Efficient Verification Research Articles

Dilemma between Quantum Speedup and Computational Reliability--Overcoming Errors with Efficient Verification Methods for Quantum Computing

Dilemma between Quantum Speedup and Computational Reliability--Overcoming Errors with Efficient Verification Methods for Quantum Computing

Addressing the Transaction Validation Issue in IOTA Tangle: A Tip Selection Algorithm Based on Time Division

IOTA is a new public chain system specifically designed for the Internet of Things (IoT), which provides strong support for the high concurrency, scalability, and zero handling fees of the IoT. The distributed ledger of IOTA, called the tangle, adopts a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) structure. However, compared to the single-chain architecture, the tangle is more complex and highly vulnerable to security threats. The existing transaction verification methods still cannot simultaneously meet the need for accelerating approval speed and improving security to resist illegal transactions, such as lazy tips and permanent tips. In this work, we propose TDTS, a tip-selection algorithm based on time division to improve the efficiency of transaction verification. The main idea of the algorithm is to quickly determine two tips of an incoming transaction that need to be confirmed by sorting tip values in a time slot. It shortens the transaction verification time and reduces the number of lazy tips and permanent tips. A comprehensive theoretical analysis confirmed the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm. Based on 1000 IOTA nodes, the evaluations showed that TDTS can select tips quickly like URTS and resist lazy tips like MCMC.

MKSS: An Effective Multi-authority Keyword Search Scheme for edge–cloud collaboration

The rapid development of cloud computing motivates Internet of Things users to outsource their data to enjoy value-added cloud services: data storage, data sharing, etc. To provide reliable but searchable results, searchable encryption (e.g., Ciphertext-Policy Attribute-Based Keyword Search (CP-ABKS)) become an area of active research. One major drawback of existing CP-ABKS designs lies in the private key being generated and distributed by a trusted Central Authority (CA), which is a single point of failure/attack. Another limitation is that the cloud server may return forged or incomplete query results to the data user. This paper proposes a novel Multi-authority Keyword Search Scheme for edge–cloud collaboration (MKSS). To protect the security of the private key, we design a private key generation algorithm based on secure multi-party computation. To preserve the integrity of search results, we construct an efficient verification algorithm that detects forged or incomplete results. We evaluate the security and performance of our protocol using real-world datasets to demonstrate robustness and efficiency. Our construction advances the existing body of research towards secure and efficient keyword search protocols in cloud systems.

RFLPV: A robust federated learning scheme with privacy preservation and verifiable aggregation in IoMT

With the rapid development of the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), medical institutions are accumulating vast amounts of medical data and aiming to utilize this data to train high-quality deep-learning models for assisting doctors in diagnosis. However, due to the highly sensitive nature of medical data, data fusion has always been problematic. Recently, Federated Learning (FL) has gained significant attention as it allows for model training without exposing raw data. Nevertheless, existing research demonstrates that FL still brings the risk of privacy breaches. Furthermore, within the FL framework, a malicious server could potentially provide forged aggregated results, leading to disastrous consequences for the medical system. In this paper, we propose the RFLPV, a robust FL scheme with privacy preservation and verifiable aggregation to enable collaboration among medical institutions and facilitate the fusion of medical data. Specifically, we preserve gradient privacy by adding pairwise masks. Additionally, we design an efficient verification mechanism to tackle the threat posed by a malicious server. Furthermore, we develop a customized local training strategy to accommodate the heterogeneity of medical data. Finally, we demonstrate the superior performance of RFLPV using a real medical dataset.

A Universal-Verification-Methodology-Based Testbench for the Coverage-Driven Functional Verification of an Instruction Cache Controller

The Cache plays an important role in computer architecture by reducing the access time of the processor and improving its performance. The hardware design of the Cache is complex and it is challenging to verify its functions, so the traditional Verilog-based verification method is no longer applicable. This paper proposes a comprehensive and efficient verification testbench based on the SystemVerilog language and universal verification methodology (UVM) for an instruction Cache (I-Cache) controller. Corresponding testcases are designed for each feature of the I-Cache controller and automatically executed using a python script on an electronic design automation (EDA) tool. After simulating a large number of testcases, the statistics reveal that the module’s code coverage is 99.13%. Additionally, both the function coverage and the assertion coverage of the module reach 100%. Our results demonstrate that these coverage metrics meet the requirements and ensure the thoroughness of function verification. Furthermore, the established verification testbench exhibits excellent scalability and reusability, making it easily applicable to higher-level verification scenarios.

