Search Results (10)

The paper presents a novel concept of applying a trusted third party (TTP) to the blockchain-based electronic service (e-service) in the form of a durable medium. The main aim of the proposed e-service is storing, managing, and processing sensitive electronic documents. The developed e-service meets the requirements of both Polish law (related to the durable medium) and market needs. Firstly, the functional requirements were defined. Subsequently, the adequate e-service was designed, and then implemented in a real company in Poland. Due to the nature of the durable medium e-service, the presented research combines scientific and implementation aspects. The designed and implemented e-service is secure (because of using the immutable blockchain technology merged with symmetric and asymmetric cryptographic algorithms) and trusted (by using TTP as the e-service provider, as well as an independent arbitrator monitoring the document storage and processing flow). Finally, the presented approach was experimentally verified using Hyperledger Besu—a blockchain implementation platform. During the realization of two designed test scenarios, over 30,000 transactions were added to the blockchain. Furthermore, security analyses were performed regarding inherent blockchain properties, the use of cryptographic algorithms, and potential cyberattacks and vulnerabilities. Full article

Electronic filing (e-filing) adoption for tax income purposes is limited in developing countries as the practices of financial accounting and reporting, as well as digitalization in accounting systems, are more prevalent in developed countries. This paper investigates the determinants of e-filing usage in the context of emerging economies such as Jordan. Building on the Technology–Organization–Environment framework (TOE), the study proposes that the effects of relative advantage, top management support, and IT infrastructure as new variables on e-filing adoption and trust in the e-filing systems are positive. The study also proposes that trust in the e-filing system affects e-filing adoption and mediates the influence of relative advantage, top management support, and IT infrastructure on e-filing adoption. Data were collected from 315 respondents and analyzed via Smart PLS. Relative advantage and top management were found to affect the adoption of and trust in e-filing. In addition, trust in the e-filing system affects e-filing adoption and mediates the impact of relative advantage and top management support for e-filing. Therefore, decision-makers should develop a mechanism to increase trust and the benefits of using e-filing for income tax purposes. Full article

Electric vehicles (EVs) have gained prominence in smart transportation due to their unparalleled benefits of reduced carbon footprints, improved performance, and intelligent energy trading mechanisms. These potential benefits have increased EV adoption at massive scales, but energy management in EVs is a critical study problem. The problem is further intensified due to the scarcity of charging stations (CSs) in near EV proximity. Moreover, as energy transactions occur over open channels, it presents critical security, privacy, and trust issues among decentralized channels. To address the open limitations of trusted energy management and optimize the pricing control among EV entities (i.e., prosumers and consumers), the paper proposes a scheme that integrates blockchain and a truthful double auction strategy for trustful EV trading. To address the transaction scalability, we integrate an Interplanetary File System (IPFS) with a double auction mechanism handled through the Remix Smart Contract environment. The double auction leverages an optimal payoff condition between peer EVs. To address the communication latency, we present the scheme at the backdrop of Fifth Generation (5G) networks that minimizes the optimal payoff response time. The scheme is simulated against parameters such as convergence, profit for consumers, computation time, and blockchain analysis regarding node commit latency, collusion attacks, and EV energy consumption. The results indicate the scheme’s viability against traditional (non-blockchain) approaches with high reliability, scalability, and improved cost-efficiency. Full article

Emerging growth in technology has rapidly changed our homes and cities. Present homes and cities will be upgraded to smart homes and smart cities in the near future. Various solutions used to build the smart-city network demand a scalable and decentralized solution. This study proposes a blockchain-empowered decentralized and scalable solution for a sustainable smart-city network. The Internet of Things (IoT), fog nodes, permissioned trust chain, smart contract, blockchain, and InterPlanetary file system (IPFS) are deployed to construct a scalable and decentralized solution for a sustainable smart city. Three main public sector departments, i.e., electricity, water supply, and health care, are studied over the proposed solution. The proposed solution is implemented over constrained application protocol (CoAP) and Ethereum blockchain. The performance of the proposed model is evaluated for 1500 devices and over 10,000 records. A total 77.44% improvement is registered during performance evaluation over a scalable environment. The performance evaluation of each case study and collaborative performance evaluation concludes the improvised performance of the proposed solution for scalable and distributed applications. Better performance, scalability, and the distributed nature of the presented model make it suitable for the sustainable smart-city network. Full article

