{"title":"Local Model Update for Blockchain Enabled Federated Learning: Approach and Analysis","authors":"Zhidu Li, Yujie Zhou, Dapeng Wu, Ruyang Wang","doi":"10.1109/Blockchain53845.2021.00025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/Blockchain53845.2021.00025","url":null,"abstract":"Federated learning (FL) has been considered as a promising distributed learning tool in massive data mining for different local devices. Addressing in the trust risk of centralized model aggregation and the challenge of data heterogeneity in traditional FL, this paper proposes an enhancement FL approach in a blockchain network. By analyzing the shortcakes of the classic FL that is widely used in the blockchain enabled FL networks, we propose a novel local parameter update approach, where the information of the last-round global model is utilized to reduce the local performance drift caused by data heterogeneity. The convergence of the proposed FL approach is then proved and the convergence rate is revealed to be linear to the training time. Finally, extensive experiments are carried out with a public dataset to validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach with comparisons of two classic baseline approaches.","PeriodicalId":372721,"journal":{"name":"2021 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain)","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126886115","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"DevOps for Ethereum Blockchain Smart Contracts","authors":"Maximilian Wöhrer, Uwe Zdun","doi":"10.1109/Blockchain53845.2021.00040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/Blockchain53845.2021.00040","url":null,"abstract":"With the evolution and proliferation of blockchain, the technology is becoming more prevalent in enterprise software development. Using the already proven DevOps approach in this setting makes sense, as it can accelerate the general pace of software development and delivery, improve software quality, and increase overall productivity. However, there is currently a lack of guidance on a structured DevOps approach and a breakdown of the specifics in the context of blockchain-based software development. Therefore, we combined gray literature and DevOps application studies from pertinent GitHub projects to systematically investigate current practices and solution approaches for an efficient blockchain-oriented DevOps procedure. In this process, we elaborated procedural steps and related activities according to the main stages of Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery. Our research shows that core DevOps concepts and activities are similar to other areas and are entirely possible with already established CI/CD solutions that orchestrate the right tools, with the difference that more rigorous testing and differentiated deployment practices are required due to the inherent immutability of blockchain.","PeriodicalId":372721,"journal":{"name":"2021 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain)","volume":"56 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123335362","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ambrose Hill, Shailesh Mishra, Atharv Singh Patlan, A. Dorri, Volkan Dedeoglu, R. Jurdak, S. Kanhere
{"title":"BlockTorrent: A Blockchain Enabled Privacy-Preserving Data Availability Protocol for Multi-stakeholder Scenarios","authors":"Ambrose Hill, Shailesh Mishra, Atharv Singh Patlan, A. Dorri, Volkan Dedeoglu, R. Jurdak, S. Kanhere","doi":"10.1109/Blockchain53845.2021.00024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/Blockchain53845.2021.00024","url":null,"abstract":"As industries across the globe continue to digitize their processes, the need for a mechanism to share private data between multiple stakeholders is becoming increasingly apparent. However, sharing data poses challenges around privacy and accessibility, particularly in the event of disputes between stakeholders with a shared interest, such as a supply chain. Auditors currently rely on stakeholders' compliance in order to verify data. Malicious parties may falsify the data before passing it onto the auditor. Using supply chains as a case study we present BlockTorrent, a protocol to address these challenges and help facilitate data sharing between supply chain participants. BlockTorrent allows participants to securely share their data in near real-time with other participants without the risk of information leakage or allowing the falsification of data, whilst guaranteeing data availability for auditors. This is achieved using a novel combination of distributed storage and on-chain secret sharing. This paper provides an implementation and evaluation of BlockTorrent, highlighting its performance and a security discussion. Lastly, we provide a discussion on the privacy challenges that were considered when designing BlockTorrent.","PeriodicalId":372721,"journal":{"name":"2021 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain)","volume":"43 3","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114022445","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"EIoVChain: Towards Authentication and Secure Communication Based Blockchain for Internet of Vehicles (IoV)","authors":"Amritesh Kumar, Debasis Das","doi":"10.1109/Blockchain53845.2021.00018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/Blockchain53845.2021.00018","url":null,"abstract":"As the backbone of smart cities, the IoV has the potential to greatly enhance transportation effectiveness, passenger and driver safety, reduction of energy use, and road accidents. However, due to the fact that the vehicle, Road-Side-Units (RSU), and Edge Server use wireless channels to communicate, the risk of leaking or falsifying information is greatly improved. We offer EIoVChain, a reliable