Distributed and Lightweight Software Assurance in Cellular Broadcasting Handshake and Connection Establishment

With developments in OpenRAN and software-defined radio (SDR), the mobile networking implementations for radio and security control are becoming increasingly software-based. We design and build a lightweight and distributed software assurance scheme, which ensures that a wireless user holds the correct software (version/code) for their wireless networking implementations. Our scheme is distributed (to support the distributed and ad hoc networking that does not utilize the networking-backend infrastructure), lightweight (to support the resource-constrained device operations), modular (to support compatibility with the existing mobile networking protocols), and supports broadcasting (as mobile and wireless networking has broadcasting applications). Our scheme is distinct from the remote code attestation in trusted computing, which requires hardwarebased security and real-time challenge-and-response communications with a centralized trusted server, thus making its deployment prohibitive in the distributed and broadcasting-based mobile networking environments. We design our scheme to be prover-specific and incorporate the Merkle tree for the verification efficiency to make it appropriate for a wireless-broadcasting medium with multiple receivers. In addition to the theoretical design and analysis, we implement our scheme to assure srsRAN (a popular open-source software for cellular technology, including 4G and 5G) and provide a concrete implementation and application instance to highlight our scheme’s modularity, backward compatibility to the existing 4G/5G standardized protocol, and broadcasting support. Our scheme implementation incorporates delivering the proof in the srsRAN-implemented 4G/5G cellular handshake and connection establishment in radio resource control (RRC). We conduct experiments using SDR and various processors to demonstrate the lightweight design and its appropriateness for wireless networking applications. Our results show that the number of hash computations for the proof verification grows logarithmically with the number of software code files being assured and that the verification takes three orders of magnitude less time than the proof generation, while the proof generation overhead itself is negligible compared to the software update period.

EPPDA: An Efficient Privacy-Preserving Data Aggregation Federated Learning Scheme

Federated learning (FL) is a kind of privacy-aware machine learning, in which the machine learning models are trained on the users side and then the model updates are transmitted to the server for aggregating. As the data owners need not upload their data, FL is a privacy-persevering machine learning model. However, FL is weak as it suffers from a reverse attack, in which an adversary can get users data by analyzing the user uploaded model. Motivated by this, in this paper, based on the secret sharing, we design EPPDA, an efficient privacy-preserving data aggregation mechanism for FL, to resist the reverse attack, which can aggregate users trained models secretly without leaking the users model. Moreover, EPPDA has efficient fault tolerance [1] for the user disconnection. Even if a large number of users are disconnected when the protocol runs, EPPDA will execute normally. Analysis shows that the EPPDA can provide a sum of locally trained models to the server without leaking any single users model. Moreover, adversary can not get any non-public information from the communication channel. Efficiency verification proves that the EPPDA not only protects users privacy but also needs fewer computing and communication resources.

A redesigned secure and efficient data transaction protocol for mobile payment system

Generally, the secure protocol was proposed from the certificateless signature (CLS) scheme to provide the corresponding security for the actual application. However, for the previous application protocols, most of the underlying CLS schemes cannot have their claimed security, because some proposals cannot resist forgery attacks or the master secret key can be captured by the probabilistic polynomial time adversary. To further address the above problems, we take several previous CLS schemes as instances to make a detailed analysis of the causes of the above security flaws and point out that, in a secure CLS scheme, we should appropriately publish the public parameters. Based on the above analysis, we design an efficient and secure CLS scheme in this paper, and the unforgeability is proved based on the hardness of discrete logarithm complexity assumption through the Forking lemma. Compared with the existing constructions, our new proposal has advantages in communication and computation efficiency but also has higher security. Furthermore, a concrete construction of a certificateless aggregate signature (CLAS) scheme is designed with the above basic CLS scheme to realize efficient verification of multiple signatures. Finally, we further improve the key conditions that need to be paid attention to design a secure CLS scheme.

In Planta Gene Expression and Gene Editing in Moso Bamboo Leaves.

