Immutable Data Research Articles

An anonymous authentication scheme with conditional privacy-preserving for Vehicular Ad hoc Networks based on zero-knowledge proof and Blockchain

Recently, Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs) have gained extensive attention in both academia and industry. VANETs play a seminal role in smart transportation by enhancing driving convenience and traffic efficiency through real-time information interaction. Despite this, ensuring secure authentication and privacy preservation remains two challenging issues in VANETs. The existence of security schemes that are vulnerable to privacy and security issues or have substantial computation and communication overheads shows the necessity for further research in this area. Therefore, in this article, we present an anonymous authentication scheme based on Zero-Knowledge Proof. To be more specific, we adopted Simulation Extractable Zero-Knowledge SNARKs (SE zk-SNARKs) to achieve anonymity and conditional privacy. Although zk-SNARK proofs are succinct and fast to verify, the time required for proof generation poses a major obstacle in using zk-SNARKs in a time-sensitive VANET environment. To overcome this drawback, we focus on key components of the proof statement, separating the repetitive calculations, and archiving in the Blockchain, which serves as an immutable data storage. By omitting repetitive calculations, our proposed scheme becomes lightweight enough to run efficiently on VANETs. Security analysis showed that the proposed protocol satisfied security and privacy requirements. Additionally, a computation cost analysis is provided to demonstrate the significant advantage of our proposed scheme. ProVerif is used to verify the strong secrecy of the protocol, and the results show that privacy can be guaranteed in the proposed scheme.

Healthcare Data Collection Using Internet of Things and Blockchain Based Decentralized Data Storage

With the increase in usage of Internet of Things devices (IoT), IoT is used in different sectors such as manufacturing, electric vehicles, home automation and healthcare. The IoT devices collected large volumes of data on different parameters at regular intervals. Storing a massive amount volume of IoT data securely is a complicated task. Presently, the majority of IoT devices use cloud storage to store the data, however, cloud servers require large storage and high computation. Due to third party cloud service provider (CSP) interaction, the management of IoT data security fully depends on the CSP. To manage these problems, a decentralized blockchain based secure storage is proposed in this work. In the proposed scheme, instead of CSP storage location, the patient health information is stored in the blockchain technique and the blockchain miners verify the transactions with the help of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC). The miner verification process dynamically avoids adversary access. Similarly, the certificateless access is used in the proposed system to avoid certificate based issues. The blocks in the blockchain is going to be stored patient details in a decentralized storage location to avoid unauthorized access and ensure the authenticity of data. The use of blockchain eliminates the need for third party public auditing process through immutable storage. This work illustrates secure communication and immutable data storage without the intervention of CSP. The communication overhead reduced by nearly 10 to 40% and authentication improved by 10 to 20% while confidentiality increased by 5% in comparison to existing techniques. Through this technique, data confidentiality, integrity and availability is ensured.

E-VOTING SYSTEM USING ETHEREUM BLOCKCHAIN

Ethereum introduced decentralized applications (DApps) to leverage blockchain's potential, distinct from the cryptocurrency buzz dominating discussions. Ethereum offers a robust platform for DApp development, utilizing the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). With increasing smart contract integration, Ethereum's ecosystem strengthens, as these self-executing contracts govern transactions while ensuring consensus among all participants. In democratic societies, the demand for a transparent and secure electronic voting platform is high. Ethereum, with its expansive network, is an ideal choice for such projects. Our implementation focuses on a decentralized, blockchain-based voting system. Multiple nodes collectively store voting data, ensuring redundancy. In case of node issues, users can access their data from operational nodes, enhancing system reliability. This contrasts with traditional centralized servers, prone to hacking or failures that compromise data accessibility and integrity. Blockchain's immutable data storage prevents tampering, as nodes independently verify each block using cryptographic hash codes. Unauthorized changes trigger immediate alerts, enhancing security and trust in the voting system.

