Research

24 pages, 496 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Proof of Fairness: Dynamic and Secure Consensus Protocol for Blockchain

by Abdulrahman Alamer and Basem Assiri

Electronics 2024, 13(6), 1056; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics13061056 - 12 Mar 2024

Viewed by 481

Blockchain technology is a decentralized and secure paradigm for data processing, sharing, and storing. It relies on consensus protocol for all decisions, which focuses on computational and resource capability. For example, proof of work (PoW) and proof of stake (PoS) are the most [...] Read more.

Blockchain technology is a decentralized and secure paradigm for data processing, sharing, and storing. It relies on consensus protocol for all decisions, which focuses on computational and resource capability. For example, proof of work (PoW) and proof of stake (PoS) are the most famous consensus protocols that are currently used. However, these current consensus protocols are required to recruit a node with a high computational or a large amount of cryptocurrency to act as a miner node and to generate a new block. Unfortunately, these PoW and PoS protocols could be impractical for adoption in today’s technological fields, such as the Internet of Things and healthcare. In addition, these protocols are susceptible to flexibility, security, and fairness issues, as they are discussed in detail in this work. Therefore, this paper introduces a proof of fairness (PoF) as a dynamic and secure consensus protocol for enhancing the mining selection process. The selection of the miner node is influenced by numerous factors, including the time required to generate a block based on the transaction’s sensitivity. Firstly, a reverse auction mechanism is designed as an incentive mechanism to encourage all nodes to participate in the miner selection process. In a reverse auction, each node will draw its strategy based on its computational capability and claimed cost. Secondly, an expressive language is developed to categorize transaction types based on their sensitivity to processing time, ensuring compatibility with our miner selection process. Thirdly, a homomorphic concept is designed as a security and privacy scheme to protect the bidder’s data confidentiality. Finally, an extensive evaluation involving numerical analysis was carried out to assess the efficiency of the suggested PoF protocol, which confirms that the proposed PoF is dynamic and more efficient than current PoW and PoS consensus protocols. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Blockchain Technology and Its Applications)

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29 pages, 11448 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Double-Blind Trial Platform Based on Distributed Ledger Technology

by Yi-Hong Yeh, Sheng-Chun Hsueh and Tyng-Yeu Liang

Electronics 2024, 13(1), 132; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics13010132 - 28 Dec 2023

Viewed by 800

Abstract

In the pharmaceutical research and development process, the third phase of clinical trials involves double-blind trials to mitigate the influence of human subjective awareness on the experimental results and ensure the efficacy and safety of drugs or vaccines. However, conventional double-blind trials are [...] Read more.

In the pharmaceutical research and development process, the third phase of clinical trials involves double-blind trials to mitigate the influence of human subjective awareness on the experimental results and ensure the efficacy and safety of drugs or vaccines. However, conventional double-blind trials are often overseen by a single institution responsible for the entire trial process. Researchers centrally manage data, introducing risks of data loss and tampering. Furthermore, since researchers have full access to all experimental data, there is a potential for premature unblinding and leakage of results to specific individuals, giving rise to bias and conflicts of interest. To address these problems, this paper proposes a distributed-ledger-based double-blind trial platform called “BlindBox”. This platform leverages the immutability and decentralization of distributed ledgers to enhance the security of experimental data. On the other hand, the platform employs smart contracts to restrict personnel’s access to experimental data, coupled with RFID technology to encode and shuffle the experimental drugs discreetly. This ensures that no one can ascertain the pairing between test subjects and drug groups, preventing collusion and result manipulation. When the trial period concludes, smart contracts automatically unblind the results and publish them on the IOTA platform. By utilizing IOTA’s zero-value transactions, the platform reduces the cost of repeated data access and ensures information openness and transparency. This approach prevents deliberate premature unblinding or insider trading stemming from monopolized information. The platform proposed in this study is expected to enhance the credibility and accuracy of double-blind trials while promoting the willingness and convenience of public participation in experiments. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Blockchain Technology and Its Applications)

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15 pages, 3979 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Blockchain-Assisted Cybersecurity for the Internet of Medical Things in the Healthcare Industry

by Mohammed Saeed Alkatheiri and Ahmed S. Alghamdi

Electronics 2023, 12(8), 1801; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12081801 - 11 Apr 2023

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2230

Abstract

The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) plays an important role in strengthening sustainable healthcare systems. IoMT significantly influences our healthcare because it facilitates monitoring and checking patient medical information before transferring the data to a cloud network for future use. The IoMT is [...] Read more.

