Jing Tian , Yanqi Zhao , Xiaoyi Yang , Xuan Zhao , Ruonan Chen , Yong Yu
{"title":"Identity-based threshold (multi) signature with private accountability for privacy-preserving blockchain","authors":"Jing Tian , Yanqi Zhao , Xiaoyi Yang , Xuan Zhao , Ruonan Chen , Yong Yu","doi":"10.1016/j.hcc.2024.100271","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.hcc.2024.100271","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Identity-based threshold signature (IDTHS) allows a threshold number of signers to generate signatures to improve the deterministic wallet in the blockchain. However, the IDTHS scheme cannot determine the identity of malicious signers in case of misinformation. To solve this challenge, we propose an identity-based threshold (multi) signature with private accountability (for short AIDTHS) for privacy-preserving blockchain. From the public perspective, AIDTHS is completely private and no user knows who participated in generating the signature. At the same time, when there is a problem with the transaction, a trace entity can trace and be accountable to the signers. We formally define the syntax and security model of AIDTHS. To address the issue of identifying malicious signers, we improve upon traditional identity-based threshold signatures by incorporating zero-knowledge proofs as part of the signature and leveraging a tracer holding tracing keys to identify all signers. Additionally, to protect the privacy of signers, the signature is no longer achievable by anyone, which requires a combiner holding the keys to produce a valid signature. We give a concrete construction of AIDTHS and prove its security. Finally, we implement the AIDTHS scheme and compare it with existing schemes. The key distribution algorithm of AIDTHS takes 34.60 <span><math><mrow><mi>μ</mi><mi>s</mi></mrow></math></span> and the signature algorithm takes 13.04 ms. The verification algorithm takes 1 <span><math><mi>s</mi></math></span>, which is one-third of the time the TAPS scheme uses.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100605,"journal":{"name":"High-Confidence Computing","volume":"4 4","pages":"Article 100271"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142658232","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Akshita Maradapu Vera Venkata Sai , Chenyu Wang , Zhipeng Cai , Yingshu Li
{"title":"Navigating the Digital Twin Network landscape: A survey on architecture, applications, privacy and security","authors":"Akshita Maradapu Vera Venkata Sai , Chenyu Wang , Zhipeng Cai , Yingshu Li","doi":"10.1016/j.hcc.2024.100269","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.hcc.2024.100269","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In recent years, immense developments have occurred in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the spread of broadband and ubiquitous connectivity technologies. This has led to the development and commercialization of Digital Twin (DT) technology. The widespread adoption of DT has resulted in a new network paradigm called Digital Twin Networks (DTNs), which orchestrate through the networks of ubiquitous DTs and their corresponding physical assets. DTNs create virtual twins of physical objects via DT technology and realize the co-evolution between physical and virtual spaces through data processing, computing, and DT modeling. The high volume of user data and the ubiquitous communication systems in DTNs come with their own set of challenges. The most serious issue here is with respect to user data privacy and security because users of most applications are unaware of the data that they are sharing with these platforms and are naive in understanding the implications of the data breaches. Also, currently, there is not enough literature that focuses on privacy and security issues in DTN applications. In this survey, we first provide a clear idea of the components of DTNs and the common metrics used in literature to assess their performance. Next, we offer a standard network model that applies to most DTN applications to provide a better understanding of DTN’s complex and interleaved communications and the respective components. We then shed light on the common applications where DTNs have been adapted heavily and the privacy and security issues arising from the DTNs. We also provide different privacy and security countermeasures to address the previously mentioned issues in DTNs and list some state-of-the-art tools to mitigate the issues. Finally, we provide some open research issues and problems in the field of DTN privacy and security.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100605,"journal":{"name":"High-Confidence Computing","volume":"4 4","pages":"Article 100269"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142532066","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Erratum to “An effective digital audio watermarking using a deep convolutional neural network with a search location optimization algorithm for improvement in Robustness and Imperceptibility” [High-Confid. Comput. 3 (2023) 100153]","authors":"Abhijit J. Patil , Ramesh Shelke","doi":"10.1016/j.hcc.2024.100256","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.hcc.2024.100256","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":100605,"journal":{"name":"High-Confidence Computing","volume":"4 3","pages":"Article 100256"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266729522400059X/pdfft?md5=18080c97db6befa8e3998546b979bd7f&pid=1-s2.0-S266729522400059X-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142315085","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Christopher Morales-Gonzalez , Matthew Harper , Michael Cash , Lan Luo , Zhen Ling , Qun Z. Sun , Xinwen Fu
{"title":"On Building Automation System security","authors":"Christopher Morales-Gonzalez , Matthew Harper , Michael Cash , Lan Luo , Zhen Ling , Qun Z. Sun , Xinwen Fu","doi":"10.1016/j.hcc.2024.100236","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.hcc.2024.100236","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Building Automation Systems (BASs) are seeing increased usage in modern society due to the plethora of benefits they provide such as automation for climate control, HVAC systems, entry systems, and lighting controls. Many BASs in use are outdated and suffer from numerous vulnerabilities that stem from the design of the underlying BAS protocol. