Below you can find research papers submitted published by our community. These documents range from highly technical to more business overviews. Most of them were published at conferences or online. We do not review them, solely want to show the breath of interest and inspire others to investigate our tools and frameworks. If you have a paper you wrote, and would like to see it here, please email mpiekarska@linuxfoundation.org.
Zero-Knowledge Proof: Verifying Blockchain Transactions with Less Risk
Zero-knowledge proof is a method of verification, which enables one party to prove to another party that they know a certain secret value without revealing the information itself. Businesses that are sensitive to risk may find this approach useful when adopting blockchain.
The document explains:
- the definition and criteria for ZKP
- the general structure and computational model of ZKP
- noninteractive ZKP
- use cases for ZKP
- examples of ZKP usage in existing decentralized technologies (such as Ethereum)
Additionally, this research paper features 25 diagrams that help to understand the concepts surrounding ZKP and also illustrate how different applications make use it to add data privacy.
Developing a Log Storage System using Hyperledger
Hyperledger is one of the most promising blockchains that provide easy-to-use smart contract functionalities. With the help of IBM and Sovrin foundation, more and more developers and consumers start to adopt HyperLedger to serve their business purposes. In 2018, a team from a Chinese company Humsen Inc. published a paper at the international conference IEEE ICSESS 2018. The research paper was on how to develop a log storage system Medusa using Hyperledger technologies.
Web logs and audit logs are two most common log types in real world enterprises and institutes. The safety and accuracy of log data is of crucial importance to data users. Unlike legacy data management systems, Hyperledger based log system provides tamper-proof and decentralized log keeping system that are immune to a high proportion of Byzantine nodes in the distributed system. Medusa provides data query and appending functionalities. Compared with log storage system proposals based on other systems such as ETH , Hyperledger-based log storage system has a huge advantage in regard of throughput and latency. This is what has made blockchain powered log system one step closer to commercialization.
The research project was led by Chief Scientist Hao Wang at Humsen Inc. The paper could be found at https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8663935.
- Blockchain Technologies for the Internet of Things: Research Issues and Challenges
This paper presents a comprehensive survey of the existing blockchain protocols for the Internet of Things (IoT) networks. We start by describing the blockchains and summarizing the existing surveys that deal with blockchain technologies. Then, we provide an overview of the application domains of blockchain technologies in IoT, e.g, Internet of Vehicles, Internet of Energy, Internet of Cloud, Fog computing, etc. Moreover, we provide a classification of threat models, which are considered by blockchain protocols in IoT networks, into five main categories, namely, identity-based attacks, manipulation- based attacks, cryptanalytic attacks, reputation-based attacks, and service-based attacks. In addition, we provide a taxonomy and a side-by-side comparison of the state-of-the-art methods towards secure and privacy-preserving blockchain technologies with respect to the blockchain model, specific security goals, performance, limitations, computation complexity, and commu- nication overhead. Based on the current survey, we highlight open research challenges and discuss possible future research directions in the blockchain technologies for IoT
The Paper can be found at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8543246/ On the design of a Blockchain-based system to facilitate Healthcare Data Sharing
Blockchain technology though originally designed for keeping financial ledgers, recently has found applications in many different fields including healthcare. Sharing healthcare data for research purposes will boost research innovation in this area. That being said, healthcare data sharing raises many privacy and security issues for the Patients who share their data. In this work, we present the potential of Blockchain technology to facilitate (i) private and auditable healthcare data sharing and (ii) healthcare data access permission handling by proposing a blockchain-based system architecture design.
The Paper can be found at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8456059Using Blockchains to Strengthen the Security of Internet of Things
Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that became popular as the foundational block of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. Over the past few years it has seen a rapid growth, both in terms of research and commercial usage. Due to its decentralized nature and its inher- ent use of cryptography, Blockchain provides an elegant solution to the Byzantine Generals Problem and is thus a good candidate for use in areas that require a decentralized consensus among untrusted peers, eliminat- ing the need for a central authority. Internet of Things is a technology paradigm where a multitude of small devices, including sensors, actua- tors and RFID tags, are interconnected via a common communications medium to enable a whole new range of tasks and applications. However, existing IoT installations are often vulnerable and prone to security and privacy concerns. This paper studies the use of Blockchain to strengthen the security of IoT networks through a resilient, decentralized mecha- nism for the connected home that enhances the network self-defense by safeguarding critical security-related data. This mechanism is developed as part of the Safe-Guarding Home IoT Environments with Personalised Real-time Risk Control (GHOST) project/
The Paper can be found at: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-95189-8_9- Master thesis Blockchain for Change, An exploratory research on the potential of blockchain technology to create more sustainable global value chains
This research, therefore, explores the claimed potential of blockchain technology as a technical solution to address the wicked sustainability problems in the global value chains. In addition to research on existing literature, a qualitative, exploratory research design is applied, to explore and generate in-depth and rich information, for which a Delphi study is used. The sample is selected through purposive sampling, which assures to provide a wide range of information based on varying experiences and perspectives from experts on the research question. In order to create a complete picture of this subject, the study critically assesses the possibilities and limitations of both conventional sustainability standards and blockchain technology encountered among various global value chains, which are identified in the research.
Download directly: When GDPR becomes real, and Blockchain is no longer Fairy Dust
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), enacted by the European Parliament in 2016, was designed to give users more control and rights over their personal data. Companies and governments will find it increasingly difficult to be GDPR compliant with current industry practices. Following the implementation date of May 25, 2018, managing data will be both toxic and expensive. Many precious resources will be required for improving and maintaining the security, privacy, and governance of personal data. Methods for storing less personal data will ease the burden of GDPR compliance. This document describes the GDPR requirements and the different approaches to digital identity solutions and finally explains why distributed ledger technology may offer an opportunity for enterprises to simplify data management solutions that are GDPR compliant.
The paper can be found here: https://github.com/WebOfTrustInfo/rebooting-the-web-of-trust-fall2017/blob/master/final-documents/gdpr.pdfBlock by Block
This report compares nine distributed ledger platforms on nearly 30 metrics related to the capabilities and the health of each platform. The analysis looks at a broad range of indicators -- both direct and indirect -- with the goal of synthesizing trends and patterns that define the market leaders.
We compare each of the systems on a variety of criteria. The criteria are grouped into three categories:
- Technical Structure & Feature Set
- Business Considerations
- Health Indicators
For each category, we examine a variety of largely objective metrics in hopes of being able to draw some meaningful comparisons that will provide you with firm ground for making an assessment of suitability for purpose.
The final section of this paper discusses in detail the conclusions reached in this report. The most significant conclusions being:
- Ethereum is the clear leader in the public blockchain space, with broad support and a large number of resources and developers.
- Corda and Fabric lead in the private blockchain space, with Fabric benefitting from the backing of Hyperledger and IBM.
- NXT is a project of some concern, whose future seems in doubt.
- Quorum, after a strong start, has slowed and appears to be going through some changes that bear watching.
This paper was produced by Mercy Corps’ Technology for Development team which cultivates the innovative application of leading edge technology to make global humanitarian and development work more effective and efficient. This analysis seeks to enable users to harness the power of distributed ledger technologies for social good.
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