Public Blockchain Research Articles

LoRaWAN & The Helium Blockchain: A Study on Military IoT Deployment

Technology is evolving at a rapid pace, and the demand for a reliable, far-reaching Internet of Things (IoT) network has never been higher. Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) offers an energy-efficient, low-cost, long-range wireless communication protocol catered to IoT devices. A subset of LPWAN, Long Range Wireless Access Network (LoRaWAN), is being rapidly adopted due to its effortless integration into existing system architectures and real-world success. The Helium Network cryptocurrency blockchain’s financial incentives have been used to speed up the LoRaWAN adoption and deployment in urban and rural areas by financially incentivizing gateway owners to establish a redundant network based out of their homes and businesses. In addition to ease of deployment, the Helium Network allows for enhanced security by utilizing a public blockchain ledger to verify the identities of both sender and recipient to combat packet replay and man-in-the-middle attacks. This research argues for the effectiveness of LoRaWAN and Helium Network technology fusion based on real-world examples of a robust and dependable worldwide network. Further, this research advocates for adoption and modification of this technology by the Department of Defense (DoD), to enhance environmental sensing, establish real-time tactical networks, and critical infrastructure and logistics monitoring. If the DoD chooses to integrate these two technologies with its existing IoT infrastructure; it can reliably, securely, and anonymously use LoRaWAN nodes and routers as both a long-range and backup encrypted communication network capable of supporting end-to-end encryption up to AES-128 (DoD SECRET-classification standard). The DoD could capitalize on these successes to advance information dominance in both domestic and international environments. The demonstrated performance and low adoption cost of LoRaWAN and Helium Network technologies could greatly enhance the DoD’s mission of maintaining its lethality and dominance in information warfare.

L2DART: A Trust Management System Integrating Blockchain and Off-Chain Computation

The blockchain technology has been gaining an increasing popularity for the last years, and smart contracts are being used for a growing number of applications in several scenarios. The execution of smart contracts on public blockchains can be invoked by any user with a transaction, although in many scenarios there would be the need for restricting the right of executing smart contracts only to a restricted set of users. To help deal with this issue, this article proposes a system based on a popular access control framework called RT, Role-based Trust Management, to regulate smart contracts execution rights. The proposed system, called Layer 2 DecentrAlized Role-based Trust management (L2DART), implements the RT framework on a public blockchain, and it is designed as a layer-2 technology that involves both on-chain and off-chain functionalities to reduce the blockchain costs while keeping blockchain auditability, i.e., immutability and transparency. The on-chain costs of L2DART have been evaluated on Ethereum and compared with a previous solution implementing on-chain all the functionalities. The results show that the on-chain costs of L2DART are relatively low, making the system deployable in real-world scenarios.

Blockchain Orchestration and Transformation for Construction

Blockchain-related studies that focus on solving AECO (Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Operation) digital management environment issues, such as data protection and data ownership, show the projected benefits of Blockchain-based digital construction environments. However, adopting such technology will require a holistic approach to ensure it does not result in data redundancy, leading to digital system inefficiencies. This article studies the Blockchain construction synergies from the infrastructure point of view to understand its future in construction. The article visualises Blockchain infrastructure elements and fits them within the construction project’s digital environment. A novel framework for Blockchain orchestration and implementation and a blueprint for developing Blockchain applications for construction are presented. The proposed blueprint is then used to develop a Blockchain application using Hyperledger Firefly. The article builds on the previous literature and Blockchain applications on the Ethereum public Blockchain. The expected benefit of such a framework is providing a practical perspective on the implementation side of Blockchain in construction.

Selecting reliable blockchain peers via hybrid blockchain reliability prediction

AbstractBlockchain and blockchain‐based decentralised applications have been attracting increasing attention recently. In public blockchain systems, users usually connect to third‐party peers or run a peer to join the P2P blockchain network. However, connecting to unreliable blockchain peers will lead to resource waste and even loss of cryptocurrencies by repeated transactions. In order to select reliable blockchain peers, it is urgently needed to evaluate and predict their reliability of them. Faced with this problem, we propose hybrid blockchain reliability prediction (H‐BRP), a Hybrid Blockchain Reliability Prediction model, to extract the blockchain reliability factors and then make the personalised prediction for each user. Comprehensive experiments conducted on 100 blockchain requesters and 200 blockchain peers demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed H‐BRP model. Further, the implementation and dataset of 2,000,000 test cases are released.