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive, up-to-date survey on BASs and attacks against seven BAS protocols including BACnet, EnOcean, KNX, LonWorks, Modbus, ZigBee, and Z-Wave. Holistic studies of secure BAS protocols are also presented, covering BACnet Secure Connect, KNX Data Secure, KNX/IP Secure, ModBus/TCP Security, EnOcean High Security and Z-Wave Plus. LonWorks and ZigBee do not have security extensions. We point out how these security protocols improve the security of the BAS and what issues remain. A case study is provided which describes a real-world BAS and showcases its vulnerabilities as well as recommendations for improving the security of it. We seek to raise awareness to those in academia and industry as well as highlight open problems within BAS security.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":100605,"journal":{"name":"High-Confidence Computing","volume":"4 3","pages":"Article 100236"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667295224000394/pdfft?md5=5f78ccec6343d24a81a3bf545e6ddec0&pid=1-s2.0-S2667295224000394-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141951470","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"SoK: Decentralized Storage Network","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.hcc.2024.100239","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.hcc.2024.100239","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Decentralized Storage Networks (DSNs) represent a paradigm shift in data storage methodology, distributing and housing data across multiple network nodes rather than relying on a centralized server or data center architecture. The fundamental objective of DSNs is to enhance security, reinforce reliability, and mitigate censorship risks by eliminating a single point of failure. Leveraging blockchain technology for functions such as access control, ownership validation, and transaction facilitation, DSN initiatives aim to provide users with a robust and secure alternative to traditional centralized storage solutions. This paper conducts a comprehensive analysis of the developmental trajectory of DSNs, focusing on key components such as Proof of Storage protocols, consensus algorithms, and incentive mechanisms. Additionally, the study explores recent optimization tactics, encountered challenges, and potential avenues for future research, thereby offering insights into the ongoing evolution and advancement within the DSN domain.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":100605,"journal":{"name":"High-Confidence Computing","volume":"4 3","pages":"Article 100239"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667295224000424/pdfft?md5=7bd1b5562f12045079ea7c3064e02e05&pid=1-s2.0-S2667295224000424-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141143993","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exploring Personalized Internet of Things (PIoT), social connectivity, and Artificial Social Intelligence (ASI): A survey","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.hcc.2024.100242","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.hcc.2024.100242","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Pervasive Computing has become more personal with the widespread adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT) in our day-to-day lives. The emerging domain that encompasses devices, sensors, storage, and computing of personal use and surroundings leads to Personal IoT (PIoT). PIoT offers users high levels of personalization, automation, and convenience. This proliferation of PIoT technology has extended into society, social engagement, and the interconnectivity of PIoT objects, resulting in the emergence of the Social Internet of Things (SIoT). The combination of PIoT and SIoT has spurred the need for autonomous learning, comprehension, and understanding of both the physical and social worlds. Current research on PIoT is dedicated to enabling seamless communication among devices, striking a balance between observation, sensing, and perceiving the extended physical and social environment, and facilitating information exchange. Furthermore, the virtualization of independent learning from the social environment has given rise to Artificial Social Intelligence (ASI) in PIoT systems. However, autonomous data communication between different nodes within a social setup presents various resource management challenges that require careful consideration. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the evolving domains of PIoT, SIoT, and ASI. Moreover, the paper offers insightful modeling and a case study exploring the role of PIoT in post-COVID scenarios. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the intricacies of PIoT and its various dimensions, paving the way for further advancements in this transformative field.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":100605,"journal":{"name":"High-Confidence Computing","volume":"4 3","pages":"Article 100242"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266729522400045X/pdfft?md5=b97b12cf0359158d875f2dc4cb6bbd8d&pid=1-s2.0-S266729522400045X-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141138835","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A survey of acoustic eavesdropping attacks: Principle, methods, and progress","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.hcc.2024.100241","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.hcc.2024.100241","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In today’s information age, eavesdropping has been one of the most serious privacy threats in information security, such as exodus spyware (Rudie et al., 2021) and pegasus spyware (Anatolyevich, 2020). And the main one of them is acoustic eavesdropping. Acoustic eavesdropping (George and Sagayarajan, 2023) is a technology that uses microphones, sensors, or other devices to collect and process sound signals and convert them into readable information. Although much research has been done in this area, there is still a lack of comprehensive investigation into the timeliness of this technology, given the continuous advancement of technology and the rapid development of eavesdropping methods. In this article, we have given a selective overview of acoustic eavesdropping, focusing on the methods of acoustic eavesdropping. More specifically, we divide acoustic eavesdropping into three categories: motion sensor-based acoustic eavesdropping, optical sensor-based acoustic eavesdropping, and RF-based acoustic eavesdropping. Within these three representative frameworks, we review the results of acoustic eavesdropping according to the type of equipment they use and the physical principles of each. Secondly, we also introduce several important but challenging applications of these acoustic eavesdropping methods. In addition, we compared the systems that meet the requirements of acoustic eavesdropping in real-world scenarios from multiple perspectives, including whether they are non-intrusive, whether they can achieve unconstrained word eavesdropping, and whether they use machine learning, etc. The general template of our article is as follows: firstly, we systematically review and classify the existing eavesdropping technologies, elaborate on their working mechanisms, and give corresponding formulas. Then, these eavesdropping methods were compared and analyzed, and each method’s effectiveness and technical difficulty were evaluated from multiple dimensions. In addition to an assessment of the current state of the field, we discuss the current shortcomings and challenges and give a fruitful direction for the future of acoustic eavesdropping research. We hope to continue to inspire researchers in this direction.