E-governance is a process that aims to enhance a government’s ability to simplify all the processes that may involve government, citizens, businesses, and so on. The rapid evolution of digital technologies has often created the necessity for the establishment of an e-Governance model. There is often a need for an inclusive e-governance model with integrated multiactor governance services and where a single market approach can be adopted. e-Governance often aims to minimise bureaucratic processes, while at the same time including a digital-by-default approach to public services. This aims at administrative efficiency and the reduction of bureaucratic processes. It can also improve government capabilities, and enhances trust and security, which brings confidence in governmental transactions. However, solid implementations of a distributed data sharing model within an e-governance architecture is far from a reality; hence, citizens of European countries often go through the tedious process of having their confidential information verified. This paper focuses on the sinGLe sign-on e-GovernAnce Paradigm based on a distributed file-exchange network for security, transparency, cost-effectiveness and trust (GLASS) model, which aims to ensure that a citizen can control their relationship with governmental agencies. The paper thus proposes an approach that integrates a permissioned blockchain with the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS). This method demonstrates how we may encrypt and store verifiable credentials of the GLASS ecosystem, such as academic awards, ID documents and so on, within IPFS in a secure manner and thus only allow trusted users to read a blockchain record, and obtain the encryption key. This allows for the decryption of a given verifiable credential that stored on IPFS. This paper outlines the creation of a demonstrator that proves the principles of the GLASS approach. Full article

Internet of Things (IoT) technology is now widely used in energy, healthcare, services, transportation, and other fields. With the increase in industrial equipment (e.g., smart mobile terminals, sensors, and other embedded devices) in the Internet of Things and the advent of Industry 4.0, there has been an explosion of data generated that is characterized by a high volume but small size. How to manage and protect sensitive private data in data sharing has become an urgent issue for enterprises. Traditional data sharing and storage relies on trusted third-party platforms or distributed cloud storage, but these approaches run the risk of single-node failure, and third parties and cloud storage providers can be vulnerable to attacks that can lead to data theft. To solve these problems, this paper proposes a Hyperledger Fabric blockchain-based secure data transfer scheme for enterprises in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT). We store raw data in the IIoT in the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) network after encryption and store the Keyword-index table we designed in Hyperledger Fabric blockchain, and enterprises share the data by querying the Keyword-index table. We use Fabric’s channel mechanism combined with our designed Chaincode to achieve privacy protection and efficient data transmission while using the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) to ensure data integrity. Finally, we performed security analysis and experiments on the proposed scheme, and the results show that overall the data transfer performance in the IPFS network is generally better than the traditional network, In the case of transferring 5 MB file size data, the transmission speed and latency of IPFS are 19.23 mb/s and 0.26 s, respectively, and the IPFS network is almost 4 times faster than the TCP/IP network while taking only a quarter of the time, which is more advantageous when transferring small files, such as data in the IIOT. In addition, our scheme outperforms the blockchain systems mainly used today in terms of both throughput, latency, and system overhead. The average throughput of our solution can reach 110 tps (transactions are executed per second), and the minimum throughput in experimental tests can reach 101 tps. Full article

With the development of society and information technology, people’s dependence on the Internet has gradually increased, including online shopping, downloading files, reading books, and online banking. However, how to ensure the safety and legitimacy of these network user behaviors has become the focus of attention. As we all know, cybersecurity and system resilience originate from symmetry. Due to the diversity and unpredictability of cyber-attacks, absolute cybersecurity is difficult to achieve; system resilience indicates that protecting system security should shift from resisting attacks to ensuring system continuity. The trust evaluation of network users is a research hotspot in improving network system security. Aiming at the defects of incomplete evaluation processes and inaccurate evaluation results in current online user behavior trust evaluation methods, this paper combines the basic principles of online user trust evaluation and proposes a trust evaluation model that combines fuzzy Petri nets with user behavior analysis. First, for “unfamiliar” users, we used fuzzy Petri nets to calculate the user’s recommended trust value as the system’s indirect trust value; next, we used the user’s behavior record as evidence to conduct direct trust evaluation on the user to obtain the system’s direct trust in the user’s value; finally, the two calculation results were combined to obtain the user’s comprehensive trust value. In terms of experimental verification, the experimental data came from a self-developed e-book management system. Through theoretical analysis and simulation results, it was shown that the model met the optimization conditions of subjective and objective relative balance, the evaluation process was more complete, and the trust evaluation values of network users could be obtained more accurately. This evaluation method provides solid theory and research ideas for user credibility judgment of key network basic application platforms such as online shopping malls, online transactions, and online banking. Full article

