This paper formalizes the architecture of Hamilton V5, a continuous physical field transformer engineered for industrial automation. Moving beyond the discrete token-based processing of legacy models, Hamilton V5 introduces Always-On Autonomy (AOA), a paradigm that perpetually consumes raw spatiotemporal media inputs and maps them concurrently across a 12-dimensional mechanical phase space. To ensure structural stability and mitigate the compounding numerical drift common in autonomous systems, V5 integrates a closed-loop vector feedback correction mechanism. Crucially, the architecture secures high-speed hardware execution by implementing a Deterministic Proof-of-Stake Gate, which dynamically aborts actions if the predicted trajectory deviates by more than a threshold.
Open access
2 source records
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security
Abstract The integration of connected vehicles into 5G networks introduces stringent requirements in terms of latency, reliability, security, and adaptability that are not fully addressed by existing 5G architectures. In particular, Vehicle-to-Network (V2N) services must operate under high mobility, dynamic traffic conditions, and multi-tenant environments, while remaining resilient to security threats and operational anomalies. In this paper, we propose a 5G-based architecture for connected vehicles that addresses these challenges by combining deterministic communication, secure resource coordination, and runtime monitoring mechanisms. To enhance communication predictability beyond best-effort transport, the architecture integrates Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) within the 5G transport network. Secure and transparent coordination across multiple stakeholders is supported through Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), mitigating risks associated with centralized control. The architecture further incorporates heterogeneous data collection to enable adaptive resource management, as well as Runtime Verification and an AI-based anomaly detection system to monitor system behavior and network traffic in real time. By jointly addressing determinism, security, and adaptability within a unified 5G architecture, this work contributes a comprehensive foundation for reliable and secure connected vehicle services.
Hari Sai Kaja, Mohamed Firas Aguir, Vincent Duronio, Samah Mansour · 6 authors
This paper presents a Python-based simulation framework for modeling a lightweight authentication architecture in the Internet of Health Things (IoHT). The simulator combines double-hashed biometrics, Physical Unclonable Function (PUF)-based device identification, a simulated zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) abstraction, and blockchain-backed verification through the Proof of Elapsed Work and Luck (PoEWAL) consensus mechanism. Rather than deploying full cryptographic implementations or a distributed blockchain network, the framework focuses on modeling protocol sequencing, component interaction, and timing behavior within a controlled environment. Communication between entities is emulated using the MQTT protocol via a Mosquitto broker to reproduce realistic enrollment and authentication exchanges. Designed for research and educational purposes, the simulator facilitates evaluation of architectural behavior and performance under configurable load conditions. Experimental results demonstrate correct protocol execution, stable simulated response times, and the structural feasibility of integrating PUFs, ZKPs, and blockchain mechanisms for decentralized IoHT authentication workflows..
With distributed financial microservices, the DualWrite problem frequently results in data discrepancy between payment gateways and in-house ledgers. Conventional reconciliation schemes are based on high-latency batch reconciliation or hard-coded rules, and cannot identify Soft Drifts, small corruptions in the data (e.g. 3% deviation) that resemble normal variance. The paper suggests a real-time reconciliation model that combines an Apache Kafka streaming high-throughput system and an Unsupervised Isolation Forest anomaly detector. The experimental outcomes have shown that although the application of static rules resulted in a Recall rate of only 52.1% (it does not detect soft drifts), the offered AI model attained 100% Recall in all types of drifts. Moreover, the system had a consistent latency of 3.76 ms which was found to be viable in high-frequency trading settings where low-latency and data integrity are of utmost importance.
A growing requirement for intelligent transportation systems (ITS) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication provides the foundation for a safe, highly-scalable, and decentralized tolling and real-time data exchange solution. Blockchain solutions typically incorporate the overhead burden of using consensus algorithms such as PBFT, which do not provide the scalability required in dynamic vehicular environments. This thesis proposes a decentralized V2I communication and data exchange mechanism, based on using a Proof of Stake (PoS) Blockchain. Smart contracts facilitate toll collection, transaction confirmation, and record keeping for V2I vehicle communication via an unbiased blockchain ledger that is immutable. Therefore, the proposed framework creates transparency, tamper-resistance, and data security for the exchange of V2I communication. This work achieves an improvement in communication infrastructurerelated latency and scalability, allowing for applications in many different real-time V2I cases by substituting the communicationintensive nature of POS for the consensus-based approach of existing blockchain systems.