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100605,"journal":{"name":"High-Confidence Computing","volume":"4 4","pages":"Article 100241"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141138505","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"AIDCT: An AI service development and composition tool for constructing trustworthy intelligent systems","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.hcc.2024.100227","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.hcc.2024.100227","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The growing prevalence of AI services on cloud platforms is driving the demand for technologies and tools which enable the integration of multiple AI services to handle intricate tasks. Traditional methods of evaluating intelligent systems focus mainly on the performance of AI components, without providing comprehensive metrics for the system as a whole. Additionally, as these AI components are often sourced from third-party providers, users may face challenges due to inconsistent quality assurance and limitations in further developing AI models, and dealing with third-party service providers’ limitations. These limitations often involve quality assurance and a lack of capability for secondary development and training of services. To address these issues, we have developed a tool based on our previous work. It can autonomously build Intelligent systems from AI services while tackling the issues mentioned above. This tool not only creates service composition solutions that align with user-defined functional requirements and performance metrics but also executes these solutions to verify if the metrics meet user requirements. We have demonstrated the effectiveness of this tool in constructing trustworthy intelligent systems through a series of case studies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100605,"journal":{"name":"High-Confidence Computing","volume":"4 4","pages":"Article 100227"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141028150","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Review of data security within energy blockchain: A comprehensive analysis of storage, management, and utilization","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.hcc.2024.100233","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.hcc.2024.100233","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Energy systems are currently undergoing a transformation towards new paradigms characterized by decarbonization, decentralization, democratization, and digitalization. In this evolving context, energy blockchain, aiming to enhance efficiency, transparency, and security, emerges as an integrated technological solution designed to address the diverse challenges in this field. Data security is essential for the reliable and efficient functioning of energy blockchain. The pressing need to address challenges related to secure data storage, effective data management, and efficient data utilization is increasingly vital. This paper offers a comprehensive survey of academic discourse on energy blockchain data security over the past five years, adopting an all-encompassing perspective that spans data storage, management, and utilization. Our work systematically evaluates and contrasts the strengths and weaknesses of various research methodologies. Additionally, this paper proposes an integrated hierarchical on-chain and off-chain security energy blockchain architecture, specifically designed to meet the complex security requirements of multi-blockchain business environments. Concludingly, this paper identifies key directions for future research, particularly in advancing the integration of storage, management, and utilization of energy blockchain data security.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":100605,"journal":{"name":"High-Confidence Computing","volume":"4 3","pages":"Article 100233"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667295224000369/pdfft?md5=f7e2a4d584d6483c6ca6513239cb3557&pid=1-s2.0-S2667295224000369-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140771830","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Unsupervised machine learning approach for tailoring educational content to individual student weaknesses","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.hcc.2024.100228","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.hcc.2024.100228","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>By analyzing data gathered through Online Learning (OL) systems, data mining can be used to unearth hidden relationships between topics and trends in student performance. Here, in this paper, we show how data mining techniques such as clustering and association rule algorithms can be used on historical data to develop a unique recommendation system module. In our implementation, we utilize historical data to generate association rules specifically for student test marks below a threshold of 60%. By focusing on marks below this threshold, we aim to identify and establish associations based on the patterns of weakness observed in the past data. Additionally, we leverage K-means clustering to provide instructors with visual representations of the generated associations. This strategy aids instructors in better comprehending the information and associations produced by the algorithms. K-means clustering helps visualize and organize the data in a way that makes it easier for instructors to analyze and gain insights, enabling them to support the verification of the relationship between topics. This can be a useful tool to deliver better feedback to students as well as provide better insights to instructors when developing their pedagogy. This paper further shows a prototype implementation of the above-mentioned concepts to gain opinions and insights about the usability and viability of the proposed system.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100605,"journal":{"name":"High-Confidence Computing","volume":"4 4","pages":"Article 100228"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-04-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140782041","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}