registration and authentication, secure information sharing based on the IoV edge server blockchain schema with minimal latency and efficient storage to address these issues. EIoVChain works with a novel primary node allocation algorithm that selects primary nodes based on their decentralized trust and a block verification process that identifies the transaction's validity of that block. The consensus algorithm follows the practical Byzantine fault tolerance model (PBFT) which works even when opposing nodes are active in EIoVChain. We have implemented EIoVChain on Raspberry pi 4. Experimental results show that EIoVChain outperforms conventional solutions with 66% verification delay and 49% communication overhead.","PeriodicalId":372721,"journal":{"name":"2021 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain)","volume":"232 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114258240","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Irma Dupuis, Lisa Toohey, S. Grimstad, Berit M Follong, T. Bucher
{"title":"Blockchain: the Paradox of Consumer Trust in a Trustless System - a Systematic Review","authors":"Irma Dupuis, Lisa Toohey, S. Grimstad, Berit M Follong, T. Bucher","doi":"10.1109/Blockchain53845.2021.00077","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/Blockchain53845.2021.00077","url":null,"abstract":"This systematic review investigates consumer trust in blockchain applications and makes recommendations for future research. The review targeted papers focusing on blockchain applications, collecting data from a consumer perspective, and examining trust as an outcome variable. We excluded non-peer-reviewed papers written before 2008 or in languages other than English. Our search in 5 databases yielded 704 studies. 29 studies were retained for the full-text review and 5 studies were included after conflict resolution. The small number of studies retained for analysis highlights the need for further empirical research on consumer trust in blockchain technology. While blockchain remained a mysterious term for most consumers, trust was the main factor determining the use of blockchain applications. Additionally, interface design, service, and information quality, together with the platform's ability to allow consumers to investigate products using blockchain applications. Trust remains the central issue for blockchain as trust in this “trustless” system appears to be a prerequisite for actual use, creating a “trust paradox”. This systematic review on consumer trust in blockchain technology is the first to provide a preliminary synthesis of consumers' needs and expectations for blockchain developers and provides important directions for future research on blockchain applications.","PeriodicalId":372721,"journal":{"name":"2021 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain)","volume":"516 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123089858","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Diffusion: Analysis of Many-to-Many Transactions in Bitcoin","authors":"Dylan Eck, Adam Torek, S. Cutchin, Gaby G. Dagher","doi":"10.1109/Blockchain53845.2021.00061","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/Blockchain53845.2021.00061","url":null,"abstract":"Bitcoin is a decentralized cryptocurrency that enables entities to transfer funds psuedo-anonymously. Investigative services like the FBI, however, have been able to subvert this using various techniques. To counter this, the Bitcoin community uses several methods to obscure transactions, including shared send transactions among others. We attempt to peer into these transactions through a pairing of address clustering and shared send untangling and test our experimental results through path finding between addresses. We then implement our methodology to test its effectiveness. Our findings show that while using clustering can improve path-finding results and shared send untangling, we recommend applying heuristics in combination to increase effectiveness.","PeriodicalId":372721,"journal":{"name":"2021 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain)","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123642751","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Blockchain-Based Mechanism for Robotic Cooperation Through Incentives: Prototype Application in Warehouse Automation","authors":"Jonathan Grey, O. Seneviratne, I. Godage","doi":"10.1109/Blockchain53845.2021.00090","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/Blockchain53845.2021.00090","url":null,"abstract":"The use of blockchain in cyber-physical systems, such as robotics, is an area with immense potential to address many shortcomings in robotic coordination and control. In traditional swarm robotic applications, where homogeneous robots are utilized, it is possible to replace a robot if it malfunctions, and it can be assumed that all robots are interchangeable. However, in many real-world applications spanning from search and rescue missions to future household robotic appliances, heterogeneous robots will need to work together with the other robots and human agents to achieve specific tasks. Nevertheless, no such system exists. Therefore, we propose a system that utilizes a token economy for robotic agents that makes agents responsive to token acquisition as an incentive for collaboration in achieving a given task. The economy enables the system to self-govern, even under Byzantine and adversarial settings. We further incorporate a novel subcontracting framework within a blockchain environment to allow the robotic agents to efficiently and cost-effectively perform complex jobs requiring multiple agents with various capabilities. We conducted a thorough evaluation of the system in a prototype warehouse application scenario, and the results are promising.","PeriodicalId":372721,"journal":{"name":"2021 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain)","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125156768","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Maurantonio Caprolu, Matteo Pontecorvi, Matteo Signorini, C. Segarra, R. D. Pietro
