Blockchain Papers

Ronghua Xu, Deeraj Nagothu, Yu Chen

The rapid advancement in artificial intelligence (AI) and wide deployment of Internet of Video Things (IoVT) enable situation awareness (SAW). The robustness and security of IoVT systems are essential for a sustainable urban environment. While blockchain technology has shown great potential in enabling trust-free and decentralized security mechanisms, directly embedding cryptocurrency oriented blockchain schemes into resource-constrained Internet of Video Things (IoVT) networks at the edge is not feasible. By leveraging Electrical Network Frequency (ENF) signals extracted from multimedia recordings as region-of-recording proofs, this paper proposes EconLedger, an ENF-based consensus mechanism that enables secure and lightweight distributed ledgers for small-scale IoVT edge networks. The proposed consensus mechanism relies on a novel Proof-of-ENF (PoENF) algorithm where a validator is qualified to generate a new block if and only if a proper ENF-containing multimedia signal proof is produced within the current round. The decentralized database (DDB) is adopted in order to guarantee efficiency and resilience of raw ENF proofs on the off-chain storage. A proof-of-concept prototype is developed and tested in a physical IoVT network environment. The experimental results validated the feasibility of the proposed EconLedger to provide a trust-free and partially decentralized security infrastructure for IoVT edge networks.

Yanli Ren, Xianji Cai, Mingqi Hu

In the traditional blockchain system, data is public and cannot be redacted. With the development of blockchain technology, the problem that the data cannot be altered will be more serious once it is written on the chain. Recently, some redactable blockchain schemes have been proposed. However, most of the schemes are based on the public blockchain, and the users’ identities and transaction data may be disclosed. To solve the problem of privacy disclosure, we propose a privacy-preserving transaction-level redactable blockchain. In the proposed scheme, symmetric encryption and ring signature are used to protect transaction data and the users’ identities, respectively. In order to prove the legality of data redaction, the transaction sender can reveal the invalid users’ identities and transaction data in an anonymous environment. To construct a transaction-level redactable blockchain, the users only need to replace a single transaction to complete the data redaction instead of replacing the entire block. The experimental results show that the proposed scheme saves 20% of the redaction time compared to the previous privacy-preserving blockchains, so the redaction efficiency is higher.

Liu Su, Jian Wang

Ethereum is a public blockchain platform with smart contract. However, it has transaction privacy issues due to the openness of the underlying ledger. Decentralized mixing schemes are presented to hide transaction relationship and transferred amount, but suffer from high transaction cost and long transaction latency. To overcome the two challenges, we propose the idea of batch accounting, adopting batch processing at the time of accounting. For further realization, we introduce payment channel technology into decentralized mixer. Since intermediate transactions between two parties do not need network consensus, our scheme can reduce both transaction cost and transaction latency. Moreover, we provide informal definitions and proofs of our scheme's security. Finally, our scheme is implemented based on zk-SNARKs and Ganache, and experimental results show that the higher number of transactions in batch, the better our scheme performs.

Yanhui Liu, Jianbiao Zhang, Shupei Wu, Muhammad Salman Pathan

With the recent development in network technology over a few years, digital works can be easily published online. One of the main issues in the field of digital technology is the infringement of digital works, which can seriously damage the data owners' rights and affects the enthusiasm of the owners to create original work. Thus, more attention is required for the protection of digital copyright as it has a great impact on the development of society. Many digital copyright protection techniques were developed in the past, but still, there are many loopholes in the protection systems to be covered. The protection means are still relatively weak, timeliness is poor, infringement is frequent, a right determination is cumbersome, and the results are not ideal. Aiming at the mentioned problems, this paper proposes a protection technique, which can realize the automatic management of the complete digital rights life cycle on the blockchain using fabric's smart contract technology. The proposed system is based on blockchain technology, which leverages the distributed, tamper-proof and traceable characteristics of blockchain. The system uses smart contracts to manage the full life cycle of digital copyright. The test results show that the proposed system provides effective protection of the digital copyright system and can efficiently confirm the rights of digital copyright.

Sumit Yadav, Kavita Sharma, Chanchal Kumar, Arushi Arora

No abstract is available for this record.

Dachao Yu, Hao Xu, Lei Zhang, Bin Cao · 5 authors

The design of sharding aims to solve the scalability challenge in a blockchain network. Typically, by splitting the whole blockchain network into smaller shards, the transaction throughput can be significantly improved. However, distributing fewer attesting nodes for transactions in a shard may cause higher security risks. This paper analyzes the security level of transaction verification in different types of shards and transactions. The analyzed result indicates that the size of shards and validating nodes number may influence the transaction security in shards. And the random distribution of attesting nodes can reduce such influence and improve the reliability of consensus in shards.

