Contract Language Research Articles

IDENTIFICATION AND LOCALIZATION OF VULNERABILITIES IN SMART CONTRACTS USING ATTENTION VECTORS ANALYSIS IN A BERT-BASED MODEL

Context. With the development of blockchain technology and the increasing use of smart contracts, which are automatically executed in blockchain networks, the significance of securing these contracts has become extremely relevant. Traditional code auditing methods often prove ineffective in identifying complex vulnerabilities, which can lead to significant financial losses. For example, the reentrancy vulnerability that led to the DAO attack in 2016 resulted in the loss of 3.6 million ethers and the split of the Ethereum blockchain network. This underscores the necessity for early detection of vulnerabilities. Objective. The objective of this work is to develop and test an innovative approach for identifying and localizing vulnerabilities in smart contracts based on the analysis of attention vectors in a model using BERT architecture. Method. The methodology described includes data preparation and training a transformer-based model for analyzing smart contract code. The proposed attention vector analysis method allows for the precise identification of vulnerable code segments. The use of the CodeBERT model significantly improves the accuracy of vulnerability identification compared to traditional methods. Specifically, three types of vulnerabilities are considered: reentrancy, timestamp dependence, and tx.origin vulnerability. The data is preprocessed, which includes the standardization of variables and the simplification of functions. Results. The developed model demonstrated a high F-score of 95.51%, which significantly exceeds the results of contemporary approaches, such as the BGRU-ATT model with an F-score of 91.41%. The accuracy of the method in the task of localizing reentrancy vulnerabilities was 82%. Conclusions. The experiments conducted confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed solution. Prospects for further research include the integration of more advanced deep learning models, such as GPT-4 or T5, to improve the accuracy and reliability of vulnerability detection, as well as expanding the dataset to cover other smart contract languages, such as Vyper or LLL, to enhance the applicability and efficiency of the model across various blockchain platforms. Thus, the developed CodeBERT-based model demonstrates high results in detecting and localizing vulnerabilities in smart contracts, which opens new opportunities for research in the field of blockchain platform security.

Legal Aspects of Intellectual Property Protection in Web Development: Analysis of Contractual Obligations and Parties' Liability

This study examines the intricate legal landscape surrounding intellectual property (IP) protection in web development, focusing on contractual obligations and liability issues among involved parties. The research explores the various forms of IP relevant to web development, including copyrights, trademarks, and patents, while analyzing common contractual provisions used to safeguard IP rights, such as ownership clauses, confidentiality agreements, and licensing terms. Additionally, the study investigates the allocation of liability between developers, clients, and third-party service providers in cases of IP infringement. Through an examination of case studies and legal precedents, this research aims to provide insights into best practices for IP protection in web development projects and highlight potential legal pitfalls. The findings emphasize the importance of clear contractual language, due diligence in IP clearance, and proactive risk management strategies to mitigate liability concerns in the rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Akibat Hukum Kontrak Elektronik yang dibuat dalam Bahasa Asing

Decisions to cancel foreign-language contracts in Indonesia are often linked to non-compliance with the valid terms of the contract regulated in Article 1320 KUH Perdata. The use of language in electronic contracts has become an important issue because the valid conditions of an electronic contract in Article 47 PP No. 71 Year 2019 refer to the valid contractual conditions in Article 1320 KUH Perdata. Furthermore, the absence of legal regulation over non-compliance with the obligation to use the Indonesian language in electronic contracts in Indonesia can create legal uncertainty. This research aims to determine the legal consequences regarding the validity of electronic contracts made in a foreign language in Indonesia. The research method uses normative law research with a five-month activity plan and focuses on non-Indonesian-speaking electronic contract law-related research. This research uses primary, secondary, and non-legal material and is carried out in the library. The result of this study is that although there are no special provisions on the legal consequences of foreign-language contracts, the legal effect is cancellation, cancellation by law, or even remaining in force as long as there is no bad faith or misconduct from the parties.

Smart contract languages: A comparative analysis

Smart contracts have played a pivotal role in the evolution of blockchains and Decentralized Applications (DApps). As DApps continue to gain widespread adoption, multiple smart contract languages have been and are being made available to developers, each with its distinctive features, strengths, and weaknesses. In this paper, we examine the smart contract languages used in major blockchain platforms, with the goal of providing a comprehensive assessment of their main properties. Our analysis targets the programming languages rather than the underlying architecture: as a result, while we do consider the interplay between language design and blockchain model, our main focus remains on language-specific features such as usability, programming style, safety and security. To conduct our assessment, we propose an original benchmark which encompasses a wide, yet manageable, spectrum of key use cases that cut across all the smart contract languages under examination.