{"title":"Analysis and Patterns of Unknown Transactions in Bitcoin","authors":"Maurantonio Caprolu, Matteo Pontecorvi, Matteo Signorini, C. Segarra, R. D. Pietro","doi":"10.1109/Blockchain53845.2021.00031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/Blockchain53845.2021.00031","url":null,"abstract":"Bitcoin (BTC) is probably the most transparent payment network in the world, thanks to the full history of transactions available to the public. Though, Bitcoin is not a fully anonymous environment, rather a pseudonymous one, accounting for a number of attempts to beat its anonymity using clustering techniques. There is, however, a recurring assumption in all the cited deanonymization techniques: that each transaction output has an address attached to it. That assumption is false. An evidence is that, as of block height 591,872, there are several millions transactions with at least one output for which the Bitcoin Core client cannot infer an address. In this paper, we present a novel approach based on sound graph theory for identifying transaction inputs and outputs. Our solution implements two simple yet innovative features: it does not rely on BTC addresses and explores all the transactions stored in the blockchain. All the other existing solutions fail with respect to one or both of the cited features. In detail, we first introduce the concept of Unknown Transaction and provide a new framework to parse the Bitcoin blockchain by taking them into account. Then, we introduce a theoretical model to detect, study, and classify, for the first time in the literature, unknown transaction patterns in the user network. Further, in an extensive experimental campaign, we apply our model to the Bitcoin network to uncover hidden transaction patterns within the Bitcoin user network. Results are striking: we discovered more than 30,000 unknown transaction DAGs representing money flows never observed before. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed framework is the only one that enables a complete study of the unknown transaction patterns, hence enabling further research in the field, for which we provide some directions.","PeriodicalId":372721,"journal":{"name":"2021 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129303577","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Flaviene Scheidt de Cristo, Wazen M. Shbair, Lucian Trestioreanu, R. State, Aanchal Malhotra
{"title":"Self-Sovereign Identity for the Financial Sector: A Case Study of PayString Service","authors":"Flaviene Scheidt de Cristo, Wazen M. Shbair, Lucian Trestioreanu, R. State, Aanchal Malhotra","doi":"10.1109/Blockchain53845.2021.00036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/Blockchain53845.2021.00036","url":null,"abstract":"PayString is an initiative to make payment identifiers global and human-readable, facilitating the exchange of payment information. However, the reference implementation lacks privacy and security features, making it possible for anyone to access the payment information as long as the PayString identifier is known. In this paper, we propose an innovative solution for this issue by integrating a privacy layer based on Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI), Decentralized Identifier (DID) and Verifiable Credential (VC) to the PayString protocol. We also present the first performance evaluation of PayString. Via a large-scale testbed, our experimental results show an overhead which, given the privacy and security advantages offered, is acceptable in practice, thus making the proposed solution feasible.","PeriodicalId":372721,"journal":{"name":"2021 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain)","volume":"124 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129468287","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Marina Dehez-Clementi, J. Lacan, Jean-Christophe Deneuville, H. Asghar, Dali Kaafar
{"title":"A Blockchain-enabled Anonymous-yet- Traceable Distributed Key Generation","authors":"Marina Dehez-Clementi, J. Lacan, Jean-Christophe Deneuville, H. Asghar, Dali Kaafar","doi":"10.1109/Blockchain53845.2021.00042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/Blockchain53845.2021.00042","url":null,"abstract":"Many threshold systems require some kind of secret sharing during their set-up phase. There has been several recent work in doing secret sharing in a distributed manner through the use of Blockchain so that one does not have to rely on trusted third parties nor strong assumptions about the communication medium. This paper continues this line of work and presents a new protocol for distributed key generation (DKG). We develop a new technique that leverages the mainchain of a popular blockchain platform like Bitcoin, together with a mixing service and a group signature scheme, to provide anonymity and traceability; we connect this to a sidechain, pegged to the mainchain, that brings a better scalability. We implemented the technique on the joint platform Bitcoin/RootStock and use CoinJoin/CoinShuffle as the mixing service. The evaluation section shows a decrease by 99 % in the execution cost of our protocol compared to the same implementation on a smart-contract-friendly blockchain such as Ethereum.","PeriodicalId":372721,"journal":{"name":"2021 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain)","volume":"56 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128865298","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}