Simón Fernández-Vázquez, Rafael Rosillo, Luis Meijueiro, Raul Alonso Alvarez · 5 authors

Blockchain is increasingly gaining interest in both the academic and professional worlds. The implementation of this decentralised and distributed network has started taking place, firstly in the financial world and in recent years reaching to other industries. Nevertheless, not all blockchain networks are the same, and choosing the right consensus algorithm is important for companies willing to invest in this technology. Companies eager to implement blockchain should understand the underlying architecture when selecting a particular network. Through an in-depth analysis, this paper aims to explore and compare from a technical perspective the three biggest permissionless blockchain networks by market capitalisation: Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple. Our research shows that Bitcoin gains a competitive advantage as a widely adopted means of payment, Ethereum excels in adopting a robust and flexible smart contract functionality whilst Ripple is most suitable for cross-border payments due to its scalability and fast processing speed. Based on the comprehensive analysis of the networks and their consensus protocols, this paper is designed to set the ground for further studies on the emerging applications of blockchain in numerous sectors.

Victor R. Kebande, Feras M. Awaysheh, Richard A. Ikuesan, Sadi Alawadi · 5 authors

Continuous and emerging advances in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) have enabled Internet-of-Things (IoT)-to-Cloud applications to be induced by data pipelines and Edge Intelligence-based architectures. Advanced vehicular networks greatly benefit from these architectures due to the implicit functionalities that are focused on realizing the Internet of Vehicle (IoV) vision. However, IoV is susceptible to attacks, where adversaries can easily exploit existing vulnerabilities. Several attacks may succeed due to inadequate or ineffective authentication techniques. Hence, there is a timely need for hardening the authentication process through cutting-edge access control mechanisms. This paper proposes a Blockchain-based Multi-Factor authentication model that uses an embedded Digital Signature (MFBC_eDS) for vehicular clouds and Cloud-enabled IoV. Our proposed MFBC_eDS model consists of a scheme that integrates the Security Assertion Mark-up Language (SAML) to the Single Sign-On (SSO) capabilities for a connected edge to cloud ecosystem. MFBC_eDS draws an essential comparison with the baseline authentication scheme suggested by Karla and Sood. Based on the foundations of Karla and Sood's scheme, an embedded Probabilistic Polynomial-Time Algorithm (ePPTA) and an additional Hash function for the Pi generated during Karla and Sood's authentication were proposed and discussed. The preliminary analysis of the proposition shows that the approach is more suitable to counter major adversarial attacks in an IoV-centered environment based on the Dolev-Yao adversarial model while satisfying aspects of the Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability (CIA) triad.

U. Padmavathi, Narendran Rajagopalan

No abstract is available for this record.

Francesco Mogavero, Ivan Visconti, Andrea Vitaletti, Marco Zecchini

Ethereum's founder Buterin raised the challenge of solving the blockchain Trilemma towards a decentralized computer that could together achieve high degrees of security, scalability, and decentralization. Later on, Algorand claimed to have resolved Buterin's blockchain Trilemma and is nowadays increasingly adopted by designers of decentralized computations. Motivated by the need of selecting a blockchain to run some decentralized computations, we observe the limitations of using the Trilemma as benchmark, and we propose as alternative a Quadrilemma that takes into account also computational effectiveness, namely the capability of running non-trivial decentralized computations at affordable costs. For concreteness, motivated by the current trends of using blockchains for the management of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) related to highly desired items (i.e., NFTs for art), we consider the use case of decentralized auctions in various scenarios that mainly differ on the desired degree of confidentiality. Our contribution gives the following insights. Except very limited cases where also Bitcoin can be taken into account (i.e., when latency is not a big deal and only notarization is required), Algorand can often be the right choice as long as decentralized computations consist of basic operations only. Instead, Ethereum is advisable when more sophisticated computations are required, in particular when ad-hoc cryptographic tasks are essential, and one can afford the involved costs and latency. Focusing on those three blockchains, the state of affairs about resolving the blockchain Quadrilemma is somewhat unsatisfying. Even in natural cases where computations and storage requirements for a smart contract are low (e.g., public-key encryption), none of those decentralized computers achieves simultaneously low cost and fast transaction confirmations.