A novel in planta gene transformation method was developed for bamboo, which avoids the need for time-consuming and labor-intensive callus induction and regeneration processes. This method involves Agrobacterium-mediated gene expression via wounding and vacuum for bamboo seedlings. It successfully demonstrated the expression of exogenous genes, such as the RUBY reporter and Cas9 gene, in bamboo leaves. The highest transformation efficiency for the accumulation of betalain in RUBY seedlings was achieved using the GV3101 strain, with a percentage of 85.2% after infection. Although the foreign DNA did not integrate into the bamboo genome, the method was efficient in expressing the exogenous genes. Furthermore, a gene editing system has also been developed with a native reporter using this method, from which an in situ mutant generated by the edited bamboo violaxanthin de-epoxidase gene (PeVDE) in bamboo leaves, with a mutation rate of 17.33%. The mutation of PeVDE resulted in decreased non-photochemical quenching (NPQ) values under high light, which can be accurately detected by a fluorometer. This makes the edited PeVDE a potential native reporter for both exogenous and endogenous genes in bamboo. With the reporter of PeVDE, a cinnamoyl-CoA reductase gene was successfully edited with a mutation rate of 8.3%. This operation avoids the process of tissue culture or callus induction, which is quick and efficient for expressing exogenous genes and endogenous gene editing in bamboo. This method can improve the efficiency of gene function verification and will help reveal the molecular mechanisms of key metabolic pathways in bamboo.

Efficient and Secure Data Sharing Scheme on Interoperable Blockchain Database

Interoperable Blockchain Database (IBD) can enable users to execute transactions for sharing data stored in various blockchains maintained by different organizations or communities in a transparent manner. However, compared to traditional distributed databases, IBD can hardly provide high-level security and scalability, which are caused by many factors, such as system architecture, consensus protocol, and interactive pattern. Among them, the consensus protocol is the most critical factor, since the credibility of consensus nodes inside the corresponding blockchains are difficult to be guaranteed. Additionally, the consensus protocol directly affects the verification efficiency for given transactions in IBD. In this paper, we formally concern the problem of secure data sharing in IBD. We present a scheme named <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Hybridchain</i> to execute transactions for sharing data securely and efficiently. We first propose a novel concept named <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Interoperable Consensus Group</i> (ICG) which organizes a set of basic consensus nodes into a group, each of which is responsible for managing at least one local blockchain. Then, we present an interoperable cross-chains consensus protocol to achieve eventual consistency of blockchain transactions. We conduct extensive experiments, and the evaluation results show that our proposed approach achieves superior performance.

Enabling efficient and secure health data sharing for Healthcare IoT systems

The Healthcare Internet of Things (HIoT) system enables remote monitor patient health state and feedback on medical treatments timely. The success of HIoT relies on how to share health data securely and efficiently. Existing solutions either fail to ensure the security or incur significant overheads. In this paper, we put forward an efficient and secure health data sharing scheme for HIoT systems, named ESDS, to solve this dilemma. In ESDS, we first signcrypt the health data collected by IoT devices to protect patient privacy and ensure data authenticity. Next, we aggregate N signatures for N pieces of different health data into a short signature, which significantly reduces storage space and transmission size, i.e., from O(N) to O(1). Then, we apply local verifiability to verify one piece of health data under the aggregated signature. With this property, a doctor only needs one auxiliary message generated by the patient to check the target message without obtaining whole health data, which improves system verification efficiency. Extensive security analysis and performance evaluation show that ESDS is secure and efficient.

Addressing blockchain privacy and efficiency challenges in mobile environments: an optimization strategy for lightweight clients and full nodes

In this paper, we propose an optimization strategy for privacy and efficiency challenges of blockchains in mobile environments. We propose a system model and define the corresponding threat model for the transaction query privacy problem of lightweight clients. Based on this, we design a transaction query scheme that effectively protects the privacy of lightweight clients. This scheme successfully achieves the security, privacy and completeness of transaction queries through an optimized blockchain restructuring process and privacy protection measures. Simulation experimental results show that our scheme significantly improves the privacy protection of transaction queries for lightweight clients while maintaining efficient query performance. In addition, we propose an optimization scheme for the lightweight full-node block verification efficiency problem. This scheme optimizes the verification process and introduces parallel computation, thus significantly improving the block verification efficiency. The experimental results show that our scheme achieves about 50% improvement in verification efficiency, both in terms of network size and transaction correlation. The research results in this paper not only provide a new perspective on privacy protection and efficiency improvement of blockchain technology, but also open up new applications in the mobile environment possibilities.

