The blockchain ecosystem has undergone three distinct periods of exponential growth — the ICO boom of 2017, the Defi summer of 2020, and most recently the NFT wave of 2021.However, it was not yet seen a “web3-native” approach towards NFTs from any major brand. By that, we mean that no brand has upended its Web 2.0 architecture and replaced it entirely with a web3 stack. Instead, brands have taken a more measured approach, exploring NFT drops, integrations, and community growth developed separately from their core offerings. This phase can be described as Web 2.5. In this article, the author attempts to define what Web 2.5 is concerning informatology, along with identifying the potential future challenges of information management in this area and the new iteration of digital development, namely Web 3.0 or web3.
Technology is playing a very important role in transforming the industry. Currently, the advancement has been to Web3 technology, where we are using mutual interaction online in order to communicate with each other, or to organize the meetings or any social gathering with the help of internet. In the evolution of technology from radio to internet, metaverse is the current and upcoming technology supporting web3. Metaverse is expanding exponentially, the implementation of new technology is necessary for the progression to deliver the best experience using AR (augmented reality), VR (virtual reality), XR (extended reality). This chapter discusses the incredible potentials in which one can achieve outstanding results for implementing Metaverse technology, or to establish connection and connect with people in more live manner (in virtual spaces) and to achieve real-time experience.
eCommerce merchants anticipate adoption of cryptocurrencies in a vast scale in the coming years. While the concepts of Web3 are being adopted, business leaders and decision makers need to understand key the elements of Web3 and technological constructs behind the evolution of Web3. This study focuses on defining these constructs of Web3 and explain technological differences as compared to Web 2.0. Using extensive academic, industry, and online information, the study defines major characteristics of Web3, show cases early adopters, use cases, and opportunities in the area. Web3 is still evolving and there are many challenges which needs to be addressed. eCommerce businesses who are going to sustainably change the business models or disrupt with a new Web3 business is likely to succeed in the coming years. The findings of this study are also validated with an expert interview.
The computation need of neural networks has out-paced the capabilities of many individual users whose computers, mobile devices, and other devices are relatively limited in computation power. To solve this problem, currently users need to offload the model training task to the cloud that has many computing resources. On the other hand, many devices on the edge have idling CPU cycles not used. Inspired by the successes of crowdsourcing and decentralized computing platforms such as blockchain and Web3, we propose to outsource an individual's neural network training task to edge devices, such that individuals can train their own neural network models without relying on the centralized cloud. Specifically, we design a divide-and-conquer learning framework in the edge computing environment. A user can divide the training computation of its neural network into neuron-sized computation tasks and distribute them to devices in the edge based on their available resources. The results will be returned to the user and aggregated in an iterative process to obtain the final neural network model. To protect the privacy of the user's data and model, shuffling is done to both the data and the neural network model before the computation task is distributed to edge nodes. Security against misbehaving edge nodes can also be provisioned by redundancy in task assignment.
During the global pandemic, information workers were abruptly forced to engage in virtual work. This paper reports from an experiment seeking to formalize the formalization of small team coordination at London Blockchain Lab through the use of blockchain supported tokenization. The Web3 organizing vision promotes the technology as an enabler of new ways for individuals and organizations to engage in the transparent exchange of scarce digital rights. However, little attention has been paid to the use of blockchain technologies to coordinate distributed collaborative activities. This paper seeks to understand the viability of this vision amongst a community of expected early adopters through design experimentation resulting in interview data. The study points towards the significant gap between the Web3 vision and the problems of realizing this in practice. This highlights fundamental barriers to using blockchain for team collaboration while also pointing toward its potential. Even the most willing and able find it hard to turn code into law through tokenizing collaboration.
The world of web3 is currently being plagued by security risks. In the first half of 2022 alone, web3 projects have lost more than $2 billion due to various security issues, out of which more than 76% of the projects have been audited. At present, the main attack surfaces on the web3 chain, including oracle manipulation, logical loopholes across smart contracts and MEV front-running transactions, cannot be defended through the current mainstream security methods, such as contract auditing, and can only be passively defended after receiving the alerts of malicious attacks. Hence, there is a huge demand for more proactive defense products in the market. However, most of the existing security products and security defense solutions are limited in defense capabilities, as they rely on external mechanisms and thus cannot effectively identify and counter hacker attacks during the contract execution. This paper proposes a new security system for smart contracts on the blockchain and demonstrates how it can actively defend against malicious attacks and provide effective protection for assets on the blockchain through experimental verification and comparison. It compares the existing on-chain security verification solutions as well as the engineering development model and performs logic-based argument verification during on-chain transaction execution and high-precision computation-intensive verification in the off-chain sandbox environment, thereby can prevent risky transactions, protect assets, and promote the security and development of the entire web3.