Blockchain as a promising technology is gaining its popularity ever since proof-of-work based Bitcoin came to the world. Nevertheless, Bitcoin achieves consensus at an expensive cost of energy. Proof-of-stake is one of the solutions for such a problem. Participants of PoS protocols achieve dynamic-availability in permissionless settings. Parties can join and leave the protocol at their will without notifying others. However, such protocol relies heavily on a central clock, providing the function of synchrony by collecting the finish status of every honest participant. In our protocol, the global function maintains the round information for each participant no longer needed. We analyze and modify the round into real-time based round model. Message delivery delay is also taken into consideration of the round length. However, participant need the connection of a real-world time global clock which is crucial to calculate the current round. And round length also is adjusted due to the changing network situation at the start of every new epoch.
Matthieu Pigaglio, Onur Ascigil, Michał Król, Felix Lange · 9 authors
Layer-2 protocols such as rollups can help address Ethereum's throughput limits. An efficient data availability layer is key for layer-2 support in Ethereum, but broadcast methods do not scale. A promising approach is the selective distribution of layer-2 data and its verification by data availability sampling (DAS). Integrating DAS with Ethereum consensus is, however, a challenge, as data must be shared and sampled within 4 seconds of each consensus slot.
Matteo Bjornsson, Taylor Hardin, Taylor Heinecke, Marcin Furtak · 6 authors
Distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) rely on distributed consensus mechanisms to reach agreement over the order of transactions and to provide immutability and availability of transaction data. Distributed consensus suffers from performance limitations of network communication between participating nodes. BLOCKY ZipperChain guarantees immutability, agreement, and availability of transaction data, but without relying on distributed consensus. Instead, its construction process transfers trust from widely-used, third-party services onto ZipperChains's correctness guarantees. ZipperChain blocks are built by a pipeline of specialized services deployed on a small number of nodes connected by a fast data center network. As a result, ZipperChain transaction throughput approaches network line speeds and block finality is on the order of 500 ms. Finally, ZipperChain infrastructure creates blocks centrally and so does not need a native token to incentivize a community of verifiers.
Jin Qian, Jun Luo, Liquan Chen, Bangwei Yin · 6 authors
The authentication of identities within the smart grid system is crucial for ensuring its security and stable operation. With the emergence of smart grid technology, the significance of identity authentication in smart grid systems has become increasingly evident. Traditional authentication techniques, such as Direct Anonymous Attestation (DAA) based on RSA or ECC algorithm, face threats from quantum computing. On the other hand, lattice-based cryptography utilizes lattice structures and difficult problems to ensure the security and reliability of authentication against quantum computing threats, leading to the development of various Lattice-based Direct Anonymous Attestation (LDAA) protocols. In traditional LDAA schemes, the signature process involves using issued identity certificates to ensure trustworthiness. To maintain identity anonymity and trust, this process usually requires an additional commitment scheme and the use of large coefficient expressions for zero-knowledge proofs. This paper presents a single-domain LDAA scheme based on lattice cryptography. It significantly enhances authentication efficiency and performance by employing an innovative multiplication relations proof mechanism in lattices. Comparative experimental results validate the superiority of the proposed scheme.
Conner Fulford, Sai Medury, Amani Altarawneh, Anthony Skjellum
Distributed systems and blockchain consensus protocols rely on a clock synchronization algorithm to resolve any conflicts related to the state of data or resources. Faulty and adversarial peers make it challenging to achieve clock synchronization in a peer-to-peer distributed system. Clock-synchronization protocols such as the Network Time Protocol (NTP) and the Precision Time Protocol (PTP) are effective but only in a partially or fully trusted network. They fail to synchronize clocks in the presence of misbehaving peers who try to rewind or fast-forward time or introduce deadlocks purposely.This paper introduces BFT-Metronome, a Byzantine fault-tolerant clock synchronization algorithm for peer-to-peer distributed systems. The novel BFT-Metronome algorithm combines a sensor-fusion algorithm with a statistical outlier detection algorithm to enable participating peers to determine the most likely skew based on broadcast timestamps. The algorithm is designed to withstand up to $\frac{N}{3} - 1$ misbehaving participants in a network of N total participants, and the independently calculated offset is observed to be within 10 ms of precision vs. 40-100 ms in peer-to-peer distributed systems.The BFT-Metronome clock synchronization algorithm can also be applied to blockchain consensus protocols (such as Proof-of-Stake) that rely on weakly synchronized clocks. This is shown by integrating BFT-Metronome with the Lightweight Mining Algorithm to achieve consensus-round synchronization and timeouts. Then, generalization to other protocols is argued qualitatively. It can also be applied to large distributed systems to secure against insider threats during clock synchronization.