Translating and verifying Cyber–Physical systems with shared-variable concurrency in SpaceEx

Cyber–Physical systems (CPS), combining continuous physical behavior and discrete control behavior, have been widely utilized in recent years. However, the traditional modeling languages used to specify discrete systems are no longer applicable to CPS, since CPS subsume the combination of the cyber and the physical. To address this, a modeling language for CPS with shared-variable concurrency is proposed. In this paper, we introduce an extension to the classical configuration of transitions in Structural Operational Semantics (SOS), which adds an auxiliary variable “now” to the data state. Using this configuration, we present operational semantics for this language. Then, we propose a translation strategy from this language to hybrid automata to enable efficient verification for CPS. We give the detailed translation of basic commands and compound constructs formally, and the correctness of this translation is explored as well. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, we provide an example of Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) and carry out the corresponding verification using SpaceEx. Compared with the existing work that uses SpaceEx for formal modeling and verification, the translation strategy from programs to automata not only allows any CPS described in this language to be modeled and verified based on the proposed strategy, but also indicates the semantic foundation on which formal verification depends.

An Approach to Integrated Digital Requirements Engineering

AbstractSystems engineering activities in the concept and development phases have evolved continuously for decades. The deployment of digital thread, digital engineering, MBSE approaches, and modeling and simulation techniques have driven part of this evolution.Despite this trend, requirements are still largely textual and expressed in natural language, and requirements engineering activities are still often document‐based. However, model‐based requirements‐engineering approaches have emerged in recent years and have demonstrated significant benefits, including improved requirements quality, less ambiguity, and early and efficient verification and validation.The goal of this paper is to present the current outcomes and perspectives of setting up an Integrated Digital Requirements Engineering approach as developed within our company. This approach seeks to optimize usability and maximize benefits to support end‐to‐end V&amp;V activities while fully integrating into MBSE workflows.

Load calibration experiment analysis for scaled model of large aspect ratio wing

Load calibration experiment is the key work for flight load verification and flight test of civil aircraft. The efficiency of the flight load verification is meaningfully determined by the reliability of load calibration experiment. This paper aims to theoretically and experimentally study the load calibration of civil aircraft wing with large aspect ratio and elastic beam based on the scaled model, which includes the design of fixed device for wing loading, the data processing, the basic hypothesis test, the selection of regression variables and optimisation of regression equation, etc. Firstly, the systematic error is eliminated based on the sample difference method. Then, on the basis of the multiple linear regression method, the multi-collinearity among variables is weakened by using the multi-collinearity verification technology. Subsequently, the abnormal sample points are eliminated by the means of cyclic residual analysis. Finally, the optimized variables are screened with the method of the stepwise linear regression, and the load equations for the civil aircraft wing with large aspect ratio can be established. It is demonstrated that the calculated results verifies well with the engineering requirements by comparing with experimental results, and the error is smaller than 5%.

A Semidefinite Relaxation Based Branch-and-Bound Method for Tight Neural Network Verification

We introduce a novel method based on semidefinite program (SDP) for the tight and efficient verification of neural networks. The proposed SDP relaxation advances the present state of the art in SDP-based neural network verification by adding a set of linear constraints based on eigenvectors. We extend this novel SDP relaxation by combining it with a branch-and-bound method that can provably close the relaxation gap up to zero. We show formally that the proposed approach leads to a provably tighter solution than the present state of the art. We report experimental results showing that the proposed method outperforms baselines in terms of verified accuracy while retaining an acceptable computational overhead.

Efficient Verification of Arbitrary Entangled States with Homogeneous Local Measurements

AbstractQuantum state verification (QSV) is the task of relying on local measurements only to verify that a given quantum device does produce the desired target state. Up to now, certain types of entangled states can be verified efficiently or even optimally by QSV. However, given an arbitrary entangled state, how to design its verification protocol remains an open problem. This study presents a systematic strategy to tackle this problem by considering the locality of what it initiates as the choice‐independent measurement protocols, whose operators can be directly achieved when they are homogeneous. Taking several typical entangled states as examples, this study shows the explicit procedures of the protocol design using standard Pauli projections, demonstrating the superiority of the method for attaining better QSV strategies. Moreover, the framework can be naturally extended to other tasks such as the construction of entanglement witnesses, and even parameter estimation.