Blockchain Adoption in the Wine Supply Chain: A Systematic Literature Review

Blockchain offers decentralized, trustworthy and immutable data storage based on distributed ledger technology. Blockchain technology is recognized as an innovation enabler in many areas, with the food supply chain being one of them. This paper provides a systematic literature review of the current state of adoption of blockchain technology in the agri-food sector, specifically with a focus on the wine supply chain. Blockchain has the potential to improve the traceability and authenticity of the data provenance of wine products, increase consumer trust, and reduce fraud and errors. With these goals in mind, this study identifies the main research questions pertinent to the value proposition and competitive advantage of blockchain technology in the wine value chain and key players involved in the authentication and value chain recording. The PRISMA methodology was adopted to identify, screen and select only the relevant studies that were included in the analysis. This study also addresses the limitations and challenges for adoption, such as high implementation cost and lack of competences, and the need for standardized protocols and regulations. Finally, this systematic literature review includes an analysis of reports of blockchain applications in the wine sector and outlines the recommendations for future research to further explore the potential of blockchain-based solutions that could benefit all stakeholders across the wine value chain.

A survey and conceptual of Internet of Things system for remote healthcare monitoring

Introduction: Healthcare monitoring is a part of medical treatment. This research aims to increase the interoperability of the healthcare monitoring process. So that user does not need to go to the hospital and check their condition with the doctor directly. Methods: This was a qualitative study. The sample was doctors, inpatients, and outpatients. We proposed a concept of Internet of Things platform architecture that could monitor and record patient health. The features we provided are monitoring, immutable data recording using NoSQL database and blockchain by implementing Change Data Capture, and data analytics. Result: In this research, we proposed the Matter protocol for data communication. Matter protocol opens the possibility of increasing Internet of Things interoperability. On the other hand, implementation of blockchain could increase the security in the data at rest step, we also increase traceability by implementing Change Data Capture in the NoSQL database and store all data to the blockchain. Conclusion: Our proposed conceptual system could be used for building healthcare monitoring using an Internet of Things system that needs high interoperability and low energy consumption. The outpatient activity could be monitored in their own house or anywhere, and the patient does not need to go to the hospital to check their health.

Block Chain based Contribute Sequence Tracking System for Secure Data Ascription Management

Block chain technique is developed from a distributed, dependable application development platform to an irreversible record of crypto currency transaction history. Block chain technology's emergence has sparked a number of possible changes in how corporate operations are managed across numerous industries. However, to the best of research experience, no prior effort has concentrated on integrating block chain to establish a secure and unchangeable data and evidence attribution maintenance architecture that autonomously checks the origination records. Therefore, the research work proficiently introduces the novel Block Chain based Contribute Sequence Tracking (BCCST) system with amalgamation of Trail based Smart Indenture (TSI) and Release Attribution Model (RAM). The study begins by outlining a practical application of the proposed TSI for the disintermediation of commercial activities utilising a notional, shared information ledger. This ledger not only makes monitoring data exchange easier, but it also encourages supply chain participants to cooperate together on a multilateral network. The novel RAM to create immutable data trails that make it easier to gather, maintain, and verify reliable data provenance.

A novel and failsafe blockchain framework for secure OTA updates in connected autonomous vehicles

Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) are becoming data centers on wheels, amassing petabytes of data. They require a combination of software and hardware systems to operate reliably and simply in real-time. However, due to the transient nature of Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I) networks and CAVs' dependency on a connected software system, we need a new paradigm for secure and immutable data exchange, which emulates smart contracts. For this reason, CAV manufacturers need to maintain the latest version of software to protect CAVs from system failure and cyber threats in real-time, which is difficult with traditional centralized management. The key challenges that we must overcome are the authentication and secure sharing of the Over-The-Air (OTA) software updates and the scalability of distribution at the level of CAVs.This paper proposes a secure and scalable software updates framework in a distributed manner for the CAVs, leveraging Blockchain (BC) with smart contract technology. The framework is able to overcome slow processing speed, which is one of the significant limitations of BC in terms of lower latency and less packet overhead with a high level of security against possible cyber-attacks. We use a salting-based hashing scheme over the traditional Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) Key. This process ensures multi-factor authenticated protection from malicious transactions while downloading and installing any new feature update in CAVs. Moreover, by using Hyperledger BC, our framework provides cost-free transactions while successfully upgrading and deploying OTA software patches in any system of CAVs. This paper extends our previous work [51] by analysing our proposed BC framework's immutability and load management capability. Our simulation results show that our proposed framework is robust, secure, and failsafe for CAV manufacturers and end-users.