The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) plays an important role in strengthening sustainable healthcare systems. IoMT significantly influences our healthcare because it facilitates monitoring and checking patient medical information before transferring the data to a cloud network for future use. The IoMT is a big-data platform which is growing rapidly, so it is critical to maintain all data safely and securely. In this study, Blockchain-Assisted Cybersecurity (BCCS) for the IoMT in the healthcare industry is proposed. Blockchain is a decentralized digital ledger that allows end-to-end communication and provides interaction between untrustworthy persons. BCCS uses a conventional in-depth approach and blockchain to create a procedure for collecting medical information from the IoMT and integrated devices. The proposed system utilizes blockchain to record and extract the accumulated information in a secure and distributed manner within a closed environment suitable for healthcare professionals, such as nursing homes, hospitals, and the healthcare industry where data exchange is needed. The experimental outcomes show that the proposed system has a high security rate of 99.8% and the lowest latency rate of 4.3% compared to traditional approaches. In all, the reliability of the proposed system gives the highest rate of 99.4%. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Blockchain Technology and Its Applications)

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23 pages, 734 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Improved Multi-Authority Attribute Access Control Scheme Base on Blockchain and Elliptic Curve for Efficient and Secure Data Sharing

by Ben Xie, Yu-Ping Zhou, Xin-Yu Yi and Chen-Ye Wang

Electronics 2023, 12(7), 1691; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12071691 - 03 Apr 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1320

Abstract

With the rapid development of Internet of Things technology, sharing data safely and efficiently in different Internet of Things enterprises is becoming increasingly urgent. Traditional schemes usually use third-party centralized cloud storage and a single central authoritative organization to realize data storage and [...] Read more.

With the rapid development of Internet of Things technology, sharing data safely and efficiently in different Internet of Things enterprises is becoming increasingly urgent. Traditional schemes usually use third-party centralized cloud storage and a single central authoritative organization to realize data storage and access management during data sharing. However, this centralized scheme design has the potential for a single point of failure. When the cloud storage platform is subjected to malicious attacks, it may lead to data loss or privacy leakage problems. Secondly, there is a trust crisis in the design of authoritative central organizations, and centralized rights management makes the data sharing process opaque. In order to address these shortcomings, an improved blockchain and elliptic curve-based multi-authority attribute access control scheme is proposed. Firstly, the interplanetary file system is used to store the ciphertext of symmetric encryption data to solve data leakage and tampering in centralized cloud storage. Secondly, the elliptic curve cryptography-based improved multi-authority ciphertext policy attribute-based encryption algorithm is used to encrypt the symmetric key. It can solve the single point of failure problem of user attribute management and significantly reduce the attribute encryption algorithm’s time and resource consumption. Thirdly, the data-related information is uploaded through the smart contract, and the attribute access threshold is set. Only qualified users can view the private information. Finally, the simulation experiments evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of the scheme from three perspectives: data storage, smart contract, and attribute encryption. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Blockchain Technology and Its Applications)

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19 pages, 935 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Managing Expatriate Employment Contracts with Blockchain

by Yazeed Alabdulkarim, Abdulmajeed Alameer, Mohammed Almukaynizi, Nasser Allheeib, Fahad Alkadyan and Abdulaziz Almaslukh

Electronics 2023, 12(7), 1673; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12071673 - 01 Apr 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1815

Abstract

Expatriates, or migrant workers, are employees who work outside their home country and reside in a foreign country for the purpose of work. They are often subject to job fraud, employment contract violations, and poor working conditions. These calamities are mainly due to [...] Read more.

Expatriates, or migrant workers, are employees who work outside their home country and reside in a foreign country for the purpose of work. They are often subject to job fraud, employment contract violations, and poor working conditions. These calamities are mainly due to language barriers, limited legal protection, and feeling inferior in their host countries. Many reports have indicated that minimum working and living standards for expatriates are not as adequately enforced as those for domestic employees. These issues may be elevated with the presence of an employment contract framework, which would enable better enforcement and wider visibility for both workers and employers. Thus, we propose a blockchain-powered framework to represent expatriate employment contracts as digital assets managed by smart contracts. It enables employers to create contracts to which employees agree in a decentralized, tamper-proof, transparent, and traceable manner. This framework facilitates auditability, tracking, and enhanced visibility of expatriate employment contracts and job history verification for both workers and employers. We provide a prototype implementation using the Hyperledger Fabric platform and analyze the framework qualitatively from scalability, efficiency, security, and privacy perspectives. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Blockchain Technology and Its Applications)

