AudiTEE: Efficient, General-Purpose and Privacy-Preserving Audit for Distributed Ledgers

Privacy-preservation and effective auditing are two desirable but challenging requirements on distributed ledgers. To meet the requirements, this paper presents an auditing scheme, called as AudiTEE, which can audit a distributed ledger in a generic, efficient, and privacy-preserving manner. AudiTEE leverages Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) to generate confidential but auditable transactions and realize arbitrary, efficient and confidential audit on them. Unfortunately, TEE suffers from some inherent barriers and is itself not a complete solution for fast audit. To tackle these challenges, AudiTEE takes advantage of KAMT (K-anonymity Authentication Based on Merkle Tree) protocol for efficient management on account and user-defined anonymous transactions. Further, to achieve a complete and fast audit with unlinkability, TEE doesn’t process through all but only a comparatively small part of transactions according to a special ktag attached on each transaction to ensure that a user cannot hide transactions from auditor even when auditor is blind with who is involved in each transaction on the ledger. Apart from the above, AudiTEE allows flexible control on user behaviors. We implement a concrete instance of AudiTEE under a bank setting and demonstrate the scalability with all its core functionalities.

A Blind Batch Encryption and Public Ledger-Based Protocol for Sharing Sensitive Data

For the goals of security and privacy preservation,we propose a blind batch encryption-and public ledger-based data sharing protocol that allows the integrity of sensitive data to be audited by a public ledger and allows privacy information to be preserved.Data owners can tightly manage their data with efficient revocation and only grant one-time adaptive access for the fulfillment of the requester.We prove that our protocol is semanticallly secure,blind,and secure against oblivious requesters and malicious file keepers.We also provide security analysis in the context of four typical attacks.

A Study on the Challenges and Solutions of Blockchain Interoperability

With the development of blockchain technology,a variety of mutually independent blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum,as well as private and consortium chains,coexist in large numbers.As a linker of the blockchain network,blockchain interoperability will link more blockchain ecosystems,realize the interconnection of the blockchain and enhance the scalability of the blockchain.This paper summarizes typical blockchain interoperability projects.Firstly,it proposes a blockchain interoperability definition and an architecture model.Secondly,it analyzes technical characteristics of blockchain interoperability,and typical blockchain interoperability cases are compared.Finally,the trend of future development of blockchain interoperability technology is summarized and discussed.

International Standardization of Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology:Overlaps,Gaps and Challenges

As one of the most concerned digital technologies in recent years,blockchain and distributed ledger technology are an important driving force for a new round of technological development.It is currently in the process of accelerating its evolution and maturity,and has gradually integrated with other digital technologies.It has been applied in many industries,providing decentralized solutions for various industries,realizing innovative storage models,and building a new trust system.As blockchain technology is officially incorporated into China’s new information infrastructure category,the application fields of blockchain have expanded rapidly,gradually extending from the financial field and government affairs to other fields in the real economy.At the same time,with the continuous development of the globalized economy,blockchain technology will also have a profound impact on international technological and economic development.Therefore,for the healthy and orderly development and real implementation of the blockchain industry,standardize the application of blockchain,effectively break through the cognitive and technical barriers between different countries,industries and systems on a global scale,prevent application risks,the development of the global blockchain industry needs standardization basis,which is particularly important and urgent.A sound standard system is an important key to the successful development of technology,and formulating the right standard at the right time for technology development helps ensure the ease of use and interoperability of the technology.From the perspective of international standardization,this article first introduces the general situation of ISO,ITU-T,IEEE,W3C and other international standardization organizations,and sorts out the status quo of the blockchain standardization working groups of mainstream international standardization organizations.All blockchain-related standards under development have been analyzed for the characteristics of international blockchain technology standards and industry application standards.Through data analysis,the overlaps,differences and conflicts in the field of international blockchain standard formulation are sorted out,and suggestions for blockchain standardization work in the application and development of blockchain technology standardization by international organizations and industries are put forward.The plans and layouts of future international standards are summarized to help the development of the international standardization of blockchain.