Muhammad Bilal Akram Dastagir, Omer Tariq, Dongsoo Han
The adaption of the NFT to the mainstream web3 marketplace has led to the rise of challenges like authenticity and verification. On the other hand, privacy-preserving is one of the important research topics in the data-driven metaverse due to its anonymity while maintaining transparency and security. As the traditional method does not preserve privacy, there is a dire need for a novel privacy-preserving method for NFT authentication while preserving anonymity, transparency, and security. This paper proposes a smart card-based approach for privacy preservation authentication of Non-Fungible Tokens using Non-Interactive Zero Knowledge Proof (NIZKP). The paper presents a Novel NIZKP response with the integration of challenge and proof with the encapsulation of a time-based one-time password (TOTP) solution to address the most critical problem of the proof of the source of the NFT and its rightful owner. The proposed solution is a lightweight mechanism for preventing unauthorized and hostile agents from the accessibility of the system while maintaining privacy and anonymity along with the verification and authenticity of the NFT. We have implemented our approach and compared the communication overhead and functional security features with related work and its precedence over them. The results show that the proposed approach has less communication overhead than the existing work and fulfills all the functional security and privacy-preserving features. It indicates that the proposed method can be an ideal solution for NFT authentication and transaction among users.
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Combining machine learning with IoT offers new and exciting possibilities for service innovation. A core challenge for such systems is model training and pipeline monitoring/management while not revealing sensitive data or introducing new attack points. Innovative solutions that reveal network structure and topology are often in conflict with security/privacy design principles. In this paper, we consider the system communication between sensors, edge, and the cloud that does not reveal the origin source or destination of the data. A core contribution is how to apply Machine Learning Operations (MLOps) to decentralized architectures that are not under the direct control of a service provider. The aim is to decouple the Machine Learning (ML) solution, data platform, and sensors while avoiding service level degradation. We utilize an unlinkable end-to-end encrypted asynchronous communication protocol called Whisper that is based on the Ethereum blockchain to achieve sender and receiver anonymity. The Whisper protocol provides a level of darkness that maintains anonymity in communication.
Abhinav Rakesh Chopra, Nirmal‐Kumar C. Nair, Rizki Dian Rahayani
VA3, is a novel web3.0 based individual peer-to-peer platform for electricity settlement between individual New Zealanders with the ability to trade at a sub-household level i.e., multiple accounts within a single home or a portable account per person. We were able create a web3 application based on the base Ethereum network to successfully automate at individual person’s power consumption and production which is fed into a smart contract using a software update to modify the home router to basically act as a home energy management system and then settlements are automatically managed by the smart contracts.
Advertisers and media owners are becoming more dependent on advertising, when the traditional way is losing its effect, they are eagerly looking for alternative ways to reach consumers, and keeping their brand trust, promise, and image at the top, and to generate more profit. Although there are many ways companies and brands alike can seek to make money off of social media, the traditional platforms are becoming obsolete. Gone are the days of having the logo, a photo, and an attractive slogan sufficient for attracting new customers. It can be said that advertising relies heavily on good aesthetics and application of the brand image, however applying that correctly to the target audience effectively can enhance and produce better outcomes, it's about how a business achieves success, scale worldwide, persuade consumers to buy into it, and reach its goals and profits. To create an effective and impactful advertisement in our modern world, companies must turn to technology; For technology is the enabler of a wider selection of tools that help businesses make better data-driven and informative decisions. This can be done by collecting data through third parties, internal or external surveys, and polls to enhance and improve their product delivery and message. With the use of data, algorithms can be then created to understand the consumer's behavior, therefore, enabling a business to better target its user-base based on their interests, search patterns, and online behavior. Moreover, the collected data from the mentioned tools can be then transformed into resourceful decisions to help the business better understand its user-base, therefore choosing from a plethora of options such as using influencers to advertise their product on live-video streams, or the traditional bloggers, and the many content creators available. Web3 is on the horizon, with the accelerative pace the metaverse took over the internet, brands turned to the newly found virtual space to promote themselves. This is a stepping stone into what is to come next as it taps into our day-to-day lives, economy, and social interactions [16]. The main component of web3 is the ability to build on it and interact with the web like never before and securely allowing users to maintain their privacy. Users are able to buy, maintain and sell virtual assets on the blockchain which unleashes a whole new era of using digital goods paved by the improvement of Virtual and Augmented realities known as VR and AR [1]. This has been proven by the famously known “Metaverse” world where companies such as Nintendo, Sony, and other gaming brands as well as celebrities such as Snoop Dogg rushed to create their own virtual theme parks and sold “plot of lands” in the said universe on the blockchain known as NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens). This has created a ripple effect that continued in other virtually made assets, mainly video games, and lastly “The Metaverse” that “Meta” formerly known as “Facebook” is building upon. This research will highlight the United Arab Emirates' advancements in the adoption of the metaverse into its different industries. The United Arab Emirates has taken great measures to integrate the metaverse and its related technology, including cryptocurrencies, into its economy, government sector and ultimately its society. Will Virtual advertisements be developed as a result of Web3.0 and Metaverse's integration of virtual and physical environments and virtual economies?
