Frontiers in Blockchain最新文献

{"title":"3 Stages of a Pan-African Identity Framework for Establishing Self-Sovereign Identity With Blockchain","authors":"S. Darnell, Joseph Sevilla","doi":"10.3389/fbloc.2021.631640","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2021.631640","url":null,"abstract":"The African continent (specifically its overwhelming in(animate) resources) is often referred to as the sleeping giant by magazines, blogs, research presentations and articles, and NGOs [such as World Bank]. Reasons for this moniker/title include the continent’s plentiful natural resources, its large and quickly growing young population, and the young population’s quick adoption and acclimatization to technology. Most countries on the continent are known as developing countries due to lack of access to safe drinking water, reliable electricity and roads, sanitation and hygiene, and a high number of people with tropical/infectious diseases. However, due to the usefulness of cellular phones and technology, several countries and companies within them have focused on cell phone proliferation (91% in Kenya). Smart phone usage allows Kenyans access to the world’s information and potentially endless innovation. Given that a large number of Kenyans with smartphones use social media, coupled with the advent of Europe’s GDPR (general data protection regulation), African identity and its associated data became an area of great interest. As the world is quickly progressing into a digital economy, a solution must be created that allows us to regain and control our identities, doing our best to ensure losing such is infinitely close to computationally and probabilistically impossible/improbable. Developing a blockchain-based identity backbone using biometrics and historical family information while allowing government-based identification documents is the best way forward. Three stages have been identified as necessities to accomplish the development of this system before opening it further beyond the pan-African worldwide community. The three stages are defined by systems that allow for biometric/demographic registration (stage 1), interoperability and security hardening (stage 2), and biometric modality data analysis/organization/association (stage 3).","PeriodicalId":426570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Blockchain","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132117049","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 Native Data Linkage","authors":"James A. Cunningham, G. Davidge, N. Davies, S. Devaney, Søren Holm, Mike Harding, Gary Leeming, Victoria Neumann, J. Ainsworth","doi":"10.3389/fbloc.2021.667388","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2021.667388","url":null,"abstract":"Data providers holding sensitive medical data often need to exchange data pertaining to patients for whom they hold particular data. This involves requesting information from other providers to augment the data they hold. However, revealing the superset of identifiers for which a provider requires information can, in itself, leak sensitive private data. Data linkage services exist to facilitate the exchange of anonymized identifiers between data providers. Reliance on third parties to provide these services still raises issues around the trust, privacy and security of such implementations. The rise and use of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies over the last decade has, alongside innovation and disruption in the financial sphere, also brought to the fore and refined the use of associated privacy-preserving cryptographic protocols and techniques. These techniques are now being adopted and used in fields removed from the original financial use cases. In this paper we present a combination of a blockchain-native auditing and trust-enabling environment alongside a query exchange protocol. This allows the exchange of sets of patient identifiers between data providers in such a way that only identifiers lying in the intersection of sets of identifiers are revealed and shared, allowing further secure and privacy-preserving exchange of medical information to be carried out between the two parties. We present the design and implementation of a system demonstrating the effectiveness of these exchange protocols giving a reference architecture for the implementation of such a system.","PeriodicalId":426570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Blockchain","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115894873","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":"Digital and Decentralized Management of Patient Data in Healthcare Using Blockchain Implementations","authors":"Erik Westphal, H. Seitz","doi":"10.3389/fbloc.2021.732112","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2021.732112","url":null,"abstract":"Blockchain solutions offer efficient approaches for trustworthy data management, especially in the medical field when storing and processing sensitive patient data. Many institutional and industrial facilities have already recognized the importance of the technology for the health sector and have also formulated basic ideas, concepts and main use cases, but concrete implementations and executions are comparatively rare. This mini review examines current research on specific blockchain implementations in healthcare that go beyond the state of concept studies or theoretical implementation ideas and describes the most promising systems based on systematic literature research. The review shows that secure storage and easy access to complete patient data is becoming increasingly important. Blockchain technology can be used as a secure, transparent and digital way to meet these needs. Hybrid solutions consisting of conventional data storage and blockchain-based access management are increasingly being developed and implemented. The automation of blockchain processes through smart contracts is also recommended. The review further reveals ambiguities in the use of permissioned and permissionless blockchain frameworks, machine learning (ML) integration as well as the question of which data should be stored in the blockchain and how this should be viewed legally. Therefore, there is still a need for further research, especially on these aspects, in order to further establish the use of blockchains in healthcare.","PeriodicalId":426570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Blockchain","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127199036","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":"Tether: A Study on Bubble-Networks","authors":"G. Rosa, R. Pareschi","doi":"10.3389/fbloc.2021.686484","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2021.686484","url":null,"abstract":"Tether is a stablecoin, namely a cryptocurrency