虚拟货币与区块链技术的应用研究

虚拟货币通过复杂的计算机技术将真实货币虚拟化,用数字符号代替实物货币。相较传统的中心化金融支付模式,区块链技术能够更快速、更高效和低成本地解决信用认证问题。我国首个区块链联盟——China Ledger联盟是分布式总账基础协议联盟,在金融科技初创公司的投资下开始多方面地研究区块链技术。本文概述了虚拟货币的概念、特征,并介绍了区块链技术的特点、操作流程及国内外对区块链的应用,以供行业参考。

Leveraging Blockchain with Optimal Deep Learning-Based Drug Supply Chain Management for Pharmaceutical Industries

Due to its complexity and involvement of numerous stakeholders,the pharmaceutical supply chain presents many challenges that companies must overcome to deliver necessary medications to patients efficiently.The pharmaceutical supply chain poses different challenging issues,encompasses supply chain visibility,cold-chain shipping,drug counterfeiting,and rising prescription drug prices,which can considerably surge out-of-pocket patient costs.Blockchain(BC)offers the technical base for such a scheme,as it could track legitimate drugs and avoid fake circulation.The designers presented the procedure of BC with fabric for creating a secured drug supplychain management(DSCM)method.With this motivation,the study presents a new blockchain with optimal deep learning-enabled DSCM and recommendation scheme(BCODL-DSCMRS)for Pharmaceutical Industries.Firstly,Hyperledger fabric is used for DSC management,enabling effective tracking processes in the smart pharmaceutical industry.In addition,a hybrid deep belief network(HDBN)model is used to suggest the best or top-rated medicines to healthcare providers and consumers.The spotted hyena optimizer(SHO)algorithm is used to optimize the performance of the HDBN model.The design of the HSO algorithm for tuning the HDBN model demonstrates the novelty of the work.The presented model is tested on the UCI repository’s open-access drug reviews database.

Fair-News: Digital Journalism Model to Prevent Information Pollution and Manipulation

As digital data circulation increases,information pollution and manipulation in journalism have become more prevalent.In this study,a new digital journalism model is designed to contribute to the solution of the main current problems,such as information pollution,manipulation,and account-ability in digital journalism.The model uses blockchain technology due to its transparency,immutability,and traceability.However,it is tough to provide the mechanisms necessary for journalism,such as updating one piece of information,instantly updating all other information affected by the updated information,establishing logical relationships between news,making quick comparisons,sorting and indexing news,and keeping the changing informa-tion about the news in the system,with the blockchain data structure.For this reason,in our study,we have developed a new data structure that provides both the immutability,transparency and traceability properties of the blockchain and can support the communication mechanisms necessary for journalism.The functionality of our proposed data structure is demonstrated in terms of communication mechanisms such as mutability,context,consistency,and reliability through example scenarios.Additionally,our data structure is compared with the data structure of blockchain technology in terms of time,space,and maintenance costs.Accordingly,while the model size increases linearly in blockchain,the model’s size remains approximately constant since the structure we developed is data-independent.In this way,maintenance costs are reduced.Since our model also has an indexing mechanism,it reduces the linear time search complexity to logarithmic time.As a result,the data structure we developed is found to have higher performance than blockchain in the journalism concept.In future studies,it is planned to test all aspects of the model with a pilot application,eliminate its shortcomings,and develop a holistic approach to the root causes of the problems in the journalism focus.

Markets in crypto‑assets regulation:Does it provide legal certainty and increase adoption of crypto‑assets?