Future of Blockchain Technology in Internet of Things: Opportunities and Challenges

In the recent years, Internet of Things (IoT) has gained a significant recognition that allows for the interconnectivity of devices, machines, and humans. IoT is rapidly expanding, with numerous devices connected to the internet and generating vast amounts of data. However, traditional centralized data storage and processing methods are not sufficient enough to fulfil the requirements of the IoT. The fusion of Blockchain Technology and the Internet of Things (IoT) has the potential to transform the device interaction and exchange of data with one another. Blockchain's decentralized architecture can provide secure, transparent, and immutable data transactions between devices without the need for the intermediaries. The purpose of this research article is to analyze the present state of the blockchain-IoT ecosystem, explore the potential applications and challenges, and also focus on the discussion about some future directions and scope.

HealthLock: Blockchain-Based Privacy Preservation Using Homomorphic Encryption in Internet of Things Healthcare Applications.

The swift advancement of the Internet of Things (IoT), coupled with the growing application of healthcare software in this area, has given rise to significant worries about the protection and confidentiality of critical health data. To address these challenges, blockchain technology has emerged as a promising solution, providing decentralized and immutable data storage and transparent transaction records. However, traditional blockchain systems still face limitations in terms of preserving data privacy. This paper proposes a novel approach to enhancing privacy preservation in IoT-based healthcare applications using homomorphic encryption techniques combined with blockchain technology. Homomorphic encryption facilitates the performance of calculations on encrypted data without requiring decryption, thus safeguarding the data's privacy throughout the computational process. The encrypted data can be processed and analyzed by authorized parties without revealing the actual contents, thereby protecting patient privacy. Furthermore, our approach incorporates smart contracts within the blockchain network to enforce access control and to define data-sharing policies. These smart contracts provide fine-grained permission settings, which ensure that only authorized entities can access and utilize the encrypted data. These settings protect the data from being viewed by unauthorized parties. In addition, our system generates an audit record of all data transactions, which improves both accountability and transparency. We have provided a comparative evaluation with the standard models, taking into account factors such as communication expense, transaction volume, and security. The findings of our experiments suggest that our strategy protects the confidentiality of the data while at the same time enabling effective data processing and analysis. In conclusion, the combination of homomorphic encryption and blockchain technology presents a solution that is both resilient and protective of users' privacy for healthcare applications integrated with IoT. This strategy offers a safe and open setting for the management and exchange of sensitive patient medical data, while simultaneously preserving the confidentiality of the patients involved.

Election Tally-Using Blockchain and User-Identification

Abstract: A lot of democratic choices are made among many different sets of people, and voting is the preferred way of doing so. The technique offers an equitable and effective way to make a choice based on the consensus, regardless of whether it is applied in formal or informal settings. Keeping track of voter choices is not difficult when fewer people are voting, but it becomes crucial and more difficult when there are thousands or even millions of voters. Modern voting processes face a record-keeping challenge, but advances in blockchain technology may offer a solution. This is because blockchain technology, by its very nature, shines in apps where numerous users are working with immutable data. This study examines the planning and Election Tally Application a voting system being developed that has its blockchain, operates on a centralized network of servers, and incorporates a biometric scanner to ensure vote accuracy and tell enrolled voters from inactive ones. This system enables data immutability while giving voter protection and ballot management. The system can scale to manage a large number of votes from numerous servers while keeping data integrity, speed, and security, according to experimental findings. To improve user security, user identification was integrated into developing and implementing the centralized and autonomous blockchain network for use as a voting platform