Village committees, as grassroots spontaneously formed by rural collective members in China’s hierarchy system, play an irreplaceable role in the management of rural public affairs. Based on the filed survey dataset taken from three pilot counties/districts in Sichuan province, we explored the significant role that village committees played in farmers’ withdrawal from rural homesteads (WRH). Our empirical results, according to binary logistic regression (BLR) modelling, indicated that the WRH was significantly affected by the triple roles of village committees, among which information intermediary was the most effective followed by the trust builder and then the coordinated manager. Firstly, village committees’ involvement facilitated the WRH by improving policy transparency and decreasing information cost. Secondly, the depth of village committees’ participation (i.e., being involved in multiple phases) positively affected the WRH given its signification of the participation of farmers. Whereas the breadth of participation (i.e., considering various demands of different participants) negatively affected the process of WRH by reducing the decision-making efficiency. Thirdly, farmers’ trust in institutions played a positive role in the WRH, but their confidence in village cadres had limited impact. We therefore argue that promising village committees should act as “all-round stewards” in the decision-making of rural households, which not only includes the transmit of information between those above and those below, but also needs to actively strive for farmers’ trust by letting their voice heard. Based on our empirical findings, this paper finally proposed some policy suggestions, such as strengthening mutual communication, empowerment of rural grassroots, encouraging farmers’ participation and improving formal institutions. Full article

In this work, Electric Vehicles (EVs) are charged using a new and improved charging mechanism called the Mobile-Vehicle-to-Vehicle (M2V) charging strategy. It is further compared with conventional Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Grid-to-Vehicle (G2V) charging strategies. In the proposed work, the charging of vehicles is done in a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) manner; the vehicles are charged using Charging Stations (CSs) or Mobile Vehicles (MVs) in the absence of a central entity. CSs are fixed entities situated at certain locations and act as charge suppliers, whereas MVs act as prosumers, which have the capability of charging themselves and also other vehicles. In the proposed system, blockchain technology is used to tackle the issues related with existing systems, such as privacy, security, lack of trust, etc., and also to promote transparency, data immutability, and a tamper-proof nature. Moreover, to store the data related to traffic, roads, and weather conditions, a centralized entity, i.e., Transport System Information Unit (TSIU), is used. It helps in reducing the road congestion and avoids roadside accidents. In the TSIU, an Inter-Planetary File System (IPFS) is used to store the data in a secured manner after removing the data’s redundancy through data filtration. Furthermore, four different types of costs are calculated mathematically, which ultimately contribute towards calculating the total charging cost. The shortest distance between a vehicle and the charging entities is calculated using the Great-Circle Distance formula. Moving on, both the time taken to traverse this shortest distance and the time to charge the vehicles are calculated using real-time data of four EVs. Location privacy is also proposed in this work to provide privacy to vehicle users. The power flow and the related energy losses for the above-mentioned charging strategies are also discussed in this work. An incentive provisioning mechanism is also proposed on the basis of timely delivery of credible messages, which further promotes users’ participation. In the end, simulations are performed and results are obtained that prove the efficiency of the proposed work, as compared to conventional techniques, in minimizing the EVs’ charging cost, time, and distance. Full article

Mobile app ads pose a far greater security threat to users than adverts on computer browsers. This is because app developers must embed a Software Development Kit (SDK), called an ad library or ad lib for short, provided by ad networks (i.e., ad companies) into their app program, and then merge and compile it into an Android PacKage (APK) execution file. The ad lib thus becomes a part of the entire app, and shares the whole permissions granted to the app. Unfortunately, this also resulted in many security issues, such as ad libs abusing the permissions to collect and leak private data, ad servers redirecting ad requests to download malicious JavaScript from unknown servers to execute it in the background of the mobile operating system without the user’s consent. The more well-known an embedded ad lib, the safer the app may be, and vice versa. Importantly, while decompiling an APK to inspect its source code may not identify the ad lib(s), executing the app on a simulator can reveal the network behavior of the embedded ad lib(s). Ad libs exhibit different behavior patterns when communicating with ad servers. This study uses a dynamic analysis method to inspect an executing app, and plots the ad lib behavior patterns related to the advertisement into a graph. It is then determined whether or not the ad lib is from a trusted ad network using comparisons of graph similarities. Full article