associated with an underlying security. Tether provides one of the most relevant ways to buy bitcoins and has been the centre of many controversies. In fact, it has been hypothesized that new tethers are issued without the underlying reserves, and that new massive Tether emissions are the basis of strong speculative movements on the Bitcoin, with consequent bubble effects. In the course of this article, we conduct a Social Network Analysis focused on the Tether transaction graph to identify the main actors that play a leading role on the network and characterize the transaction flow between them. From our analysis, we conclude that 1) the Tether transaction network does not enjoy the Smalltalk property, with the robustness and reliability it carries with it; 2) cryptopcurrency exchanges are the nodes with the greatest centrality; 3) even Assortativity is not found, as the subjects who move Tether on a large scale do not give continuity to their presence and operations, therefore do not get a chance to consolidate stable links between them; and 4) among the exchanges, Bitfinex, which has co-ownership and co-administration relationships with the Tether issuer, can be mostly associated with the Rich-gets-Richer property.","PeriodicalId":426570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Blockchain","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121907756","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":"Ecosystem Readiness: Blockchain Adoption is Driven Externally","authors":"Michael Lustenberger, Sasa Malesevic, Florian Spychiger","doi":"10.3389/fbloc.2021.720454","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2021.720454","url":null,"abstract":"Blockchain technology has been extensively tested, implemented, used, or even abandoned by organizations. Whether organizations adopt blockchain technology depends on many factors. Previous literature has identified a range of potential factors affecting the adoption of blockchain technology, but most studies have focused solely on a subset of specific factors. As a result, these studies can provide only limited explanations for the varying degrees of blockchain adoption. By relying on the well-established Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework, we propose an extended Blockchain Adoption Model (BAM). We derive a rich set of factors from the current state of research on blockchain adoption and the business ecosystem literature and extend them by conceptual reasoning. We then develop testable hypotheses for each of the identified factors. The resulting 14 hypotheses are tested by conducting a survey (n = 350) within the DACH-region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland). We quantitatively analyze our BAM with a binary logistic regression analysis and identify six constructs impacting the adoption (relative advantage, observability, organizational age, external stakeholder pressure, regulatory uncertainty, and scope of business ecosystem). Based on our findings we introduce the novel idea of “ecosystem readiness” as the most important factor for the adoption of blockchain. Ecosystem readiness is characterized by the following attributes: 1) a large ecosystem scope, 2) stakeholders that are not yet collaborating in a trustful and regulated environment, and 3) a powerful organization leading the ecosystem. This powerful organization further intentionally promotes innovation by 4) making the benefits of this new technology observable for others, by 5) putting pressure on the other ecosystem participants to adopt the new technology, and eventually by 6) striving for regulatory certainty in the application and use of blockchain.","PeriodicalId":426570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Blockchain","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130575127","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":"Editorial: Identity and Privacy Governance","authors":"A. Zwitter, O. Gstrein","doi":"10.3389/fbloc.2021.738862","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2021.738862","url":null,"abstract":"The design and management of digital identity is a complex challenge. On the one hand, it requires a clear understanding of the parameters that are involved in identity management. On the other hand, it requires the cooperation of many stakeholders. In particular, this involves those public authorities and private organisations that need to be aligned to define technical standards, develop identification infrastructures and maintain them. A shared understanding of fundamental concepts that define identity in the digital age is then a prerequisite. Such a complimentary reflection and evaluation of what the emergence of distributed-ledger technologies means from the perspectives of human rights, human dignity, as well as individual and collective autonomy are essential to ensure their use for good purposes. While technical capabilities are important, they are increasingly insufficient without guiding theoretical frameworks. Sound governance mechanisms which respect, protect and promote human rights such as privacy are equally essential. The COVID-19 pandemic has only further increased the desire to use data to understand and manage our societies (Zwitter and Gstrein, 2020), which also increases the degree to which we are defined through data and our access to digital services. Certainly, we currently witness profound changes in the capabilities to define and manage identity. Established architectures to validate, certify, and manage credentials are usually based on centralized or federated top-down approaches. They rely on territorial sovereignty, trusted authorities and third-party operators which gain considerable power by being able to manage the systems. In recent years, distributed-ledger technologies such as Blockchain have been described as “trust mechanisms”, which can operate independently of such trust-mediators and territorial restrictions. One might prefer to rather trust a technical system, as well as the parties that host the software and ensure proper functioning, than traditional institutions such as banks and states. This emerging opportunity to change the practice of identity management raises the questions of 1) how blockchain applications influence trust, and 2) how trust based requirements affect the design of applications based on distributed-ledger technology? Some identity management architectures presented in this research topic go even further and design full-fledged identity management systems. Their users are not only independent from the gatekeepers mentioned above. They also do not need to maintain a single aggregated identity. This enhances privacy and autonomy, so the authors argue, since aggregated identities can potentially be constrained or