Secure public administration using wireless blockchain technology with efficient routing policy

SummaryCurrent research works are majorly focused on the security importance and prevention measures in wireless sensor network (WSN). The survey of existing papers states that there are no efficient protocols for achieving secure and reliable peer authentication that ensures trust and confidentiality of the end‐users, as public administration worldwide invokes many maximized resources demanding transparency with security. Nowadays, a number of nations have started implementing smart city ideas; new technology should be used to safeguard various public administration services against corruption, intruders rendering an active part, and public transparency. By integrating blockchain (BC) technology with wireless‐based public administration process (WBPAP), the challenge of gaining trust, and eliminating corruption can be attained. Auto‐metric graph neural network (AGNN) approach is proposed for eliminating data tampering and malicious attack in the peer network. Trust, confidentiality, and integrity can be achieved using the proposed BC‐AGNN‐WBPAP‐WSN approach. The simulation of this model is activated in MATLAB, and its performance is examined using some performance metrics. Finally, the attained outcomes prove that the proposed method is the first wireless‐based public blockchain experimental method for public administration analyzed with theoretical methods.

CCIO: A Cross-Chain Interoperability Approach for Consortium Blockchains Based on Oracle.

Cross-chain interoperability can expand the ability of data interaction and value circulation between different blockchains, especially the value interaction and information sharing between industry consortium blockchains. However, some current public blockchain cross-chain technologies or data migration schemes between consortium blockchains need help to meet the consortium blockchain requirements for efficient two-way data interaction. The critical issue to solve in cross-chain technology is improving the efficiency of cross-chain exchange while ensuring the security of data transmission outside the consortium blockchain. In this article, we design a cross-chain architecture based on blockchain oracle technology. Then, we propose a bidirectional information cross-chain interaction approach (CCIO) based on the former architecture, we novelly improve three traditional blockchain oracle patterns, and we combine a mixture of symmetric and asymmetric keys to encrypt private information to ensure cross-chain data security. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed CCIO approach can achieve efficient and secure two-way cross-chain data interactions and better meet the application needs of large-scale consortium blockchains.

Secure Data Transactions based on Hash Coded Starvation Blockchain Security using Padded Ring Signature-ECC for Network of Things

Blockchain is one of the decentralized processes in a worldview that works with parallel and distributed ledger technology, the application process, and service-oriented design. To propose a Secure data Transaction based on Hash coded Starvation Blockchain security using Padded Ring signature-ECC for Network of Things. Initially, the crypto policy is authenticated based on the user-owner shared resource policy and access rights. This creates a Public blockchain environment with a P2P Blockchain network. The owner encrypts the data using optimized ECC through Hash-coded Starvation Blockchain security (HCSBS). This makes the encrypted block's provable partition chain Link (P2CL). The encrypted blocks are transmitted into the network of nodes monitored by NoT. During the data transmission, the Network of Things monitors the transaction flow to verify the authenticity over the network of nodes. The monitored data be securely stored in transaction Block storage with the hash-indexed block with chain ring policy (HICLP). This creates controller node aggregation over the transaction environment to securely transfer the data to the peer end. The User gets the access Key to decrypt the data with policy aggregated shared resource policy to access the data. The proposed system produces high security as well compared to the previous design.

Privacy-Preserving Searchable Encryption Scheme Based on Public and Private Blockchains

While users enjoy the convenience of data outsourcing in the cloud, they also face the risks of data modification and private information leakage. Searchable encryption technology can perform keyword searches over encrypted data while protecting their privacy and guaranteeing the integrity of the data by verifying the search results. However, some associated problems are still encountered, such as the low efficiency of verification and uncontrollable query results. Accordingly, this paper proposes a Privacy-Preserving Searchable Encryption (PPSE) scheme based on public and private blockchains. First, we store an encrypted index in a private blockchain while outsourcing corresponding encrypted documents to a public blockchain. The encrypted documents are located through the encrypted index. This method can reduce the storage overhead on the blockchains, and improve the efficiency of transaction execution and the security of stored data. Moreover, we adopt a smart contract to introduce a secondary verification access control mechanism and restrict data users' access to the private blockchain through authorization for the purpose of guaranteeing data privacy and the correctness of access control verification. Finally, the security analysis and experimental results indicate that compared with existing schemes, the proposed scheme can not only improve the security of encrypted data but also guarantee the efficiency of the query.

