus and homomorphic encryption, leading to impractical drone computation overhead. Furthermore, these existing schemes perform point-to-multipoint (P2MP) data sharing by using identity-based broadcast encryption (IBBE) as it has stateless receiver property, i.e., drones can directly establish sharing groups based on the receiver identities. However, these IBBE-based schemes need to preset the sharing group capacity, reducing sharing efficiency and flexibility in dynamic IoD networks. Also, identities in sharing groups probably result in receiver privacy breaches. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-assisted data-sharing scheme with accountability and privacy-preserving for IoD networks. We utilize on-chain immutable smart contracts and short signatures to construct a lightweight accountability mechanism that can verify and punish the above misbehavior. We develop an efficient privacy-preserving IBBE algorithm for P2MP sharing of drone operation data that enables dynamic group sharing. We prove that our algorithm is secure and receiver anonymity against chosen ciphertext attacks. The experiment results show that our scheme outperforms existing schemes in computational and communication overhead. In real-world logistics scenarios, the wireless data rate of 50Mbps can satisfy the communication requirements for ciphertext lengths up to 19.5KB. For a sharing group of 60 receivers, drone encryption costs only about 101 ms. The decryption cost remains constant and takes about 3.1 ms.
As the oldest and best secured blockchain network, Bitcoin is now over half of the total cryptocurrency market share. Bitcoin Layer2 has been undoubtedly one of the most popular technologies since last year with many projects aiming to scale Bitcoin with turing-complete programmability. However, existing Layer2 proposals introduce extra security assumptions which significantly compromise the guarantee provided by Bitcoin. To address this problem, we propose the AUGME protocol in this paper to enable Trust-Minimized Bitcoin Layer2, i.e., Layer2 secured by Bitcoin without new trust preconditions.
Mahmoud Ahmad Al‐Khasawneh, Muhammad Faheem, Ala Abdulsalam Alarood, Safa Habibullah · 5 authors
Electronic health records are one of the essential components of health organizations. In recent years, there have been increased concerns about privacy and reputation regarding the storage and use of patient information. In this regard, the information provided as a part of medical and health insurance, for instance, can be viewed as proof of social insurance and governance. Several problems in the past few decades regarding medical information management have threatened patient information privacy. In intelligent healthcare applications, the privacy of patients' data is one of the main concerns. As a result, blockchain is a severe necessity as it can enhance transparency and security in medical applications. Accordingly, this paper uses the design science method to propose a secure blockchain framework for healthcare records management systems. The proposed framework comprises five components: a blockchain network, smart contracts, privacy key management, data encryption, and integration with healthcare information technology. In the proposed framework, healthcare organizations can manage healthcare information securely and privately. Additionally, a secure storage system for electronic records is proposed to meet these organizations' needs. It provides security and privacy for healthcare organizations, especially when managing healthcare information, and also proposes a secure storage system for electronic records to meet the needs of the organizations.
Enhancing data privacy security in medical data sharing is crucial for the informatization development in the healthcare sector. This paper proposes a healthcare data sharing scheme based on two-dimensional chaotic mapping and blockchain (2DCM-DS). Specifically, a new two-dimensional chaotic mapping is proposed, which demonstrates superior chaotic performance. Then, by incorporating biometric audio information as an identity credential and integrating it with the proposed two-dimensional chaotic mapping, we design a data encryption method that establishes a strongly coupled and bi-directionally verifiable data ownership relationship in healthcare data sharing. Finally, we employ blockchain as the underlying network and design corresponding smart contracts to support 2DCM-DS. This approach addresses potential issues of unauthorized access, malicious tampering, and single points of failure in centralized data sharing. Experimental results demonstrate that 2DCM-DS effectively protects data security under the specified attack models. The results validate the security and efficiency of the 2DCM-DS, proving its application potential in healthcare insurance data sharing scenarios.