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12 pages, 3872 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Blockchain Data Scalability and Retrieval Scheme Based on On-Chain Storage Medium for Internet of Things Data

by Caoyi Yu, Niansong Mei, Chong Du and Haotian Luo

Electronics 2023, 12(6), 1454; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12061454 - 19 Mar 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1594

Abstract

The combination of blockchain and internet of things (IoT) technology realizes reliable storage of IoT data. However, the data stored on the blockchain (on-chain) face the problem of poor scalability and inefficient retrieval. In this paper, the on-chain data scalability schemes based on [...] Read more.

The combination of blockchain and internet of things (IoT) technology realizes reliable storage of IoT data. However, the data stored on the blockchain (on-chain) face the problem of poor scalability and inefficient retrieval. In this paper, the on-chain data scalability schemes based on transactions and smart contracts are first proposed. Subsequently, on the basis of the above on-chain data scalability scheme based on transactions, an on-chain data index based on skip lists is proposed to improve the retrieval efficiency. The experimental results show that both the on-chain data scalability schemes achieve on-chain data scalability while reducing storage overhead. Meanwhile, the on-chain data index based on skip lists has significantly improved dynamic range retrieval efficiency and reduced the time complexity of single data retrieval to O(log(n)). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Blockchain Technology and Its Applications)

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16 pages, 4124 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Blockchain-Based Continuous Knowledge Transfer in Decentralized Edge Computing Architecture

by Wenquan Jin, Yinan Xu, Yilin Dai and Yihu Xu

Electronics 2023, 12(5), 1154; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12051154 - 27 Feb 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1468

Abstract

Edge computing brings computational ability to network edges to enable low latency based on deploying devices close to the environment where the data is generated. Nevertheless, the limitation of size and energy consumption constrain the scalability and performance of edge device applications such [...] Read more.

Edge computing brings computational ability to network edges to enable low latency based on deploying devices close to the environment where the data is generated. Nevertheless, the limitation of size and energy consumption constrain the scalability and performance of edge device applications such as deep learning, although, cloud computing can be adopted to support high-performance tasks with centralized data collection. However, frequently communicating with a central cloud server brings potential risks to security and privacy issues by exposing data on the Internet. In this paper, we propose a secure continuous knowledge transfer approach to improve knowledge by collaborating with multiple edge devices in the decentralized edge computing architecture without a central server. Using blockchain, the knowledge integrity is maintained in the transfer process by recording the transaction information of each knowledge improvement and synchronizing the blockchain in each edge device. The knowledge is a trained deep-learning model that is derived by learning the local data. Using the local data of each edge device, the model is continuously trained to improve performance. Therefore, each improvement is recorded as the contribution of each edge device immutably in the decentralized edge computing architecture. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Blockchain Technology and Its Applications)

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14 pages, 412 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Research of AHP-Based Credit Rating System on a Blockchain Application

by Chao Chen, Hao Huang, Bin Zhao, Desheng Shu and Yu Wang

Electronics 2023, 12(4), 887; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12040887 - 09 Feb 2023

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1547

Abstract

NFT is a kind of virtual token derived from the blockchain. In 2019, the NFT transaction market became a new force in the field of the digital economy, while NFT fraud was also widespread. There is no efficient technology or methods to ensure [...] Read more.

NFT is a kind of virtual token derived from the blockchain. In 2019, the NFT transaction market became a new force in the field of the digital economy, while NFT fraud was also widespread. There is no efficient technology or methods to ensure the authenticity of the source data (which have not been stored on the blockchain yet) on a blockchain traceability system. To solve this problem and to safeguard the rights and interests of members of the blockchain application, we propose a method to measure the user’s credit degree by obtaining the data before it stores on the blockchain. We first analyze some NFT trading markets’ business processes and dealing models. Then, based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) in the operational research theory, some indexes of credit rating have been made. A credit rating system has been established by calculating the evaluation matrix and efficacy coefficient of each index. The experimental results show that the credit evaluation system can be used as a method to judge the user’s credit rating on a blockchain traceability system. This method provides a reference for the decision of whether to restrict the transaction of some users with abnormal behavior. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Blockchain Technology and Its Applications)

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