C. Vijesh Joe, Jennifer S. Raj

Cloud applications that work on medical data using blockchain is used by managers and doctors in order to get the image data that is shared between various healthcare institutions. To ensure workability and privacy of the image data, it is important to verify the authenticity of the data, retrieve cypher data and encrypt plain image data. An effective methodology to encrypt the data is the use of a public key authenticated encryption methodology which ensures workability and privacy of the data. But, there are a number of such methodologies available that have been formulated previously. However, the drawback with those methodologies is their inadequacy in protecting the privacy of the data. In order to overcome these disadvantages, we propose a searchable encryption algorithm that can be used for sharing blockchain- based medical image data. This methodology provides traceability, unforgettable and non-tampered image data using blockhain technology, overcoming the drawbacks of blockchain such as computing power and storage. The proposed work will also sustain keyword guessing attacks apart from verification of authenticity and privacy protection of the image data. Taking these factors into consideration, it is determine that there is much work involved in providing stronger security and protecting privacy of data senders. The proposed methodology also meets the requirement of indistinguishability of trapdoor and ciphertext. The highlights of the proposed work are its capability in improving the performance of the system in terms of security and privacy protection.

Jitendra Singh Yadav, Narendra Singh Yadav, Akhilesh Sharma

The introduction of smart contracts and support for Dapps in blockchain networks has opened a new era of decentralized application development for different domains. This paper provides insight into the blockchain technology's core components and highlights the differences in the underlying techniques used in the Ethereum and TRON networks. Additionally, it presents a quantitative analysis of both platforms. Therefore, it will help the readers to balance off their choice between these two blockchain networks.

Aqsa Rashid, Asif Masood, Haider Abbas, Yin Zhang⋆

Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) has been considered to be an enabler of secure communication, while, due to its complex and centralized design, there have been instances in the past for Certification Authority's (CA) misbehaving and publishing rogue certificates for targeted attacks. This research aims to present a blockchain-based mechanism that lays down a concrete foundation for creating a transparent and secure block-chain-based mechanism for the issuance and management of digital certificates that enables prevention against CA misbehaving. A prototype is deployed and tested on the Ethereum test network, and the results are made publicly available for verification and validation. As a result, the proposed Ethereum blockchain-based PKI mechanism enables secure, transparent, and auditable issuance and management of digital certificates together with the solution of Sybil, Spoofing, and Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attacks.

Tong Cao, Jérémie Decouchant, Jiangshan Yu, Paulo Esteves-Veríssimo

While previous works have discussed the network delay upper bound that guarantees the consistency of Nakamoto consensus, measuring the actual network latencies and evaluating their impact on miners/pools in Bitcoin remain open questions. This paper fills this gap by: (1) defining metrics that quantify the impact of network latency on the mining network; (2) developing a tool, named miner entanglement (ME), to experimentally evaluate these metrics with a focus on the network latency of the top mining pools; and (3) quantifying the impact of the current network delays on Bitcoin's mining network. For example, we evaluated that Poolin, a Bitcoin mining pool, was able to gain between 0.5% and 1.9% of blocks in addition (i.e., from 36.27 BTC to 137.83 BTC) per week thanks to its low network latency. Moreover, as pools are rational in Bitcoin, we model the strategy a pool would follow to improve its network latency (e.g., by leveraging our ME tool) as a two party game. We show that a Bitcoin mining pool could improve its effective hash rate by up to 4.5%. For a multi-party game, we use a state-of-the-art Bitcoin mining simulator to study the situation where all pools attempt to improve their network latency and show that the largest mining pools would improve their revenue and reach a Nash equilibrium while the smaller mining pools would suffer from a decreased access to the network, and therefore a decreased revenue. These conclusions further incentivize the centralisation of the mining network in Bitcoin, and provide an empirical explanation for the observed tendency of pools to design and rely on low latency private networks.