reconstructed against the interests of individuals. Such a pattern change could also potentially mitigate information security issues. These security issues are becoming more and more pressing as conventional digital identity management based on passwords and e-mail addresses f","PeriodicalId":426570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Blockchain","volume":"739 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123863056","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":"Vind: A Blockchain-Enabled Supply Chain Provenance Framework for Energy Delivery Systems","authors":"Eranga Bandara, S. Shetty, Deepak K. Tosh, Xueping Liang","doi":"10.3389/fbloc.2021.607320","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2021.607320","url":null,"abstract":"Enterprise-level energy delivery systems (EDSs) depend on different software or hardware vendors to achieve operational efficiency. Critical components of these systems are typically manufactured and integrated by overseas suppliers, which expands the attack surface to adversaries with additional opportunities to infiltrate into EDSs. Due to this reason, the risk management of the EDS supply chain is crucial to ensure that we are knowledgeable about the vulnerabilities in software and hardware components that comprise any critical part, quantifiable risk metrics to assess the severity and exploitability of the attack, and provide remediation solutions that can influence a prioritized mitigation plan. There is a need to realize cyber supply chain risk management for industrial control systems’ hardware, software, and computing and networking services associated with bulk electric system (BES) operations. This article proposes a blockchain-based cyber supply chain provenance platform (“Vind”) for EDSs to realize data provenance in a cyber supply chain ecosystem.","PeriodicalId":426570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Blockchain","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129987026","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":"Sovrin: An Identity Metasystem for Self-Sovereign Identity","authors":"P. Windley","doi":"10.3389/fbloc.2021.626726","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2021.626726","url":null,"abstract":"Solving the problems of digital identity in a holistic manner requires that we rethink how we architect identity online. This paper presents the architecture of an identity metasystem called the Sovrin Network that aims to improve the user experience, increase flexibility, and reduce overall costs while supporting better privacy and security. We discuss the problems of online identity on the modern internet, discuss the nature of digital relationships, explore the architectures of identity systems, and detail the combination of these concepts into a comprehensive metasystem for solving the problems of online identity.","PeriodicalId":426570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Blockchain","volume":"66 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126266118","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":"iChain: Peer-To-Peer Machine Learning Powered by Blockchain Technology","authors":"Caleb Johnson, Tao Lu, Pedro Rivera, Devon McDonald, Samuel Pritchett, Lu Peng","doi":"10.3389/fbloc.2021.676159","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2021.676159","url":null,"abstract":"iChain is an application which was created to help meet the growing demand of machine learning. It allows users to pay those with powerful machines to run machine learning tasks for them, bypassing the need for a significant investment in a powerful computer to run it themselves. This is similar to services like a render farm. Our application functions using the Ethereum blockchain which ensures security and decentralization, as well as providing a platform for payment transactions. This article will discuss the background on machine learning and blockchain, the application, how it works, how the data moves through it, and how to use it. We hope our application will enable many without the funds to build or buy a powerful computer to experiment with and utilize complex machine learning tasks.","PeriodicalId":426570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Blockchain","volume":"222 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115536258","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":"Wholesome Coin: A pHealth Solution to Reduce High Obesity Rates in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries Using Cryptocurrency","authors":"Hessah A. Alsalamah, Shorog Nasser, Shada Alsalamah, Albatoul I. Almohana, A. Alanazi, Fay Alrrshaid","doi":"10.3389/fbloc.2021.654539","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2021.654539","url":null,"abstract":"Obesity is considered one of the leading causes of chronic and noncommunicable diseases; these include diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. The obesity prevalence is threefold higher in the Arab Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) population than the rest of the world and leaves healthcare providers within the region with no alternative than to offer continuous and sustainable healthcare services. Obesity prevention would be more economical for governments than providing treatment. Preventing obesity is challenging because it requires motivating individuals to live a healthy lifestyle. Personal health (pHealth) has recently been actively involved in finding solutions to encourage healthy living. However, pHealth does not address the high percentage of people lacking the desire to maintain healthy living plans, which could have a negative effect on attempts aimed at reducing obesity prevalence. This study sheds light on the challenges faced by the GCC governments in reducing high obesity rates using pHealth; we propose a solution, Wholesome Coin, which incorporates advanced technologies to help governments reduce high obesity rates. Wholesome Coin has two components: one uses wearable IoT (WIoT) to help patients manage their behavior by tracking their physical activities and diet, and the other utilizes blockchain technology to help healthcare payers to incentify patients to maintain a healthy living plan by awarding digital coins that can be redeemed for real goods and services. GCC governments’ adoption of Wholesome Coin could improve the quality of life of obese patients in a seamless, secure, and self-motivated manner, resulting in a healthier tomorrow, especially amid challenging times featuring global social distance campaigns.","PeriodicalId":426570,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Blockchain","volume":"197 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114187818","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}