Thr3ebay: E-commerce Dapp using Blockchain

Abstract: Blockchain has the potential to shake the foundation of e-commerce by enabling exchange relations that are trustless and operate without dedicated intermediaries or even central authorities in the case of permissionless blockchains. Furthermore, the exchange of information and value between companies and consumers might change considerably by enabling unified access to immutable data along the entire supply chain. In this paper, we build a Dapp called Thr3ebay which offers buyers and sellers a secure and transparent platform where transactions are conducted directly between participants, without the need for intermediaries. The platform also provides a userfriendly interface for managing wallets and identities, making it easy for users to buy and sell products on the blockchain. We then examine the potential benefits of building a Web3 e-commerce platform, such as increased security, transparency, and trust, as well as the challenges in terms of scalability, user adoption, and interoperability. Key feature of the Thr3ebay Dapp is its integration with various web3 technologies, including IPFS for decentralized file storage, and the Third-web SDK for user authentication and wallet management. The P2P Decentralized app has also developed a custom front-end for the platform using React, making it easy for users to interact with the marketplace. The purpose of building a Web3 e-commerce app is to create a more secure, transparent, and democratic platform for buying and selling goods and services online, while also providing greater trust and confidence for buyers and sellers

A Framework To Make Voting System Transparent Using Blockhain Technology

Generally, governments release schemes or plans like roadways or industries to some area as different projects. During this process, different types of peoples will be there as supportive or opponent for the schemes. In this project, we presented a secure and transparent framework for government schemes using blockchain. Blockchain is used as a secure and immutable data structure to store the government records that are highly susceptible to tampering. Here, we aim to address these issues to build a transparent and secure edge computing infrastructure for the allocation of government schemes which not only eliminates the need for human supervision or intervention but also makes it easy for the government to keep track and update its policies as time progresses. To solve this issue, we propose the framework to use blockchain technology for creating a decentralized system to perform government scheme processes with ease, transparent, auditable, and immutable. The proposed model consists of a decentralized consortium architecture that combines both the security and privacy of a Permissioned Blockchain and the openness and transparency of a Permission-less Blockchain. The target of the model is to efficiently handle the government tender process securely. The system mainly consists of three types of entities: government officials, citizens and schemes.

Blockchain-based Trust, Transparent, Traceable Modeling on Learning Recognition System Kampus Merdeka

Kampus Merdeka is an evolution of education in Indonesia that accommodates various changes. The existence of a mechanism that includes various actors in it makes Kampus Merdeka have many new outcomes which must be recognized by all stakeholders who need it. Blockchain technology and smart contract offer the ability to build trust between all actors in the Kampus Merdeka activities with their transparent nature and reliable, immutable data storage capabilities. Every stage that occurs in it can be traced from upstream to downstream. This study aims to design an architectural model of a blockchain system for the learning recognition system Kampus Merdeka. It uses the analyticalstudy to identify the possible problems and the stakeholders involved and design the model solution proposed. As a result, it proposed the type of blockchain and the most suitable architecture for use in the learning recognition system Kampus Merdeka. In this study, the blockchain model is proposed as a mechanism for identifying and recognizing learning outcomes in the Kampus Merdeka environment more securely, challenging to modify, and traceable by all parties to ensure the authenticity of the learning outcomes. Furthermore, it can be recognized by all parties in it.

