Special Issue "Cryptography and Blockchain for Security, Privacy and Smart Communication Environments"

Dear Colleagues,

Modern smart environments are changing the activities of daily life as well as various processes through increased automation. Recent emerging communication technologies, including 5G/6G, Internet of Things (IoT), Internet of Drones (IoD), or Internet of Everything (IoE), facilitate the development processes of various smart places, including smart homes, smart hospitals, smart farms, smart factories, and smart cities. Specific applications may include healthcare, electricity grids, satellite communication, underwater acoustic communication, vehicular networks, among others. The problems that have arisen are information security and the data privacy of the communicating entities (users, servers, IoT devices, etc.) in the systems that require secure and efficient mechanisms. Many of the current cryptographic methods are still constrained in terms of processing and communication ability. In addition, there may be a trade-off between anonymity and authentication or between security and efficiency, which should also be considered. Blockchain is an emerging technology that provide a decentralized platform that assures data integrity, transparency, traceability, anonymity, non-repudiation, accountability, and unforgeability. At present, the scientific community lacks a certain number of qualified research studies in which cryptography techniques and blockchain are integrated in a single design to address the aforementioned issues. As we know, there has been an important role of symmetry in cryptography (symmetric key encryption, symmetric key authentication, etc.) and blockchain techniques (consensus mechanism, integrity property, etc.). This Special Issue seeks research on innovative cryptographic methods, tailored blockchain design, or the integration of cryptography and blockchain to assure security and privacy in systems. Research papers, communications, and review articles are welcome, with potential topicsincluding but not limited to the following:

• Secure and anonymity-preserving designs for smart systems;
• New cryptographic tools addressing existing security concerns in smart communications;
• Applied cryptography;
• Lightweight cryptography;
• Post-quantum cryptography;
• Blockchain-enabled designs for smart communications;
• Security and privacy in smart blockchain networks;
• Blockchain-based cryptographic authentication/verification protocols;
• Blockchain-based trusted protocols for smart communications;
• New consensus mechanisms for blockchains;
• Secure smart contract in blockchains.

Dr. Tuan-Vinh Le
Prof. Dr. Chien-Lung Hsu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Symmetry is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• information security
• user privacy cryptography
• blockchain smart systems
• Internet of Things consensus mechanism
• reliable smart contract