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.
Read the Full Report ▸- In Serbian:
Blockchain distribuirani sistemi i njihova primena u farmaceutskoj industriji
Download Paper: - In Serbian:
Blockchain дистрибуирани системи и њихова примјена у индустрији видео игара
Download Paper: An Application of Blockchain Distributed Systems for Supply Chains in the Pharmaceutical Industry
This paper describes an application, built on top of the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain framework, for efficient and reliable support of the supply chain in the pharmaceutical industry. The presented application showcases how blockchain’s immutable ledger, peer-to-peer (P2P) network, consensus algorithms, and smart contracts all combine and synergize to create a secure, reliable, auditable, and cheaper way of performing business. The application is developed on the Proof of Concept (PoC) level, using the Hyperledger Composer framework. It enables communication with a private Hyperledger Fabric network via Create, Read, Update, and Delete (CRUD) operations. The developed PoC shows that the use of the Hyperledger Composer framework allows simple creation of business networks which include participants, assets, transactions, and relationships between these entities. Our research shows that Hyperledger Composer significantly reduces the amount of time needed to develop a Hyperledger Fabric blockchain-based software solution. However, for more customized approaches, the Hyperledger Fabric platform needs to be used directly on the infrastructure level. When using Fabric, smart contracts are written on the lower level of abstraction, using the Go programming language, instead of the high-level JavaScript code used in Composer. Plans for future work include implementing the solution directly on the Hyperledger Fabric platform, as well as extending the available functionalities of the application to cover an even wider set of use cases.
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A Model-Driven Approach to Establishment of Private Blockchain Business Networks
In this research, we aim to resolve challenges related to custom BN modeling, development, and disposition to cloud execution platforms. Accordingly, the first goal of this research is to introduce a model-driven approach in order to address: (i) the BN modeling challenges, by providing a DSL as a formal modeling technique; and (ii) the development and disposition challenges, by using the BN DSL specification for generating all the required BN code constructs, so it can be deployed to the target cloud execution environment. By doing this, we first want to increase the abstraction level of specifying a custom BN, in order to enable various blockchain domain experts to develop their BNs even they are not familiar with concrete PBC development frameworks. In this way, we also want to eliminate protentional errors caused by the need for specifying repetitive configuration parameters and boilerplate code constructs. Second, our goal is to ease the process of custom BN specification and development in practice, make it less dependent from the specific CVs or development teams and therefore less time-consuming. Third, we want to decrease the development and testing costs in order to enable various individuals and organizations to dispose their custom BNs to cloud execution platforms without the need for using expensive BCaaS. We also consider this as a big step towards expanding the PBC development community, while at the same time enabling great ideas and projects to reach the production readiness more quickly.
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Boosting Transition to Paperless Trade – Mapping Traditional Trade Contracts to Smart Contracts
Distributed ledger technology (DLT), alongside smart contracts, is seen with hope by many actors involved in international trade as a new opportunity to further facilitate and digitalize international trade transactions. In order to mitigate deficiencies of the current legislation, and to avoid pitfalls that limited digitalization of trade in previous decades, a carefully planned transition needs to be conducted. For this reason, we built a solution that eases the transition to paperless by allowing for unobtrusive coexistence of traditional trading contracts and corresponding smart contracts running on the blockchain. Coexistence is achieved by automatically translating relevant trade terms and conditions specified in traditional trading contracts to the corresponding logic implemented in smart contracts.
- Shared Lifecycle Management
Keeping Internet Things up to date and healthy requires a team effort – it is not the sole responsibility of a single stakeholder in the IoT value chain and accounting for who needs to perform what action at what time is a significant challenge. Thing Makers, System Integrators, Owners, Operators and Auditors may all have a role to play in maintaining Internet Things and Jitsuin connects these stakeholders with blockchain technology to reach agreement on the state of Things at any given instant. With that shared knowledge they can make faster, better decisions. Jitsuin Shared Device Lifecycle Assurance can track any type of Internet Thing – from security hardened microcontrollers to general purpose embedded computers. Understanding the provenance and lifecycle of Things enables clean and truthful data for man or machine to act with assured intelligence. Shared Device Lifecycle Assurance enables higher levels of trust in data from Things. Higher trust means more value in data to fund the maintenance of Things. Sustainably funded maintenance keeps Things producing truthful data. A virtuous circle completes to keep Things in service longer and reduce electronics waste. Jitsuin is independent of chip architecture, chipset, device maker, and IoT platform and records data about Things, which enables stakeholders to build consensus in their IoT value chains. IoT data marketplaces will only function with clean data. Now more than ever, a record of how Things were born secure and maintained throughout their lifetime is the meta-information that’s needed to trust the IoT.
Full Paper here: Download Paper