A Blockchain-Facilitated Secure Sensing Data Processing and Logging System

In this paper, we present the design, implementation, and evaluation of a secure sensing data processing and logging system. The system is inspired and enabled by blockchain. In this system, a public blockchain is used as immutable data store to store the most critical data needed to secure the system. Furthermore, several innovative blockchain-inspired mechanisms have been incorporated into the system to provide additional security for the system’s operations. The first priority in securing sensing data processing and logging is admission control, <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">i.e</i> ., only legitimate sensing data are accepted for processing and logging. This is achieved via a sensor identification and authentication mechanism. The second priority is to ensure that the logged data remain intact overtime. This is achieved by storing a small amount of data condensed from the raw sensing data on a public blockchain. A Merkel-tree based mechanism is devised to link the raw sensing data stored off-chain to the condensed data placed on public blockchain. This mechanism passes the data immutability property of a public blockchain to the raw sensing data stored off-chain. Third, the raw sensing data stored off-chain are secured with a self-protection mechanism where the raw sensing data are grouped into chained blocks with a moderate amount of proof-of-work. This scheme prevents an adversary from making arbitrary changes to the logged data within a short period of time. Fourth, mechanisms are developed to facilitate the search of the condensed data placed on the public blockchain and the verification of the raw sensing data using the condensed data placed on the public blockchain. The system is implemented in Python except the graphical user interface, which is developed using C#. The functionality and feasibility of the system have been evaluated locally and with two public blockchain systems, one is the IOTA Shimmer test network, and the other is Ethereum.

Food Supply Chain and Blockchain: Bibliometric Analysis

Food is a fundamental phenomenon for mankind. Nowadays, the number of people who approach food more selectively is increasing. They want information about the food they consume be accessible. Details such as the production time and producer of the food, whether it is served at a fair pricing and its content are all matters the consumers feel curious about. With the ability to create immutable data, blockchain technology can respond to consumer demands from the agricultural supply chain. Blockchain provides traceability and anti-counterfeiting solutions in the agricultural supply chain. Due to the fact that blockchain technology is becoming more and more popular in the agricultural supply chain, the level of its academic interest is also increasing. In order to reveal the characteristics of academic interest in the subject, an inquiry was conducted on the topic of food supply chain and blockchain in the Web of Science (WoS) database. The publications obtained at the end of the inquiry were classified under such headings as category, country and publication type. In addition, bibliometric analysis was performed on the publications obtained.

An Immutable Data Storage using Algorand Blockchain (ABC) Consensus Mechanism in the Supply CHAIN

In recent years, many frameworks and applications have been proposed to ensure tamper resistant data in supply chain using Block chain technologies. Block chain technology as a base design ensures that the content of the information is ‘tamper-resistant’. So far, no other study was presented with a low impact on the environment and minimum cost for each transaction sent by the supply chain. In order to protect the access of malicious user, we tend to propose an immutable data storage environment that is based on Algorand Blockchain. It uses the Pure Proof-of-Stake mechanism of consensus that needs less computational power, and is highly scalable and environmentally sustainable. It will make the data immutable and available in real-time for final consumers. Hence it can tolerate malicious users and achieving consensus without a central authority.

Can decentralized science help tackle the deterioration in working conditions in academia?

Academic staff’s working conditions have been deteriorating for years. In particular, the reduced availability of both research funding and permanent research positions has continuously led to insidious competition and intense stress among academics. Whereas governing bodies have made significant attempts to narrow pervasive social inequalities in the distribution of research funding within the scientific community, they have not truly taken into account the importance of the academics’ overall well-being in the development of more sustainable financing of academic researchers. This originates not only from the complexity to develop comprehensive models reflecting staff’s overall well-being in the academic environment, but also from the limited access to reliable and immutable data that transparently account for the staff’s direct experience. In this context, blockchain technology can push further the use of more transparent survey data collection and record-keeping that can help mitigate the systematic bias inherent to the centralized nature of traditional auditing. We discuss how research institutions and governing bodies can build on blockchain technology and the early momentum generated by the decentralized science (DeSci) movement to implement the future-proof research funding chain that values overall well-being across academia in a transparent and coordinated way.