IoT-based interaction design of smart home products for elderly families

Abstract A LoRa (Long Range Radio) based smart home product interaction system for the elderly is designed to solve the problem of reliability communication in the collection and information transmission of smart home environment parameters, device status parameters and the complex layout of communication lines inside smart devices. A privacy-preserving data aggregation scheme without a trusted authority center is proposed to address the privacy protection problem in the process of Internet of things (IoT) data collection. Firstly, without relying on the trusted authority center, the key exchange algorithm is used to generate shared secret keys and construct encryption keys among terminal devices to ensure the privacy of reported data; secondly, a fault tolerance mechanism is designed according to Carmichael’s theorem, so that the control center can still aggregate the received data when the terminal device fails or the network connection is wrong; in addition, the batch In addition, the integrity of the reported data is ensured by means of batch verification. Finally, the theoretical analysis proves the correctness and security of the scheme in this paper. The performance experiments show that the required computational overhead is lower compared to existing schemes, while some communication overhead is increased in order to have fault tolerance and to improve the verification efficiency of digital signatures. The application of this system will highlight the main position of the elderly, so that they can truly experience and accept the benefits of smart home for their lives and improve their quality of life.

HCSC: A Hierarchical Certificate Service Chain Based on Reputation for VANETs

In vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs), there are many resource constrained communication nodes, distributed geographical locations, and low delay requirements. The authentication system is required to be distributed. However, the information interaction between traditional distributed authentication entities (AEs) is not transparent, and the use of blockchain is only to save certificate status records on the chain. There is a lack of trusted security management mechanisms between AEs, so there is a risk of collusion attacks and behavior record forgery and tamper attacks between AEs. Therefore, this paper mainly addresses the management problems of opaque interaction and insufficient security verification of distributed authentication entities in the VANETs scenario. In this paper, based on the security features of blockchain technology, such as public audit and tamper proof block structure, and distributed trust consensus, we propose a hierarchical and trust certificate service chain based on reputation value called HCSC. We have a set of safe and reliable management mechanisms between distributed authentication entities such as the Bitcoin system. First, we integrate the traditional hierarchical authentication system and the blockchain network into a new hierarchical certificate service chain. Then, we propose a reputation evaluation model based on the logistic regression model by quantifying the behavior records of the AEs. In addition, a new hierarchical reputation consensus based on delegated proof of stake (DPoS) and proof of work (PoW) is given. Then, a fast verification based on block height and security verification for the efficiency and security of certificate verification is proposed. Finally, the security analysis is given, and a prototype implementation of HCSC is developed based on Fabric. The experimental simulation and security analysis reveal that the HCSC is very efficient and suitable for the above issues.

Research on Intelligent Verification System of High Voltage Electric Energy Metering Device Based on Power Cloud

To address the issues of low efficiency, poor security, insufficient compatibility, and difficulties in traceability associated with high-voltage electric energy metering (HVEEM) device verification methods, this paper proposes a design scheme for a remote verification system (RVS) of such devices based on a power cloud platform (PCP). The system adopts the concept of “high-precision local sampling + remote cloud verification” and develops a local acquisition device with compatibility and high precision to achieve fast acquisition of local electrical parameters. The IEC 61850 communication modeling is utilized to establish unified communication standards between the local device and the PCP. The PCP provides two verification methods: physical error verification based on a multi-channel standard and digital verification based on an improved Backpropagation (BP) neural network simulation model. Leveraging the advantages of power cloud technology, the system enables functions such as electrical energy calculation, remote intelligent error verification, cloud storage, condition monitoring, and early warning. Through testing and application, it has been demonstrated that the system achieves an integration accuracy level better than 0.02. It also exhibits good security, compatibility, and traceability of measurement values while attaining a high level of informatization and intelligence. Particularly, the system shows promising prospects for the remote and efficient verification of large-scale and multi-type high-voltage metering devices.