The blockchain social movement led to the emergence of Web3, a new, token-orchestrated iteration of the World Wide Web comprised of decentralized applications. With Web3, users can adopt a unique digital identity, known as a self-sovereign identity, that allows them to have access to their data and be central administrators of their transportable and interoperable identity. An inherent feature of digital identity in Web3 is that, in some cases, it can live forever. Web3 users, therefore, may accumulate digital assets, such as non-fungible tokens, in an attempt to leave a digital legacy behind. Terror-management theory, a social and evolutionary psychology theory, was theoretically applied to the act of digital asset accumulation as a potential mechanism of escaping death-related fears. In contrast, the current uses of non-fungible tokens (i.e., proof-of-ownership) and soulbound tokens (i.e., proof-of-character) were evaluated from a Logotherapy perspective to inform how Web3 could evolve toward a Decentralized Society.
This whitepaper discusses the potential of Metaverse to revolutionize the banking industry. It highlights the various ways in which banks can leverage Metaverse to improve their operations, including through the use of NFTs, blockchain technology, and smart contracts. The paper is aimed to explore the possibilities of Metaverse in the Banking Industry and understand its practical implementation radius. This paper navigates to various topics from the definition of Metaverse to business aspects in banking and financial services. Explores the various business opportunities in the customer communication domain, cross-border transactions, mortgages, digital assets, green loans, and achieving carbon net zero through Metaverse. The role of Innovation Leaders is discussed in detail assisting readers to understand and appreciate the value of innovation in today’s rapidly changing technology times. The paper argues that banks must take a proactive role in driving the adoption of Metaverse, support circular economy, and reduce waste by enabling web3.0 technology in the banking sector.
Buyers have a lot of options these days with the rapid advent of modern centralized marketplaces which harness the internet as their main infrastructure. While convenience is provided in abundance, some major concerns with these platforms are the lack of data privacy, its power to obstruct vendors/merchants and the expenses for arbitrary reasons related with posting and selling of the items. In this work, the framework for an application is put forward by us, which benefits off of the Ethereum blockchain to address these issues. After the abstract is read by the user through the medium of a web interface, their input is sent to the Ethereum network using the web3.js API. Resolution of these security issues can be attempted by leveraging the blockchain technology and executing a DApp(Decentralized application) which will act as a virtual commercial centre wherein consumers will actually be able to trade digital resources or NFT's utilizing crypto tokens.
Amit Kumar Goel, Aditi Rai, Anushree Narain, Ashish Richard · 5 authors
Voting is the essential element for each nation to express one’s choice. Nowadays, Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are used to poll which may be tampered resulting in incorrect election results. Therefore, an online voting system has been introduced in this research. An Electronic Voting (E-Voting) machine is a balloting machine wherein the election opinions are notated, saved, stored, and processed digitally, which makes the balloting control project complicated than the conventional paper based method. The Election Commission forms elections and enlist party candidates along with the parties for contesting the election. This paper works with the following ideas by having the two different sets of modules: election commission and the voters. An election’s REST API is arranged on Ethereum’s Blockchain, which is the front end. The votes are then stored on the blockchain architecture, to which the Election Commission grants the number of votes. However, there are some limitations due to the fact that the blockchain architecture cannot run on the main net as it must be hosted, and a separate web3 provider must be used for interacting with it due to the lack of public API availability.