A Trustworthy Healthcare Management Framework Using Amalgamation of AI and Blockchain Network

Over the last few decades, the healthcare industry has continuously grown, with hundreds of thousands of patients obtaining treatment remotely using smart devices. Data security becomes a prime concern with such a massive increase in the number of patients. Numerous attacks on healthcare data have recently been identified that can put the patient’s identity at stake. For example, the private data of millions of patients have been published online, posing a severe risk to patients’ data privacy. However, with the advent of Industry 4.0, medical practitioners can digitally assess the patient’s condition and administer prompt prescriptions. However, wearable devices are also vulnerable to numerous security threats, such as session hijacking, data manipulation, and spoofing attacks. Attackers can tamper with the patient’s wearable device and relays the tampered data to the concerned doctor. This can put the patient’s life at high risk. Since blockchain is a transparent and immutable decentralized system, it can be utilized for securely storing patient’s wearable data. Artificial Intelligence (AI), on the other hand, utilizes different machine learning techniques to classify malicious data from an oncoming stream of patient’s wearable data. An amalgamation of these two technologies would make the possibility of tampering the patient’s data extremely difficult. To mitigate the aforementioned issues, this paper proposes a blockchain and AI-envisioned secure and trusted framework (HEART). Here, Long-Short Term Model (LSTM) is used to classify wearable devices as malicious or non-malicious. Then, we design a smart contract that allows only of those patients’ data having a wearable device to be classified as non-malicious to the public blockchain network. This information is then accessible to all involved in the patient’s care. We then evaluate the HEART’s performance considering various evaluation metrics such as accuracy, recall, precision, scalability, and network latency. On the training and testing sets, the model achieves accuracies of 93% and 92.92%, respectively.

Blockchain based efficient tamper-proof EHR storage for decentralized cloud-assisted storage

In recent years, the rapid and wide-ranging implementation of a cloud-based electronic healthcare record (EHR) storage system has shown significant advantages in effectively managing EHR for healthcare organizations and patients. However, in the cloud-based EHR storage model, the patients no longer have direct control of their EHR, whereas healthcare organizations may access the outsourced EHR whenever necessary. It may always cause severe security issues, specifically when healthcare organizations collude with the cloud service provider (CSP) to conceal any medical malpractice. Therefore, to deal with these significant concerns, we have introduced a novel blockchain based efficient tamper-proof model for EHR storage in decentralized InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) storage in the cloud - “TAC-EHR”. The key idea of the model is that every operation involves outsourcing EHRs and integrating these EHRs into a transaction on the public blockchain provides computationally unforgeability to the outsourced EHRs. Moreover, the proposed EHR storage model can also manage batch outsourcing, i.e., numerous EHR outsourcing for multiple patients by multiple doctors simultaneously, in an effective manner. The experimental and security analysis demonstrates that the proposed blockchain based cloud-assisted EHR storage model efficiently assures intractability computationally and outperforms the existing models in terms of computational and communication overhead.

A systematic literature review of the tension between the GDPR and public blockchain systems

Blockchain technology has been rapidly growing since Bitcoin was invented in 2008. The most common type of blockchain system, public (permissionless) blockchain system, has some unique features that lead to a tension with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other similar data protection laws. In this paper, we report the results of a systematic literature review (SLR) on 114 research papers discussing and/or addressing such a tension. To the best of our knowledge, our SLR is the most comprehensive review of this tension, leading to a more in-depth and broader analysis of related research work on this important topic. Our results revealed three main types of issues: (i) difficulties in exercising data subjects’ rights such as the ‘right to be forgotten’ (RTBF) due to the immutable nature of public blockchains; (ii) difficulties in identifying roles and responsibilities in the public blockchain data processing ecosystem (particularly on the identification of data controllers and data processors); and (iii) ambiguities regarding the application of the relevant law(s) due to the distributed nature of blockchains. Our work also led to a better understanding of solutions for improving the GDPR compliance of public blockchain systems. It can help inform not only blockchain researchers and developers but also policymakers and law markers to consider how to reconcile the tension between public blockchain systems and data protection laws (the GDPR and beyond).