A formal specification language and automatic modeling method of asset securitization contract

Asset securitization is an important financial derivative involving complicated asset transfer operations. Therefore, digitizing traditional asset securitization contracts will improve efficiency and facilitate reliability verification. Furthermore, accurate and verifiable requirement description is essential for collaborative development between financial professionals and software engineers. A domain specific language for writing asset securitization contract has been proposed. This solves the problem of difficulty for financial professionals to directly write smart contract by simplifying writing rules. However, due to existing design of the language focused on some simple scenarios, it is insufficient and informal to describe various detailed scenarios. What is more, there are still many reliability issues, such as verifying the correctness of the logical properties of the contract and ensuring the consistency between the contract text and the contract code, within the language in the generation and execution of smart contracts. To overcome the challenges stated above, we extend, simplify and innovate the syntax subset of the domain specific language and name it AS-SC (Asset Securitization – Smart Contract), which can be used by financial professionals to accurately describe requirements. Besides, because formal methods are math-based techniques that describe system properties and can generate programs in a more formal and reliable manner, we propose a semantic consistent code conversion method, named AS2EB, for converting from AS-SC to Event-B, a common and useful formal language. AS2EB method can be used by software engineers to verify requirements. The combination of AS-SC and AS2EB ensures consistency and reliability of the requirements, and reduces the cost of repeated communications and later testing. Taking the credit asset securitization contract as case study, the feasibility and rationality of AS-SC and AS2EB are validated. In addition, by carrying out experiments on three randomly selected real cases in different classic scenarios, we show high-efficiency and reliability of AS2EB method.

Contracts rethought and redesigned: A new era with AI

This article discusses the potential of generative artificial intelligence (AI) to revolutionize contract thinking and design. Experience and research tell us that most contracts focus on the wrong things—failure rather than success—and are presented in a way that is inaccessible to many people. Using the principles of proactive contracting and contract design, AI-powered writing assistants such as ChatGPT can help change the contracting paradigm by facilitating the transition from drafting to design and from reaction to proactive action. They can help transform the content, language, structure, and presentation of contracts, simplifying the tedious parts and increasing stakeholder empowerment and choice. This exploratory article presents examples of using AI tools to generate ideas and clauses for commercial contracts and to support contract redesign. This facilitates the creation of easy-to-read explanations, headings, and layered layouts that make contracts more effective, transparent, and sustainable, leading to better business and societal outcomes.

Regulations on the Use of Indonesian in Making Contracts According to Indonesian Positive Law

Introduction: Contracts form the backbone of business dealings, establishing the foundations and binding all collaborative endeavors between parties involved. In the Indonesian context, the use of the national language in contractual agreements has been explicitly governed by laws and regulations, specifically Law Number 24 of 2009 concerning the National Flag, Language, Emblem, and Anthem.Purposes of the Research: This study aims to scrutinize and analyze the regulatory framework surrounding the use of the Indonesian language in contract drafting, as mandated by the positive laws of Indonesia. Additionally, it seeks to elucidate the legal ramifications that may arise from non-compliance with these provisions. Furthermore, the research endeavors to provide legal clarity and offer recommendations pertaining to this issue.Methods of the Research: This research adopts a normative legal approach, employing both statutory and conceptual frameworks. The legal materials utilized encompass primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. The collection of legal materials is facilitated through library research, while the analysis of these materials is conducted qualitatively, employing content analysis and legal interpretation techniques.Results of the Research: The findings of this research present a comprehensive analysis of the regulations governing the use of the Indonesian language in contract drafting, shedding light on the legal implications of non-compliance with these provisions. Furthermore, the research offers recommendations and suggestions tailored for government agencies, business entities, and legal practitioners, guiding them in implementing the use of the Indonesian language in contracts in accordance with the applicable legal framework.