Uzma Jafar, Mohd Juzaiddin Ab Aziz, Zarina Shukur

Online voting is a trend that is gaining momentum in modern society. It has great potential to decrease organizational costs and increase voter turnout. It eliminates the need to print ballot papers or open polling stations-voters can vote from wherever there is an Internet connection. Despite these benefits, online voting solutions are viewed with a great deal of caution because they introduce new threats. A single vulnerability can lead to large-scale manipulations of votes. Electronic voting systems must be legitimate, accurate, safe, and convenient when used for elections. Nonetheless, adoption may be limited by potential problems associated with electronic voting systems. Blockchain technology came into the ground to overcome these issues and offers decentralized nodes for electronic voting and is used to produce electronic voting systems mainly because of their end-to-end verification advantages. This technology is a beautiful replacement for traditional electronic voting solutions with distributed, non-repudiation, and security protection characteristics. The following article gives an overview of electronic voting systems based on blockchain technology. The main goal of this analysis was to examine the current status of blockchain-based voting research and online voting systems and any related difficulties to predict future developments. This study provides a conceptual description of the intended blockchain-based electronic voting application and an introduction to the fundamental structure and characteristics of the blockchain in connection to electronic voting. As a consequence of this study, it was discovered that blockchain systems may help solve some of the issues that now plague election systems. On the other hand, the most often mentioned issues in blockchain applications are privacy protection and transaction speed. For a sustainable blockchain-based electronic voting system, the security of remote participation must be viable, and for scalability, transaction speed must be addressed. Due to these concerns, it was determined that the existing frameworks need to be improved to be utilized in voting systems.

Xiaoling Zhu, Chenglong Cao

E-learning has been carried out all over the world and then online examinations have become an important means to check learning effect during the outbreak of COVID-19. Participant authenticity, data integrity, and access control are the assurance to online examination. The existing online examination schemes cannot provide the protection of biometric features and fine-grained access control. Particularly, they did not discuss how to resolve some disputes among students, teachers, and a platform in a fair and reasonable way. We propose a novel biometric authentication and blockchain-based online examination scheme. The examination data are encrypted to store in a distributed system, which can be obtained only if the user satisfies decryption policy. And the pieces of evidence are recorded in a blockchain network which is jointly established by some credible institutions. Unlike other examination authentication systems, face templates in our scheme are protected using a fuzzy vault and a cryptographic method. Furthermore, educational administrative department can determine who the real initiator of malicious behavior is when a dispute arises using a dispute determination protocol. Analysis shows that no central authority is required in our scheme; the collusion of multiple users cannot obtain more data; even if the authorities compromise, biometric features of each user will not be leaked. Therefore, in terms of privacy-preserving biometric templates, fine-grained access, and dispute resolution, it is superior to the existing schemes.

Jingyu Zhang, Guoyao Zhou, Jin Wang, Lisha Huang

Blockchain system is the novel decentralized trustworthy network and it is widely used for the digital asset management. In the bitcoin-like blockchain systems, the transactions are finished via the cryptography scripts. The user's public key hash code and address information are recorded in a locking script, and posted on the blockchain for verification. By analyzing all transaction records of an address, we can obtain the transaction behaviors of the address, including transaction frequency, number of transactions, and typical address for long-term usage. Sometimes, user privacy will be impacted according to the above analysis. To solve the problem, this paper proposes an anonymous hidden transaction model of the blockchain systems through modifying the original blockchain transaction script. In the proposed multi-layer model, the blockchain transaction system is divided into three layers. For top to bottom, they are shell account (under the public address) layer, hidden account (under the private address) layer and the user layer respectively. The hidden accounts can map to different shell account to complete the transactions. We combine the zero-knowledge proof mechanism so that the finished transaction can be verified by any user. The theoretical analysis shows that our proposed method can effectively protect transaction user information and realize truly anonymous transactions.

Thi Hong Tran, Hoai Luan Pham, Tri Dung Phan, Yasuhiko Nakashima

Blockchain distributed ledger technology (DLT) has widespread applications in society 5.0 because it improves service efficiency and significantly reduces labor costs. However, employing blockchain DLT entails considerable energy consumption in the mining process. This paper proposes a blockchain accelerator (BCA) with ultralow power consumption and a high processing rate to address the problem. The BCA focuses on accelerating the double secure hash algorithm (SHA) 256 function required in the mining process at a system-on-chip (SoC) level. We propose three ideas, namely, multiple local memories (multimem), double-cell processing element (D-PE), and nonce autoupdate (NAU), to reduce the external data transfer time and improve the BCA hardware efficiency. We propose a cascaded multiple BCA chip model to enhance the system throughput by several-fold. Our experiments on an ASIC and FPGA prove that the proposed BCA successfully performs the mining process for multiple blockchain networks with much lower power consumption than that of the state-of-the-art CPUs and GPUs. The BCA is laid out with Renesas 65 nm technology with a chip area of$25~mm^{2}$and consumes$530~mW$at 100MHz. The power efficiency of the layout chip is improved by 2428 and 143 times compared with that of the fastest CPU Intel i9-10940X and GPU RTX 3090, respectively.