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Internet Traffic Analysis and Secure E-voting
Advanced Steganography and Watermarking Techniques
Consensus - loosely defined as global agreement on the state of a decentralised network across its mutually untrusting participants - is an essential ingredient for decentralisation. At the same time, its scalability remains the Achilles' heel of distributed systems. A number of ongoing R&D efforts aim at scaling blockchain networks up to hundreds of thousands of transactions per second. Yet even such performance targets can be seen as modest when the goal is to bring traditional web workloads to the decentralised web (Web3), requiring the handling of billions of transactions per second, large volumes of data, complex workloads and applications, and hard latency requirements. The goal of this workshop is to foster scientific exchange across a wider community in consensus research and adjacent fields, by disseminating and providing a forum for discussion of upcoming impactful research with a practical twist.
Web3 is progressively decentralising Internet services with the introduction of the blockchain, from social networks to online trading. Filecoin is a Web3 storage marketplace implemented on top of the Interplanetary File System that aims at decentralising storage by rewarding users who pledge storage to the system. Clients form deals with storage miners, who store deals on the Filecoin blockchain for transparency and auditability. Storage miners can also obtain extra rewards when they mine a block. In this paper, we show that although Filecoin aims at complete decentralisation, the rewarding system acts as the opposite. We download a dataset composed of 47.5M messages and expose that most of the blocks are created by the same storage miners, who are also the ones that pledge more storage. An analysis of their identity shows that they belong to cloud companies, that have a lot of extra storage resources. The effect observed is due to the fact that storage miners are able to commit all extra storage to the system, even when there are no deals in them. Additionally, this effect is further intensified by recent updates to Filecoin, which let storage miners update committed storage to deal-containing storage effortlessly.
Web3 represents an evolution of the centralized and siloed topology of Web2 by focusing on more connected, decentralized, and open technology to democratize data and services between databases, tools, devices, people, teams and organizations to provide secure single sources of truth on decentralized trust lay-ers. However, sensitive data, such as intellectual property, classified information, personal data, or medical records, cannot be distributed to those without explicit access. A standard solution is to encrypt the data before uploading and then distribute the decryption key to select persons. This solution does not sufficiently protect against data leakage. In addition, legal, contractual, and GDPR requirements are not met in current Web3 systems. This study suggests critical requirements for any Web3 system that targets sensitive data, private and permissioned needs, and enterprise and governmental applications. A preliminary framework is then introduced for building compliant Web3 systems to the suggested requirements. The study proposes changes to the Inter Planetary File System (IPFS) protocol, with the main change being that each request checks against a ledger if the requestor has access to the data. Two novel Ethereum smart contracts, Enterprise Architecture and Smart Legal Contract, are presented to meet the suggested requirements.
Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) have the capability of being a disruptive Web3 technology. Their usage of cryptographically secure distributed ledgers shows promise of replacing existing technical and financial intermediaries. However, this promise has not been fully materialised yet: existing attempts typically rely on centralisation as the required decentralised components do not exist or are not mature enough. We present our Web3 Deployment Experiment around a robust decentralised economy to address these issues. Our economy is unique due to the removal of all centralised components and governance. It is resilient against legal and economic attacks as no individual or organisation can compromise its functioning. We dub this characteristic extreme decentralisation. Similar to BitTorrent and Bitcoin, our extreme decentralisation DAOs carefully avoid single points of failure and are effectively unstoppable. Within our experiment around a music economy, we bypass all intermediaries in finance, technology, and the music industry itself with a direct donation to musicians. We demonstrate the viability of collective decision-making within our decentralised economy and present a set of principles for Web3 DAOs. Our implementation shows that the DAO ecosystem is fully deployable on smartphones, allowing anyone to create a DAO without reliance on central authorities or components.
Securing and managing medical data in hospitals is one of the significant challenges still existing in healthcare. There can be different kinds of patients staying in hospitals with various diseases. All these medical data records need to be secured appropriately for future use and verification. In the hospital, there will be essential documents such as criminal cases and postmortem reports, although it is unclear if they are being handled properly or not. Even the hospital staff can alter these data. This paper proposes a blockchain-based secured medical data management system to manage access to each medical record in a network of hospitals. The proposed system has three main access management categories: one for securing general (fever or cold) medical report, category 2 for postmortem or crime reports security and category 3 for securing cancer /brain death /genetic disorder reports. Sensitive clinical data should not be visible to patients with cancer or genetic disorders as these patients have a higher rate of suicide attempts. Hence, the data is accessible only to doctors, family members, and researchers. The data related to the crime or postmortem reports have only limited access for those with legal permission to access and verify these types of reports. So through blockchain distributed ledger technology and smart contracts, we could store the data in a tamper-proof manner and manage the user access to these data.