ATTITUDES OF GREEK FRENCH LANGUAGE TEACHERS ON THE DISTANCE TEACHING OF FRENCH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

The period of the pandemic and the imposed distance teaching in all educational institutions for almost two years changed the way of approaching the subjects on many levels. Teachers were called upon in difficult circumstances and under pressure to adapt their teaching materials, to prioritize their teaching techniques differently, to make use of the available modern and asynchronous communication platforms, restructuring their teaching accordingly. In this article we will present the results of a qualitative research conducted between March-May 2023 in the region of Thessaloniki, aiming to investigate the views of French teachers of public secondary and primary education on the distance teaching of French as a foreign language. The survey involved 20 permanent and contractual French language teachers who were teaching in secondary and primary education during the period of the health crisis. A semi-structured interview was used as a research instrument in order to have a question guide leading to specific answers. Specifically, the following axes, which are the research questions of the study, were posed: a) how did they organize the foreign language lesson during distance education and which teaching techniques were chosen; b) which tools of the WebEx educational platform were used; c) to what extent did they use the educational platforms e-class & E-me education; d) how did they evaluate the degree of development of students' linguistic communicative and pragmatic skills? e) what do they consider to be the main obstacles in distance teaching of foreign language? The teachers in the study have responded to the new challenging data, adapted their teaching practice and raised questions and concerns about distance teaching of French as a foreign language.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu/0118/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Inventing the natural contract

ABSTRACT The aim of this essay is to discuss one particular aspect concerning the methodological and linguistic dimensions of Michel Serres’ notion of the ‘natural contract’. The essay focuses on the way in which his call for a radical shift in the relation of nature and the human leads him to reject the critical tradition in philosophy most often identified with Kant and to turn instead to invention as a form of philosophical language that is both legitimate and necessary. By examining the reasons and implications for this shift towards the synthetic, non-chronological and polyvocal, I argue that Serres’s use of invention raises questions of how the language of the natural contract must incorporate a ‘natural’ or nonhuman element into a contractual relation. My essay seeks to shed further light on this, the very possibility of communication. The essay concludes with a discussion of the question as to whether Serres’s notion marks a new and problematic version of a grand narrative that is susceptible to the diagnosis of the postmodern condition made by Lyotard as an incredulity towards metanarratives.

The contracts word list: Integral vocabulary for reading and writing English contracts

Both Business English as a Lingua Franca (BELF) and Legal English as a Lingua Franca (LELF) users engage with legal contracts regularly. However, contractual language is notoriously complex, due in part to the vocabulary it contains. To help mitigate the challenges related to learning the vocabulary of contracts, this paper introduces a word list of American English contracts called the Contracts Word List (CWL). We describe the compilation of the Corpus of English Business Contracts (CEBC) that represents six major contract types in 48 million words. The extraction of prevalent and specialized words from the CEBC is described, following validation procedures in terms of the word list's reliability and stability. The final word lists contains 684 lemmas along with definitions, parts of speech, illustrative concordance lines, and adjusted frequencies from the full corpus and each major contract sub-type. We provide recommendations to ELF professionals and teachers on using the CWL.

SGXonerate:Finding (and Partially Fixing) Privacy Flaws in TEE-based Smart Contract Platforms Without Breaking the TEE

TEE-based smart contracts are an emerging blockchain architecture, offering fully programmable privacy with better performance than alternatives like secure multiparty computation. They can also support compatibility with existing smart contract languages, such that existing (plaintext) applications can be readily ported, picking up privacy enhancements automatically. While previous analysis of TEE-based smart contracts have focused on failures of TEE itself, we asked whether other aspects might be understudied. We focused on state consistency, a concern area highlighted by Li et al., as well as new concerns including access pattern leakage and software upgrade mechanisms. We carried out a code review of a cohort of four TEE-based smart contract platforms. These include Secret Network, the first to market with in-use applications, as well as Oasis, Phala, and Obscuro, which have at least released public test networks. The first and most broadly applicable result is that access pattern leakage occurs when handling persistent contract storage. On Secret Network, its fine-grained access pattern is catastrophic for the transaction privacy of SNIP-20 tokens. If ERC-20 tokens were naively ported to Oasis they would be similarly vulnerable; the others in the cohort leak coarse-grained information at approximately the page level (4 kilobytes). Improving and characterizing this will require adopting techniques from ORAMs or encrypted databases. Second, the importance of state consistency has been underappreciated, in part because exploiting such vulnerabilities is thought to be impractical. We show they are fully practical by building a proof-of-concept tool that breaks all advertised privacy properties of SNIP-20 tokens, able to query the balance of individual accounts and the token amount of each transfer. We additionally demonstrate MEV attacks against the Sienna Swap application. As a final consequence of lacking state consistency, the developers have inadvertently introduced a decryption backdoor through their software upgrade process. We have helped the Secret developers mitigate this through a coordinated vulnerability disclosure, after which their state consistency should be roughly on par with the rest.