Blockchains as a means to promote privacy protecting, access availing, incentive increasing, ELSI lessening DNA databases.

Not all blockchains are created equal, and many cannot accommodate all of the primary characteristics of big data: Variety, Velocity, Volume and Veracity. Currently, public blockchains are slow and clunky, it can be expensive to keep up with the velocity of genomic data production. Further, the transparent and universally accessible nature of public blockchain doesn't necessarily accommodate all of the variety of sequence data, including very private information. Bespoke private permissioned blockchains, however, can be created to optimally accommodate all of the big data features of genomic data. Further, private permissioned chains can be implemented to both protect the privacy and security of the genetic information therein, while also providing access to researchers. An NFT marketplace associated with that private chain can provide the discretized sale of anonymous and encrypted data sets while also incentivizing individuals to share their data through payments mediated by smart contracts. Private blockchains can provide a transparent chain of custody for each use of the customers' data, and validation that this data is not corrupted. However, even with all of these benefits there remain some concerns with the implementation of this new technology including the ethical, legal and social implications typically associated with DNA databases.

Emerging blockchain solutions in the mobility ecosystem: Associated risks and areas for applications

This study aims to identify the most influential blockchain types for potential implementation areas in the transforming mobility ecosystem, considering application area-specific needs such as transparency, transaction speed, scalability, energy usage, security, and operating cost. The study demonstrated the hybrid blockchain suitability for most of the 13 distinguished mobility applications, while private and consortium blockchains are found applicable based on the needs of specific use cases. A public blockchain is only found suitable for two of the use cases. Proof of Authority and Proof of Stake matches well with most use cases, while Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance and Proof of Work could be suitable in particular.

A multi-criteria decision-making approach to analyse the viability of blockchain in software development projects

Blockchain technology is getting famous, and use cases of blockchain range from financial services to the Metaverse. It is considered a platform for web 3.0. As a result, many industries are planning to adopt blockchain. A simple public blockchain is not suitable for most business scenarios, so hybrid and private blockchains came into existence, but it is important to decide which type of blockchain should be adopted during the project planning phase. Various models can be found in the literature to determine if blockchain should be adopted and, if so, which type of blockchain should be adopted. However, these models are already becoming obsolete as they determine the usage of blockchain using simple yes or no. In order to overcome these problems, all these models are converted from binary-based selection to fuzzy-based selection, and decision matrices are created. Various multi-criteria decision analysis methods are applied, and final results are obtained. In addition, a novel model is presented, and a MATLAB application is developed to let the user determine if blockchain can be integrated with any technology or not. This application can be used as a standard in the project’s planning phase and helps avoid losses to the industry.

Governance by Algorithms, Governance of Algorithms: Human-Machine Politics in Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs)

This paper situates Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) in organisational theory as an expression of ‘organising outside organisations’ through algorithmic governance. Digital networks, such as the internet, make organising outside of traditional organisational structures possible (Shirky, 2008). DAOs are an attempt at decentralised organisation towards independence from external political influence. DAOs aim for self-governance using algorithms grounded in public blockchain technology, ‘smart’ contracts, and public key cryptography in complement to the traditional rule of law to enforce behaviours. As a relatively recent phenomenon, DAOs remain under-theorised in the field of organisational studies. This paper locates DAOs as organisations in relation to the ‘organisational elements’ proposed by Ahrne and Brunsson (2011) to respond to the research question, ‘can algorithms, as a centralising process, be governed in a decentralised manner?’. I employ qualitative, digital ethnographic methods to trace the relations between human and non-human actors in decentralised networks to investigate algorithmic governance in the case of a DAO called “Gitcoin”. DAO constituents are engaged in both the governance of algorithms, and governance by algorithms. I argue that algorithmic governance in DAOs constitutes a novel form of ‘machine politics’ that elevates algorithms to the position of new political actors who shape and determine how humans behave as well as organisational outcomes, while simultaneously needing to draw on the organisational structure to govern them. This piece contributes to a research agenda on the social implications of algorithmic governance and decentralised modes of organising.