This study discusses the European Union’s proposal for a Regulation on Markets in Crypto-Assets,now subject to formal approval by the European Parliament.The objective is to explore whether it will positively impact the adoption of crypto-assets in the financial sector.The use of crypto-assets is growing.However,some stakeholders in the financial service sector remain skeptical and hesitant to adopt assets that are yet to be defined and have an unclear legal status.This regulatory uncertainty has been identified as the primary reason for the reluctant adoption.The proposed regulation(part of the EU’s Digital Finance Strategy)aims to provide this legal certainty for currently unregulated crypto-assets.This study investigates whether or not the proposed regulation can be expected to have the intended effect by reviewing the proposed regulation itself,the opinions and reactions of the various stakeholders,and secondary literature.Findings reveal that such regulation will most likely not accelerate the adoption of crypto-assets in the EU financial services sector,at least not sufficiently or as intended.Some suggestions are made to improve the proposal.

Blockchain and IIoT Enabled Solution for Social Distancing and Isolation Management to Prevent Pandemics

Pandemics have always been a nightmare for humanity,especially in developing countries.Forced lockdowns are considered one of the effective ways to deal with spreading such pandemics.Still,developing countries cannot afford such solutions because these may severely damage the country’s econ-omy.Therefore,this study presents the proactive technological mechanisms for business organizations to run their standard business processes during pandemic-like situations smoothly.The novelty of this study is to provide a state-of-the-art solution to prevent pandemics using industrial internet of things(IIoT)and blockchain-enabled technologies.Compared to existing studies,the immutable and tamper-proof contact tracing and quarantine management solution is proposed.The use of advanced technologies and information security is a critical area for practitioners in the internet of things(IoT)and corresponding solutions.Therefore,this study also emphasizes information security,end-to-end solution,and experimental results.Firstly,a wearable wristband is proposed,incorporating 4G-enabled ultra-wideband(UWB)technology for smart contact tracing mechanisms in industries to comply with standard operating procedures outlined by the world health organization(WHO).Secondly,distributed ledger technology(DLT)omits the centralized dependency for transmitting contact tracing data.Thirdly,a privacy-preserving tracing mechanism is discussed using a public/private key cryptography-based authentication mechanism.Lastly,based on geofencing techniques,blockchain-enabled machine-to-machine(M2M)technology is proposed for quarantine management.The step-by-step methodology and test results are proposed to ensure contact tracing and quarantine management.Unlike existing research studies,the security aspect is also considered in the realm of blockchain.The practical implementation of the proposed solution also obtains the results.The results indicate the successful implementation of blockchain-enabled contact tracing and isolation management using IoT and geo-fencing techniques,which could help battle pandemic situations.Researchers can also consider the 5G-enabled narrowband internet of things(NB-IoT)technologies to implement contact tracing solutions.

An Interoperability Cross-Block Chain Framework for Secure Transactions in IoT

The purpose of this research is to deal with effective block chain framework for secure transactions.The rate of effective data transactions and the interoperability of the ledger are the two major obstacles involved in Blockchain and to tackle this issue,Cross-Chain based Transaction(CCT)is introduced.Traditional industries have been restructured by the introduction of Internet of Things(IoT)to become smart industries through the feature of data-driven decision-making.Still,there are a few limitations,like decentralization,security vulnerabilities,poor interoperability,as well as privacy concerns in IoTs.To overcome this limitation,Blockchain has been employed to assure a safer transaction process,especially in asset exchanges.In recent decades,scalable local ledgers implement Blockchains,simultaneously sustaining peer validations of transactions which can be at local or global levels.From the single Hyperledger-based blockchains system,the CCT takes the transaction amid various chains.In addition,the most significant factor for this registration processing strategy is the Signature to ensure security.The application of the Quantum cryptographic algorithm amplifies the proposed Hyperledger-based blockchains,to strengthen the safety of the process.The key has been determined by restricting the number of transactions that reach the global Blockchain using the quantum-based hash function and accomplished by scalable local ledgers,and peer validations of transactions at local and global levels without any issues.The rate of transaction processing for entire peers has enhanced with the ancillary aid of the proposed solution,as it includes the procedure of load distribution.Without any boosted enhancement,the recommended solution utilizes the current transaction strategy,and also,it’s aimed at scalability,resource conservation,and interoperability.The experimental results of the system have been evaluated using the metrics like block weight,ledger memory,the usage of the central processing unit,and the communication overhead.

BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGIES AND APPLICATIONS

Blockchain is a technology that uses community validation to synchronize the content of ledgers replicated by multiple users.Although Blockchain derives its origins from technologies introduced decades ago,recently it has received an astonishing amount of attention in both academic and industry due to its charac-teristics of decentralization,point-to-point transmission,transparency,traceability,non-tampering,and data security.Both researchers and practitioners have recognized that Blockchain can be used to solve complex technical or socio-economic problems.

The Role of Blockchain in Cyber Security

2021 Cyber security breaches are on the rise globally.Due to the introduction of legislation like the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation(GDPR),companies are now subject to further financial penalties if they fail to meet requirements in protecting user information.In 2018,75%of CEOs and board members considered cyber security and technology acquisitions among their top priorities,and blockchain based solutions were among the most considered options.Blockchain is a decentralised structure that offers multiple security benefits over traditional,centralised network architec­tures.These two approaches are compared in this chapter in areas such as data storage,the Internet of Things(IoT)and Domain Name System(DNS)in order to determine blockchain’s potential in the future of cyber security.

A Blockchain-Based Authentication Protocol for WLAN Mesh Security Access

In order to deploy a secure WLAN mesh network,authentication of both users and APs is needed,and a secure authentication mechanism should be employed.However,some additional configurations of trusted third party agencies are still needed on-site to deploy a secure authentication system.This paper proposes a new block chain-based authentication protocol for WLAN mesh security access,to reduce the deployment costs and resolve the issues of requiring key delivery and central server during IEEE 802.11X authentication.This method takes the user’s authentication request as a transaction,considers all the authentication records in the mesh network as the public ledger and realizes the effective monitoring of the malicious attack.Finally,this paper analyzes the security of the protocol in detail,and proves that the new method can solve the dependence of the authentication node on PKI and CA.

Overview of business innovations and research opportunities in blockchain and introduction to the special issue

Blockchain has become a new frontier of venture capitals that has attracted the attention of banks,governments,and other business corporations.The recent blockchain related attempts included legal blockchains by Fadada.com and Microsoft and pork tracking blockchains by Walmart and IBM.Blockchain is poised to become the most exciting invention after the Internet;while the latter connects the world to enable new business models based on online business processes,the former will help resolve the trust issue more efficiently via network computing.In this paper,we give an overview on blockchain research and development as well as introduce the papers in this special issue.We show that while blockchain has enabled Bitcoin,the most successful digital currency,its widespread adoption in finance and other business sectors will lead to many business innovations as well as many research opportunities.

A systematic literature review of blockchain cyber security

Since the publication of Satoshi Nakamoto's white paper on Bitcoin in 2008,blockchain has(slowly)become one of the most frequently discussed methods for securing data storage and transfer through decentralized,trustless,peer-to-peer systems.This research identifies peer-reviewed literature that seeks to utilize blockchain for cyber security purposes and presents a systematic analysis of the most frequently adopted blockchain security applications.Our findings show that the Internet of Things(IoT)lends itself well to novel blockchain applications,as do networks and machine visualization,public-key cryptography,web applications,certification schemes and the secure storage of Personally Identifiable Information(PII).This timely systematic review also sheds light on future directions of research,education and practices in the blockchain and cyber security space,such as security of blockchain in IoT,security of blockchain for AI data,and sidechain security.