Securing Blockchain Enterprises: Legal Due Diligence Amidst Rising Cyber Threats

This study aims to understand the vulnerabilities faced by enterprises operating on token-based blockchain businesses and the role of legal, due diligence procedures in mitigating such risks. It employed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses method and sourced data from DeFillama, a platform tracking decentralized finance developments, to categorize hacking incidents into five major groups: Ecosystem, Infrastructure, Protocol Logic, Rugpull, and Smart Contract Language. The findings highlight that Infrastructure attacks, mainly through Private Key Compromise, are the most damaging. They cause losses of over 800 million dollars between 2020 and 2023. It necessitates comprehensive and adaptable legal, due diligence strategies focusing on jurisdictional legal frameworks, platform usage terms, regulatory compliance, and potential legal issues. The study underscores the importance of further research to evaluate and enhance the effectiveness of these measures in addressing the unique challenges of blockchain technology, which are crucial for enhancing the resilience and sustainability of blockchain enterprises, thereby promoting global trust in this emerging field.

Legitimacy of Smart Contracts Written in Encrypted Code on Blockchain Technology Under Current Contract Law: A Comparative Study

Abstract: Using smart contracts as a new technology for online contracting has become the best option today when working in non-trustworthy environments to execute automated irreversible agreements. However, such contracts have issues relating to the language used for expressing the obligations of the involved parties. Additionally, smart contracts have no legal recognition of blockchain as a means of record-keeping for smart contract transactions. Parties engaged in smart contracts face difficulties in terms of incompatibilities with current legal frameworks. The objective of this article is to evaluate the legality of smart contract language and the validity of blockchain as an electronic medium from the perspectives of current laws. This article adopts a qualitative doctrinal legal research approach. The findings indicate that there is a need to enact laws that recognise the language used for smart contracts and the transactions recorded on the blockchain.

Get It in Writing: How to Make Medications for Opioid Use Disorder Available During Incarceration.

In a case example from the Kentucky HEALing Communities Study, extensive resources were deployed to address structural barriers and facilitate the provision of medication for opioid use disorder (OUD) in an urban county jail. However, implementation was unsuccessful, and this case example emphasizes the importance of including evidence-based medication for OUD (MOUD) treatment in the scope of work of jails' contracted medical providers. The privatization of correctional health care services allows local governments with opioid abatement funds to incorporate requirements into medical provider contracts to screen all people entering jails for OUD and to offer MOUD at intake, throughout incarceration, and upon release to everyone for whom it is clinically indicated. We provide sample contractual language that can be added to requests for medical provider proposals to help drive the private correctional health care market toward integrating MOUD treatment into their standard of care. This approach also could expedite efforts to scale up broad MOUD access across U.S. jails through sharing of workflows and best practices among the small group of national correctional health care companies contracted with jails in states with broad mandates, such as Massachusetts. Clinical Trial Registration: NCT04111939.

Clear, precise language in coaching contracts plays key role in protecting institutions

The recent high‐profile cases at Northwestern University and Michigan State University, in which the institutions fired the head coaches of their respective football teams, have elevated the language of employment contracts into the national spotlight. Because one of the coaches has already filed a lawsuit challenging his termination, the case serves as a reminder of the importance of structuring employment contracts so that they convey as much certainty as possible. Indeed, when athletics administrators are equipped with clear contractual language, reasoned and appropriate decisions can be made in light of the varied circumstances that may compel action.

Translation certification for smart contracts

Compiler correctness is an old problem, but with the emergence of smart contracts on blockchains that problem presents itself in a new light. Smart contracts are self-contained pieces of software that control (valuable) assets in an adversarial environment; once committed to the blockchain, these smart contracts cannot be modified. Smart contracts are typically developed in a high-level contract language and compiled to low-level virtual machine code before being committed to the blockchain. For a smart contract user to trust a given piece of low-level code on the blockchain, they must convince themselves that (a) they are in possession of the matching source code and (b) that the compiler has correctly translated the source code to the given low-level code.Classic approaches to compiler correctness tackle the second point. We argue that translation certification also squarely addresses the first. We describe the proof architecture of a translation certification framework and demonstrate how we can model the compilation pipeline as a sequence of translation relations. We give a detailed account of such relations for most passes of the Plutus Tx compiler, which we formalised in Coq. This approach facilitates a modular verification methodology and is robust in the face of an evolving compiler implementation.

