Decentralized Documentation of Maritime Traffic Incidents to Support Conflict Resolution
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Authors of this paper presented an approach for dynamically establishing a common basis of trust based on a Time Stamping Authority that signs the recorded data of each party cryptographically. The presented concept seems to be good, however, authors need to take the following points into account:
1. The Abstract section is ambiguous. I suggest to rewrite the Abstract.
2. Add a paper layout paragraph in Section 1.
3. I suggest to compare your developed system with the existing developed systems in the same area.
4. The paper requires proofreading.
5. In the Summary and Conclusion Section, the First paragraph consists of almost 29 lines. I suggest to either summarize this paragraph or divide it to at least 3 paragraphs.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 1, thank you for your constructive and positive feedback. We have taken all your suggestions into account during the revision of our paper. You can find our point-by-point listing below:
Point 1: The Abstract section is ambiguous. I suggest to rewrite the Abstract.
Response 1: The authors agree with Reviewer 1. The abstract has been completely rewritten and now focuses on the problem statement of the paper and the need for a trustworthy documentation of critical traffic situations. In addition, the developed approach is briefly described.
Point 2: Add a paper layout paragraph in Section 1.
Response 2: In the revised version, a "paper layout paragraph" has now been added to section 1 (line 70 – 80). The added paragraph describes the structure of the paper and briefly addresses the content of each section.
Point 3: I suggest to compare your developed system with the existing developed systems in the same area.
Response 3: The authors agree with Reviewer 1. A section was added to the paper in which existing approaches (Voyage Data Recorder, Logbook, ...) are compared with the developed approach with respect to relevant criteria for a trustworthy documentation of maritime incidents (line 815-861). The individual strengths and weaknesses of each approach are elaborated and weighed against each other.
Point 4: The paper requires proofreading.
Response 4: The authors agree with Reviewer 1. First, the paper was carefully read and revised by all authors. Then the paper was proofread by a native speaker and corrected regarding grammar and spelling. In this process, many spelling- and grammatical mistakes were identified and corrected. Some nested sentences were divided into separate sentences so that it is now easier to follow the content of the paper.
Point 5: In the Summary and Conclusion Section, the First paragraph consists of almost 29 lines. I suggest to either summarize this paragraph or divide it to at least 3 paragraphs.
Response 5: As suggested by Reviewer 1, the corresponding paragraph in Section 6 has been divided into three separate paragraphs.
Reviewer 2 Report
There is little research in the use of TSA in maritime and with the application of decentralization. TSA will probably be cheaper than blockchain, as you mention. Still, no technology is immune from hacking, including hacking servers and certificate-issuing bodies.
Seems well written and novel.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 2, thank you for the positive feedback on our paper! We could not find any further suggestions in the reviewer's comment that we could include in our paper.
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors in this paper developed a registration of decentralized documentation of maritime traffic incidents to support conflict resolution. However, I have some considerations that if they are answered, it can improve the manuscript:
1. In the line 400 authors write about use of all IPs participants, that must be known by everyone, but in the paper absent information how will be worked developed system, if by participants will be used VPN connection or will braked connection and connected late.
2. On the figure some place are absent arrows, therefore sometimes it difficult to understand about information flow and some place on the blocks are absent sings such as true/false.
3. In the section "5.2. Evaluation Scenario", authors proposed to use SmartKai with LiDAR sensors, and tidal, weather and visibility information. In the paper are absent information about technical parameters of this equipment, therefore it can not estimate precision and reaction on the any disturbance.
With best regards,
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 3, thank you for your constructive and positive feedback. We have taken all your suggestions into account during the revision of our paper. You can find our point-by-point listing below:
Point 1: In the line 400 authors write about use of all IPs participants, that must be known by everyone, but in the paper absent information how will be worked developed system, if by participants will be used VPN connection or will braked connection and connected late.
Response 1: The authors agree with Reviewer 3. Therefore, a paragraph has been added to chapter 4.1. explaining what happens if the IP address cannot be shared or if there is currently no Internet connection available (lines 452 - 458).
Point 2: On the figure some place are absent arrows, therefore sometimes it difficult to understand about information flow and some place on the blocks are absent sings such as true/false..
Response 2: The authors agree with Reviewer 3. All illustrations in the paper have been carefully checked. Figures 1, 3, 4, 5 and 7 were revised. As suggested, missing arrows for information flow and missing "true/false" labels were added. In addition, individual mathematical expressions were also clarified (cf. Figure 4) and endpoints for the information flow were added (Figure 1).
Point 3: In the section "5.2. Evaluation Scenario", authors proposed to use SmartKai with LiDAR sensors, and tidal, weather and visibility information. In the paper are absent information about technical parameters of this equipment, therefore it can not estimate precision and reaction on the any disturbance.
Response 3: The authors agree with Reviewer 3. Further technical details about the sensors (e.g., AIS, LiDAR, Tidal, Visibility, …) of the SmartKai testbed have been added. In addition, the technical specifications of the machines used for the evaluation have been included in order to better comprehend the measured performance of the approach.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Authors have completed almost all the required corrections.
Authors need to add a symbol key for symbols used in Table 3, where authors used the following symbols (+, -, o) and they didn't add a symbol key for the used symbols. Therefore, I suggest adding a symbol key to let the reader understand the purpose of using the above symbols.
Reviewer 3 Report
Paper was corrected in line with review. It can be accepted in the present form.