The increasing penetration of renewable sources introduces new challenges for power systems’ stability, especially for isolated systems characterized by low inertia and powered through a single diesel power plant, such as it happens in small islands. For this reason, research projects, such as the BLORIN project, have focused on the provision of energy services involving electric vehicles owners residential users to mitigate possible issues on the power system due to unpredictable generation from renewable sources. The residential users were part of a blockchain-based platform, which also the Distributors/Aggregators were accessing. This paper describes the integrated framework that was set up to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of some of the methodologies developed in the BLORIN project for fast frequency response in isolated systems characterized by low rotational inertia. The validation of the proposed methodologies for fast frequency response using Vehicle-to-Grid or Demand Response programs was indeed carried out by emulating the dynamic behavior of different power resources in a Power Hardware-in-the-Loop environment using the equipment installed at the LabZERO laboratory of Politecnico di Bari, Italy. The laboratory, hosting a physical microgrid as well as Power Hardware-in-the-Loop facilities, was integrated within the BLORIN blockchain platform. The tests were conducted by assuming renewable generation development scenarios (mainly photovoltaic) and simulating the system under the worst-case scenarios caused by reduced rotational inertia. The experiments allowed to fully simulate users’ interaction with the energy system and blockchain network reproducing realistic conditions of tracking and remuneration of users’ services. The results obtained show the effectiveness of the BLORIN platform for the provision, tracking and remuneration of grid services by electric vehicles and end users, and the benefits that are achieved in terms of reducing the number of diesel generating units that need to be powered on just to provide operational reserve due to the penetration of renewable sources, resulting in fuel savings and reduced emissions.
Emilio C. Piesciorovsky, Raymond Borges Hink, Aaron Werth, Gary Hahn · 7 authors
The electrical substation-grid testbed was created to integrate the GOOSE and/or DNP (Distributed Network Protocol) messages with time synchronized sources and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). The objective was to study the impact of faults and cyber-events at an electrical substation with inside (protective relays) and outside (power meters) substation devices. The electrical substation-grid testbed was based on the design of a 34.5/ 12.47 kV electrical substation (sectionalized bus configuration) with two power transformers, connected to radial power lines and load feeders. The electrical substation-grid testbed was installed at 252 lab space (Advanced Power System Protection), Grid Research Integration and Deployment Center (GRID-C), Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This testbed was created for Task 5, DarkNet project.The electrical substation-grid testbed was created to simulate fault and/or cyber events that could potentially result in damage to the electrical infrastructure. In addition, tests were run that are usually not allowed to be performed in an operational electrical power grid, because these test scenarios could trip breakers and/or generate fault situations that could potentially damage equipment. The number of tests performed in the electrical substation-grid testbed were executed in a better way than in a real electrical substation and/or power grid, because multiple tests could be run in a short period of time, and complex permits, and safety/ schedule restrictions like in a real electrical substation environment were not needed.The electrical substation-grid testbed was created using real measurement, communication, and protection devices that are used by electrical utilities, to have same conditions that we could observe in a real power grid or electrical substation. The electrical substation-grid testbed was based on using a real time simulator and expansion box with amplifiers that were wired to electrical substation-grid devices. This hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) was provided by protective relays, power meters, ethernet switches, remote terminal units, synchronized timing network clock, DLT devices, workstations, and servers.This report includes the design, installation, and assessment of the electrical substation-grid testbed that was similar to an operational electrical substation, integrating the power system protection, communication, and control systems. The results for the electrical substation-grid testbed were based on:• verifying the analog signals for protective relays and power meters, • observing the synchronized time source frame at devices, • authenticating the GOOSE (IEC 61850) and DNP messages from power meters and protective relays, and • verifying the trip conditions of protective relays at fault tests with the power system fault event detection, using DLT devices.For future work, the electrical substation-grid testbed with protective relays and power meters, using DLT and synchronized time source from DarkNet, will be used to study the impact of cyber-events at inside and outside substation devices. Advanced algorithms for detecting cyber-events produced by non-desired protective relay settings will be studied, to improve the detection and reliability of protection, control, and communication systems at power grids.