Objectives: To propose a reliable Block-chain based Biometric Authentication Solution (BBAS) for the Aadhar biometric authentication system. Methods: We have used Sokoto Coventry Fingerprint Dataset (SOCOFing) data set for biometrics. The presented model was implemented using the Ethereum network Geth (v.1.9.25) and Solidity (v.0.6.0). Python 3.8 and Web3py were used at the client side. Findings: From the proposed solution, it is inferred that the BBAS avoids the single point of failure problem as the biometrics are distributed throughout the block-chain. Novelty: This research proposes a new hybrid scheme that uses a block-chain that stores the hash value of the biometric files and a trusted third party (Aadhar) to store the biometric files, thereby avoiding storing the same bio-metric files throughout the block-chain. Keywords: Biometric; Blockchain; Aadhar; Security; Authentication
Constant advancements in technology have a significant impact on our everyday lives and the ecosystem in which we live. The growing popularity of cryptocurrencies (e.g., Bitcoin and Ethereum), along with Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), which are founded on blockchain technology, has opened the way for these blockchain projects to be integrated into a wide range of other kinds of applications (apps). Today, cryptocurrencies are used as a popular method of payment online; however, their popularity on the dark Web is also increasing. For example, they can be used to buy and perform various illegal activities among criminals due to their anonymity. Web3 cryptocurrency wallets, used to store cryptocurrencies, have not been studied as thoroughly as many other apps from a digital forensic perspective on mobile devices, given the increasing number of these services and apps today for many platforms, including the leading mobile operating systems (i.e., iOS and Android). Therefore, the purpose of this research is to guide investigators to unlock the full potential of popular cryptocurrency Web3 wallets, Trust Wallet and Metamask, to understand what can be recovered, and to look at areas where there are knowledge gaps. We digitally analyzed and forensically examined two mobile wallets that do not require any personal identifiers to register and are widely used for Web3 cryptocurrencies on Android and iOS devices. We review the digital evidence we have collected and discuss the implications of the forensic tools we have used. Finally, we propose a proof of concept extension to the iOS Logs, Events, And Plists Parser (iLEAPP) tool to automatically recover artifacts.
This dissertation studies the wave of interest in “decentralization” over the last decade led by a loose group of technical subcultures and communities building new computing and networking technologies. While technical decentralization has a long history, this recent interest extends the concept with claims of its central role in radical social transformations. Its proponents often offer sophisticated assessments of the issues facing the web and internet today, yet frequently propose fundamentally different solutions than those envisioned by scholars and other activists. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the social worlds in which decentralization has emerged as well as the interplay between values and socio-technical imaginaries accompanying it within some decentralizing technologies. In three articles, this dissertation characterizes technical decentralization and the forces within current interest in it. It uses an autoethnographic approach and collective reflection to report on two projects using decentralized technologies to build alternatives to existing data stewardship and publishing infrastructures. This dissertation situates those projects within the “DWeb” community and growing “Web3” movement through interviews and analysis of public talks and writing from organizations advocating decentralization. This dissertation highlights how decentralization as a concept remains ambivalent. It traces how proponents draw on the concept’s historical dimensions to develop distinct values and articulate visions of the future. It examines what is being decentralized and how within the data stewardship project, reports on the decentralized publishing software modelling values and principles, and provides sensitizing concepts for technical decentralization drawn from its broader historical and political context. Decentralization remains elusive throughout. The dissertation ends looking back at these explorations and asking whether decentralization is a concept worth claiming in the fight for a better internet.
This paper provides an update on the Canadian Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) Commons, an in-development online hub for open social scholarship in Canada and beyond, and considers the next steps for the platform in an ever-evolving digital landscape. It outlines various recent outreach and engagement events intended to introduce the Canadian HSS Commons to the larger communities to which it belongs. Because the Canadian HSS Commons is committed to supporting the growth and evolving needs of these communities, this paper also considers how increasingly popular internet technologies such as Web3 and blockchain might play a part in the future of digital research infrastructure and the Canadian HSS Commons specifically. It concludes that while Web3 and blockchain currently raise important questions and concerns about governance, accountability, and commercialization, in the near future, these same technologies could also help engender new forms of functionality and participation on the Commons.