How Can Blockchain Benefit Payment Systems in Smart Construction Contracts: A Brief Review

Construction industry professionals suffer regularly from poor cash-flow which reflects non-payment or payment delays down the hierarchical chain. This issue is important as the construction industry has the highest rates of insolvency in Australia, the UK and many other countries. Payment conditions under current construction contracts have proven to be inefficient in delivering timely payments as human interference has control over processing claims. This paper investigated the status of contracts and contract law in Australia and the potential of smart contract technology in improving payment issues in the industry. Qualitative data was collected from secondary literature sources which included observations from industry professionals, real case studies, secondary research and government surveys. It was found that smart contracts feature self-executing digital contracts, immutable data, require no intermediaries and provide transparency on all levels. Although these features are fit for purpose in resolving current contractual issues, smart contracts are not yet available in the construction industry. It was also found that smart contracts do have the potential to provide a trusted and reliable payment system in the construction industry, although there are some aspects it is unlikely to replace such as human performance. Research limitations and future research directions are also provided.

Enabling Energy Trading in Cooperative Microgrids: A Scalable Blockchain-Based Approach With Redundant Data Exchange

Blockchain has recently been regarded as an important enabler for building secure energy trading in microgrid systems because of its inherent features of distributively providing immutable data record, storage, and sharing across networks in a peer-to-peer (P2P) manner. However, designing highly efficient and scalable blockchain-enabled energy trading mechanisms is extremely challenging because of the unique features of microgrid systems, e.g., bandwidth-constrained and high-latency communications and large-scale renewable energy source (RES) integration. To address this challenge, in this article, we propose a novel scalable blockchain-based energy trading framework for cooperative microgrid systems, which include four planes, i.e., data plane, consensus plane, smart plane, and application plane. Different from the existing solutions without consideration of network transmission, these four planes are designed with the capability of perceiving the status of block generation and transmission over interrupted P2P networks, and thus proactively improving the consensus process to guarantee the reliability of energy trading in cooperative microgrids. Meanwhile, built on this framework, a novel redundant data exchange strategy is proposed to improve the scalability of block creation with the presence of large-scale RES penetration and interrupted and dynamic communication links. Simulation results show that the proposed system framework outperforms the benchmark blockchain solutions. Furthermore, we investigate the potential applications of the proposed solutions in the practical microgrid systems to facilitate a clear understanding of the mechanisms of the proposed solutions.

Enabling Blockchain Services for IoE with Zk-Rollups.

The Internet of Things includes all connected objects from small embedded systems with low computational power and storage capacities to efficient ones, as well as moving objects like drones and autonomous vehicles. The concept of Internet of Everything expands upon this idea by adding people, data and processing. The adoption of such systems is exploding and becoming ever more significant, bringing with it questions related to the security and the privacy of these objects. A natural solution to data integrity, confidentiality and single point of failure vulnerability is the use of blockchains. Blockchains can be used as an immutable data layer for storing information, avoiding single point of failure vulnerability via decentralization and providing strong security and cryptographic tools for IoE. However, the adoption of blockchain technology in such heterogeneous systems containing light devices presents several challenges and practical issues that need to be overcome. Indeed, most of the solutions proposed to adapt blockchains to devices with low resources confront difficulty in maintaining decentralization or security. The most interesting are probably the Layer 2 solutions, which build offchain systems strongly connected to the blockchain. Among these, zk-rollup is a promising new generation of Layer 2/off-chain schemes that can remove the last obstacles to blockchain adoption in IoT, or more generally, in IoE. By increasing the scalability and enabling rule customization while preserving the same security as the Layer 1 blockchain, zk-rollups overcome restrictions on the use of blockchains for IoE. Despite their promises illustrated by recent systems proposed by startups and private companies, very few scientific publications explaining or applying this barely-known technology have been published, especially for non-financial systems. In this context, the objective of our paper is to fill this gap for IoE systems in two steps. We first propose a synthetic review of recent proposals to improve scalability including onchain (consensus, blockchain organization, …) and offchain (sidechain, rollups) solutions and we demonstrate that zk-rollups are the most promising ones. In a second step, we focus on IoE by describing several interesting features (scalability, dynamicity, data management, …) that are illustrated with various general IoE use cases.