The Bitcoin network synchronization is crucial for its security against partitioning attacks. From 2014 to 2018, the Bitcoin network size has increased, while the percentage of synchronized nodes has decreased due to block propagation delay, which increases with the network size. However, in the last few months, the network synchronization has deteriorated despite a constant network size. The change in the synchronization pattern suggests that the network size is not the only factor in place, necessitating a root cause analysis of network synchronization. In this paper, we perform a root cause analysis to study four factors that affect network synchronization: the unreachable nodes, the addressing protocol, the information relaying protocol, and the network churn. Our study reveals that the unreachable nodes size is 24x the reachable network size. We also found that the network addressing protocol does not distinguish between reachable and unreachable nodes, leading to inefficiencies due to attempts to connect with unreachable nodes/addresses. We note that the outcome of this behavior is a low success rate of the outgoing connections, which reduces the average outdegree. Through measurements, we found malicious nodes that exploit this opportunity to flood the network with unreachable addresses. We also discovered that Bitcoin follows a round-robin relaying mechanism that adds a small delay in block propagation. Finally, we observe a high churn in the Bitcoin network where ≈8 % nodes leave the network every day. In the last few months the churn among synchronized nodes has doubled, which is likely the most dominant factor in decreasing network synchronization. Consolidating our insights, we propose improvements in Bitcoin Core to increase network synchronization.
Time synchronization among IoT devices is a fundamental requirement for efficient and reliable communication on a global scale. Common synchronization schemes such as NTP operate on a trust-based client-server model, which does not scale well in a decentralized network because single server failures can lead to a severe downtime before re-establishing synchronization. Public blockchains such as Ethereum provide a trustless network and tamper-proof time-stamped data that is freely available. In this paper, we leverage the availability of time information in the block headers, which are very small (several hundreds of bytes) compared to the full blocks and can be validated without participation in the mining process. Our approach uses two estimators that are fed with the timestamps from block headers as well as the elapsed time between consecutive block receptions to estimate the true time to an accuracy of one second. We evaluate our approach by extensive validation on blockchain data from different geographical locations across the globe and show that global synchronization can be established despite the non-deterministic behavior of blockchains such as mining difficulty, network latencies and forks.
In the previous chapter, we addressed user onboarding challenges, one of the two main issues for Ethereum mass adoption. The second of them, which we will tackle in this chapter, is scalability. The Ethereum network, as it is today, can handle about 15 transactions per second – this throughput must be shared among all Ethereum applications globally. This has led to single applications cluttering the entire network due to a spike in their usage to the point of rendering all dapps unusable for brief periods. In this chapter, we will introduce state channels and sidechains, two of the most widely used scalability solutions.
Kai Fan, Shangyang Wang, Yanhui Ren, Kan Yang · 7 authors
Internet of Things (IoT) has been developed rapidly to make our life easier. In many IoT applications (e.g., smart homes, healthcare, etc.), all the IoT devices should be synchronized in time. However, some malicious nodes located in the IoT network can influence the time synchronization, which may interrupt the IoT system and lead to serious accidents. Therefore, it is critical and challenging to guarantee the accuracy and consistency of time during the time synchronization among all the IoT devices. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based scheme to assure the security during time synchronization in IoT. Specifically, a publicly verifiable ledger is utilized to record and broadcast time, which can minimize many attacks from external environments. The use of multiple time sources can avoid the vulnerabilities caused by the centralized generation of accurate time. Moreover, the decentralized structure of this scheme has the advantage of adapting the changes of network topology. By employing an improved practical Byzantine fault tolerance consensus mechanism, time synchronization can be implemented efficiently. At last, the analysis results show that our proposed scheme can achieve the desired security with high efficiency.
Jul 1, 2018·2018 IEEE International Conference on Internet of Things (iThings) and IEEE Green Computing and Communications (GreenCom) and IEEE Cyber, Physical and Social Computing (CPSCom) and IEEE Smart Data (SmartData)
Kai Fan, Yanhui Ren, Zheng Yan, Shangyang Wang · 6 authors
The era of information has arrived. As an important part of new generation of information technology., Internet of Things (IoT)., which is developing rapidly., requires higher and higher time accuracy. However, the malicious nodes located in network can influence the time synchronization. The security issue of time transfer and consistency is critical and challenging. In this paper, we propose a secure scheme based on blockchain to solve the problem of time announcement in IoT. In this distributed network, a closed blockchian to record and broadcast time is utilized, which minimize attacks from external environments. Moreover, this scheme has the advantage of adapting the changes of network topology. By employing POS consensus mechanism, time synchronization can be implemented efficiently. At last, the analysis results show that this secure scheme can be achieved with high efficiency and less communication cost.
This paper proposes a novel adaptation of blockchain technology to information exchanges among vehicles traveling in a platoon. The aim is to protect platoon member privacy and security while providing a rapid sharing of telemetry data. We have identified key protocols for a distributed cryptographic authentication among vehicles in transit within a platoon. This work heralds consideration of cyber-attack types on platoons and our proposed remedies.