B. Sravani, Dr S Pradeep, A Damodar, K Kumar Swamy

Looking at the higher learning institutions, there is no question that the current methods for paying student fees are inefficient, inconvenient, and wasteful of time. In addition, the rise in the number of students studying in higher learning institutions has led to long frustrating queues and overcrowding in most financial institutions during payment of student fees. This paper sought to design and implement a secure block chain-based payment system for higher learning institutions in developing countries. Students are to use the proposed payment system to pay tuition fees and other student fees to their respective higher educational institution. In addition, students are to use the proposed payment to pay for goods and services provided by the institution and other merchants in the institution’s premises. In this study, object oriented software development methodology was used to implement the proposed payment system. The proposed system consists of a mobile e-wallet, RESTful API, and blockchain as the core component of the API.

Mohamed Allouche, Mihai Mitrea, Alexandre Moreaux, Sang‐Kyun Kim

Formally known as ISO/IEC 23093, Internet of Media Things (IoMT) is an emerging paradigm ensuring interoperability among media-centric applications and services designed and deployed for the interpretation, representation or analysis of multimedia content collected by media devices such as cameras or microphones. Under this framework, the present paper establishes the proof of concept for the automation of IoMT specified Smart Contract generation. The advanced modus operandi enables media devices and their content to be seamlessly protected against payment counterfeiting, malicious control, access, interception and/or redirection. To this aim, a comprehensive architectural and experimental framework is conceived, designed, and demonstrated. While the methodological approach is blockchain agnostic, the experimental results are obtained on a 3-node, EEA (Enterprise Ethereum Alliance)-compliant private blockchain.

Cassie Schultz

Even with all the advances we have seen in secure digital technology, the most secure way to currently cast a vote on election day consist of a hand-marked paper ballot. When extenuating circumstances arise, offering a voting environment that is accessible and safe for everyone, but also secure can be a difficult task under the current voting system. This paper discusses one proposed electronic voting system which uses blockchain technology. Based on a review of literature on blockchain technology and specific implementations of voting systems, a summary of relevant background information as well as implementation protocol are provided. Even though experts believe that societies are not currently ready to implement systems like the one described in this paper, the technology to create a secure and efficient system does exist, and could one day become available.

Ugonna Chikezie, Tutku Karacolak, Josue Campos do Prado

Security has been a major challenge in the smart grid since its adoption. This great concern let to the proposal of the application of blockchain technology to the smart grid. Blockchain is a growing list of records, called blocks, that are linked using cryptography and its transactions are validated by a consensus mechanism. The most known and trusted blockchain consensus mechanism is the proof-of-work (PoW) as it can process very little number of transactions per second. However, the proof-of-authority (PoA) consensus mechanism is scalable as it can process thousands of transactions per second without compromising security. This paper focuses on the applicability of blockchain PoA consensus mechanism and how it ensures that transactions are confirmed on time and the integrity of the transactions are upheld in the blockchain. The PoA consensus mechanism is appropriate especially with the adoption of peer-to-peer energy trading between prosumers and consumers. This study proposes a peer-to-peer energy trading in an open blockchain with the help of the Advanced Metering Infrastructure(AMI) that enables smart meters to function optimally for this purpose.

Srujana Vungarala

Blockchain is the nascent technology which has the capability of incorruptible future in making. The blockchain mechanism is regarded for its security. In recent years, many have adopted for Blockchain. This paper tries to analyze some of the game changing technologies using blockchain mechanism. The paper has been framed by using secondary research and the authors’ opinion is also voiced.Blockchain-based application are springing up, covering numerous fields including financial services, Internet of Things (IoT), and Energy distribution systems Smart Grids uses blockchain to control the flow of energy. Blockchain, the foundation of Bitcoin, has received extensive attentions recently. Blockchain serves as an immutable ledger which allows transactions take place in a decentralized manner. Blockchain-Based Smart Grids presents emerging applications of blockchain in electrical system. As, Rapid growth of renewable energy resources in power systems we require a system through which we can monitor the consumption and supply of the electricity. This is sustainable and eco-friendly alternative. This paper is tailored to analyze the blockchain applications in Bitcoin and Smart Grid.

Ujwal Patil, P. M. Chouragade

Nowadays, it is difficult to predict the information such as news and videos on the internet is real or not and people are increasingly sharing it on social media without thinking of fake. As soon as they verify the authenticity of a video, they start expressing their concerns and sharing the opinions of others. Therefore, such videos spread rapidly and help in sharing fake videos or unverified information. The need today is to focus on building a strong fake video detection system as soon as possible to avoid the consequences of such unverified information. This paper analyzes the recent research articles to detect the deep fake videos on social media.