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.

Immutable Log Storage as a Service on Private and Public Blockchains

Service Level Agreements (SLA) are employed to ensure the performance of Cloud solutions. When a component fails, the importance of logs increases significantly. All departments may turn to logs to determine the cause of the issue and find the party at fault. The party at fault may be motivated to tamper with the logs to hide their role. We argue that the critical nature of Cloud logs calls for immutability and verification mechanism without the presence of a single trusted party. This article proposes such a mechanism by describing a blockchain-based log storage system, called Logchain, which can be integrated with existing private and public blockchain solutions. Logchain uses the immutability feature of blockchain to provide a tamper-resistance platform for log storage. Additionally, we propose a hierarchical structure to address blockchains’ scalability issues. To validate the mechanism, we integrate Logchain into Ethereum and IBM Blockchain. We show that the solution is scalable and perform the analysis of the cost of ownership to help a reader select an implementation that would address their needs. The Logchain's scalability improvement on a blockchain is achieved without any alteration of blockchains’ fundamental architecture. As shown in this work, it can function on private and public blockchains and, therefore, can be a suitable alternative for organizations that need a secure, immutable log storage platform.

An In-depth Guide to Cross-chain Protocols under a Multi-chain World

In 2021, public blockchains have made remarkable progress with the support of investors and developers, ushering in the era of the multi-chain world, which represents a paradigm shift that is unlikely to be reversed. Cross-chain protocols have become an essential infrastructure in this new world, referring to a standardized set of rules and processes that enable the secure transfer of assets or information between different blockchain networks. To help researchers and industry practitioners better understand the concepts, advantages, and limitations of cross-chain technologies, this paper presents a comprehensive guide to cross-chain protocols. We cover a range of topics, including message transmission protocols, leading cross-chain bridges, and other cross-chain applications. Additionally, we discuss potential risks and challenges associated with cross-chain protocols and explore the future of cross-chain protocol development. Our work is intended to offer valuable insights and references for anyone looking to delve deeper into cross-chain protocols, whether they are academic researchers or industry professionals.

Framework for privacy preserving credential issuance and verification system using soulbound token

This paper proposes a framework for privacy-preserving credential issuance and verification over the public blockchain. The credential used in this framework is a soulbound token (SBT), a non-transferrable non-fungible token (NFT) verifiable on the blockchain. Once the issuing organization issues the credential, this framework gives the holder complete control of the credential. This privacy-preserving property allows the holder to selectively disclose the credential attributes in the verification process. The framework proposed suggests a decentralized credential recovery mechanism if the credential holder loses their private key. This paper compares this framework’s efficiency with different schemes based on privacy-preserving, selective disclosure, and decentralized credential recovery. This paper also compares the overhead for credential issuance and verification with Merkle trees. This paper also discusses the real-world use cases where this framework can be applied.

A Survey on Cross-Chain Technology: Challenges, Development, and Prospect

With the continuous development of blockchain technology, many blockchain applications, such as digital currencies in the form of tokens, are deployed. However, due to the lack of data and value inter-blockchain transmission methods, these chain applications form many data islands. Therefore, cross-chain technology is proposed and applied in distributed transaction platforms, digital finance, e-government and many other different fields. Although cross-chain technology just started, the cross-chain technology and its applications are gradually improving to meet the development needs of blockchain system. At the same time, they have already realized asset transfers across heterogeneous blockchains and platforms, and some projects have realized cross-chain information exchange. At present, cross-chain technology includes the following typical methods: Hash-locking, Notary scheme, Distributed private key control, Sidechains/Relays and Tight coupling. This paper analyzes the above methods from the aspect of techniques, security requirements, and technical limitation, and compares their applicability. With public blockchains and consortium blockchains, this paper analyzes their problems and challenges in cross-chain technology and introduces the main approaches of existing solutions. By analyzing the existing cross-chain technologies and problems, this paper further introduces eight popular cross-chain projects and their application prospects. Finally, this paper summarizes and proposes the future research topics and development trends of cross-chain technology.