BlockGov: Blockchain-Based Data Governance in the Internet of Things using Smart Contracts

The rapid growth and integration of the Internet of Things (IoT) emphasizes the crucial need for effective data governance. This research unveils a novel framework, capitalizing on blockchain and smart contracts, aimed at decentralizing data governance in the IoT sphere. Our approach allows stakeholders to formulate and enforce data governance collaboratively, ensuring a balance between transparency, adaptability, and flexibility. Using the Ethereum platform and Solidity as our smart contract language, we constructed a demonstrative proof-of-concept. Our comparative evaluations highlighted our system's superiority, outpacing previous works with a scalability score of 95%, flexibility at 90%, and an unmatched transparency score of 100%. This framework presents a transformative paradigm for organizations and individuals working with IoT data, offering an efficient, transparent, and robust data governance mechanism.

Issues in Exclusion Clauses in the Mobile Communications Industry: Statutory Control and Exclusion Clauses as Terms of Contract

The use of exclusion clauses in the mobile communications industry has become a prominent feature of contractual agreements between service providers and consumers. These contractual provisions, designed to limit the liability of service providers, have raised significant concerns regarding consumer protection. This article explores the salient issues surrounding the use of exclusion clauses in the mobile communications industry, with a specific focus on statutory control and exclusion clause as terms of contract. It examines the legal and practical implications of these clauses and their impact on consumer rights and remedies. The article also considers the challenges posed by complex contractual language in exclusion clauses. The paper is a contribution to ongoing discourses on consumer protection within the dynamic mobile communications landscape.

Smart Contracts Security Application and Challenges: A Review

There has been a rise in the demand for blockchain-based smart contract development platforms and language implementations. On the other hand, smart contracts and blockchain applications are generated using non-standard software life cycles, which means that, for example, distributed applications are rarely updated, or bugs are fully addressed by releasing a newer version, leading to security flaws and challenges for users to adopt the technology. Smart contracts have gained significant attention due to their potential to automate and secure various transactions in diverse domains. However, the increasing adoption of smart contracts has also raised concerns about security vulnerabilities and potential risks. In this paper, an overview of smart contracts was discussed in detail. It further distinguished and compared smart contracts security with conventional security regarding security, privacy, communication channel, etc. Different platforms for smart contracts, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Counterparty, Stellar, Monax, and Lisk, are also discussed in this paper. Some proposed techniques are used in different areas for handling security threats in smart contracts. In addition, a taxonomy of the smart contracts security application was proposed, which attempts to solve some of the flaws and inadequacies in smart contracts. The study also provides a comprehensive smart contracts security scenario with different techniques. Lastly, the possible attacks posed by threats and vulnerabilities of the smart contracts are provided. The security threats and vulnerabilities addressed in this study are unique to smart contracts.

Intellectual property exhaustion, breeder frustration, and hindered innovation: Reviewing U.S. organic corn seed development

Private-sector dominance of plant breeding consti­tutes the present norm of organic seed genetics research, which has generated concerns in the organic farming community in this era of robust intellectual property protections. Intellectual prop­erty restrictions primarily in the form of certifi­cates, patents, and contractual arrangements are blamed for stifling the innovation of organic seed varieties. To better understand the challenges small-scale and university-based breeders and researchers face in organic corn seed genetic devel­opment, this article provides an overview of intel­lectual property structures surrounding seed inno­vation and sharing. After describing the legal landscape in which organic corn seed research and development occurs, the article details research efforts exploring the veracity of claims that con­tractual arrangements (in the form of seed-sharing agreements between breeders and universities) sti­fle the innovation of organic varieties. In doing so, the article describes the search methodology uti­lized and highlights a critical barrier to research: the closely guarded nature of private contracts that parties are reluctant to reveal. While we were able to identify several data points that highlighted the importance of seed-sharing agreements as a part of the intellectual property regime controlling organ­ics research and breeding, we were unable to obtain contracts or identify disputes over contractual lan­guage to further analyze. Such contractual language only becomes available upon consent and release by individual parties to the contract or by litigation that exposes the contractual language, both of which we attempted to explore and utilize. The article concludes with a discussion of why contrac­tual arrangements in the context of organic corn seed development are an informative piece of the intellectual property puzzle worth exploring, as well as future points of research necessary to yield data substantiating the concerns of stakeholders in the organic seed industry.