Tracing manufacturing processes using blockchain-based token compositions

Supply chain traceability is one of the most promising use cases to benefit from characteristics of blockchain,such as decentralization,immutability and transparency,not required to build prior trust relationships among entities.A plethora of supply chain traceability solutions based on blockchain has been proposed recently.However,current systems are limited to tracing simple goods that have not been part of the manufacturing process.We recommend a method that allows for the traceability of manufactured goods,including their components.Products are represented using non-fungible digital tokens that are created on a blockchain for each batch of manufactured products.To create a link between a product and the components that are needed to produce it,we propose“token recipes”that define the amount of tokenized goods required for minting a new token.As input tokens are automatically and transparently consumed when creating a product token,the physical process of producing a new item out of existing components is projected onto the ledger.This ultimately leads to the complete traceability of goods,including the origin of inputs.Evaluating the performance of the system,we show that a prototypical implementation for the Ethereum Virtual Machine(EVM)scales linearly with the amount of the input and goods tracked.

区块链技术初探及展望

区块链技术作为比特币的支撑平台,其价值被不断挖掘和发现。甚至有人认为区块链技术将是网络世界的一个革命性进步。通过它可以完美解决陌生参与者的信任问题,也使得通过网络的交易更加可靠、可信和便捷。理论上,任何涉及信息交换的过程,都可以用区块链进行管理和追踪。一方面欧美纳斯达克、纽交所、伦敦交易所等著名金融机构投入巨大的开发资源,另一方面以高盛、瑞士银行、花旗银行等五十多家银行为代表开始了区块链研究及相关金融创新应用。同时一些国际著名公司,如IBM、微软等也逐渐开放其区块链开发平台接口。区块链的开发已经在大大提速,可以说是日新月异。本文将从区块链设计的技术入手,探讨区块链的特点和优势,进而对它的应用可能进行展望。

Distributed ledger technology for securities clearing and settlement: benefits, risks, and regulatory implications

This article outlines the benefits and risks of the distributed ledger technology(DLT)for the clearing and settlement of exchange-traded and OTC securities,followed by a description of the technology’s potential role for central counterparties and central securities depositories.Although the industry and scholars are attempting to solve the technological and operational issues that DLT systems still face,outstanding legal risks are such that the financial industry is asking for more regulatory guidance and intervention.This article wants to contribute to the public policy debate by presenting potential regulatory barriers that may have to be removed for DLT to be fully adopted.In addition,it identifies areas requiring an update of the legal framework in order to address certain prudential and conduct risks that this technology could introduce.

Blockchain in Smart Cities: Exploring Possibilities in Terms of Opportunities and Challenges

The ultimate aim of a smart city is to enhance the quality of life for its residents and businesses through modern technologies in order to reduce resource deterioration and maintain overall costs. From this perspective, blockchain is one of these technologies that has received much attention during the recent years as it offers new alternatives for individuals and institutions in the smart city context. This study aims to explore the potential and contribution of blockchain in smart cities by studying and reviewing the literature of scientific research on the concept and fundamentals of blockchain, involving its most practical applications. In addition, it summarizes worldwide examples of success in using blockchain as well as exploring the challenges and opportunities related to this technology in smart cities. Thus, this study provides a useful reference for researchers to review all about the new blockchain technology.

Privacy-preserving analytics for the securitization market: a zero-knowledge distributed ledger technology application

A zero-knowledge proof or protocol is a cryptographic technique for verifying private data without revealing it in its clear form.In this paper,we evaluate the potential for zero-knowledge distributed ledger technology to alleviate asymmetry of information in the asset-backed securitization market.To frame this inquiry,we conducted market data analyses,a review of prior literature,stakeholder interviews with investors,originators and security issuers and collaboration with blockchain engineers and researchers.We introduce a new system which could enable all market participants in the securitization lifecycle(e.g.investors,rating agencies,regulators and security issuers)to interact on a unique decentralized platform while maintaining the privacy of loan-level data,therefore providing the industry with timely analytics and performance data.Our platform is powered by zkLedger(Narula et al.2018),a zero-knowledge protocol developed by the MIT Media Lab and the first system that enables participants of a distributed ledger to run publicly verifiable analytics on masked data.