An overview on smart contracts : challenges, advances and platforms
- Authors: Zheng, Zibin , Xie, Shaoan , Dai, Hong-Ning , Chen, Weili , Imran, Muhammad
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Future Generation Computer Systems Vol. 105, no. (2020), p. 475-491
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- Description: Smart contract technology is reshaping conventional industry and business processes. Being embedded in blockchains, smart contracts enable the contractual terms of an agreement to be enforced automatically without the intervention of a trusted third party. As a result, smart contracts can cut down administration and save services costs, improve the efficiency of business processes and reduce the risks. Although smart contracts are promising to drive the new wave of innovation in business processes, there are a number of challenges to be tackled. This paper presents a survey on smart contracts. We first introduce blockchains and smart contracts. We then present the challenges in smart contracts as well as recent technical advances. We also compare typical smart contract platforms and give a categorization of smart contract applications along with some representative examples. © 2019 Elsevier B.V.
Blockchain for cloud exchange : a survey
- Authors: Xie, Shaoan , Zheng, Zibin , Chen, Weili , Wu, Jiajing , Dai, Hong-Ning , Imran, Muhammad
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Computers and Electrical Engineering Vol. 81, no. (2020), p.
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- Description: Compared with single cloud service providers, cloud exchange provides users with lower price and flexible options. However, conventional cloud exchange markets are suffering from a number of challenges such as central architecture being vulnerable to malicious attacks and cheating behaviours of third-party auctioneers. The recent advances in blockchain technologies bring the opportunities to overcome the limitations of cloud exchange. However, the integration of blockchain with cloud exchange is still in infancy and extensive research efforts are needed to tackle a number of research challenges. To bridge this gap, this paper presents an overview on using blockchain for cloud exchange. In particular, we first give an overview on cloud exchange. We then briefly survey blockchain technology and discuss the issues on using blockchain for cloud exchange in aspects of security, privacy, reputation systems and transaction management. Finally, we present the open research issues in this promising area. © 2019
Blockchain-based data privacy management with Nudge theory in open banking
- Authors: Wang, Hao , Ma, Shenglan , Dai, Hong-Ning , Imran, Muhammad , Wang, Tongsen
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Future Generation Computer Systems Vol. 110, no. (2020), p. 812-823
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- Description: Open banking brings both opportunities and challenges to banks all over the world especially in data management. A blockchain as a continuously growing list of records managed by a peer-to-peer network is widely used in various application scenarios; and it is commonly agreed that the blockchain technology can improve the protection of financial data privacy. However, current blockchain technology still poses some challenges in fully meeting the needs of financial data privacy protection. In order to address the existing problems, this paper proposes a new data privacy management framework based on the blockchain technology for the financial sector. The framework consists of three components: (1) a data privacy classification method according to the characteristics of financial data; (2) a new collaborative-filtering-based model; and (3) a data disclosure confirmation scheme for customer strategies based on the Nudge Theory. We implement a prototype and propose a set of algorithms for this framework. The framework is validated through field experiments and laboratory experiments. © 2019 Elsevier B.V.
Friendly-jamming schemes to secure ultra-reliable and low-latency communications in 5G and beyond communications
- Authors: Li, Xuran , Dai, Hong-Ning , Shukla, Mahendra , Li, Dengwang , Xu, Huaqiang , Imran, Muhammad
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Computer Standards and Interfaces Vol. 78, no. (2021), p.
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- Description: The security vulnerabilities are becoming the major obstacle to prevent the wide adoption of ultra-reliable and low latency communications (URLLC) in 5G and beyond communications. Current security countermeasures based on cryptographic algorithms have a stringent requirement on the centralized key management as well as computational capabilities of end devices while it may not be feasible for URLLC in 5G and beyond communications. In contrast to cryptographic approaches, friendly jamming (FJ) as a promising physical layer security method can enhance wireless communications security while it has less resource requirement on end devices and it can be applied to the full distribution environment. In order to protect wireless communications, FJ signals are introduced to degrade the decoding ability of eavesdroppers who maliciously wiretap confidential information. This article presents a state-of-the-art survey on FJ schemes to enhance network security for IoT networks with consideration of various emerging wireless technologies and different types of networks. First, we present various secrecy performance metrics and introduce the FJ method. The interference caused by FJ signals on legitimate communication is the major challenge of using FJ schemes. In order to overcome this challenge, we next introduce the integration of FJ schemes with various communication technologies, including beamforming, multiple-input multiple-output, full duplex, and relay selection. In addition, we also integrate FJ schemes with different types of communication networks. Finally, a case study of FJ schemes is illustrated and future research directions of FJ schemes have been outlined. © 2021 Elsevier B.V.
Securing internet of medical things with friendly-jamming schemes
- Authors: Li, Xuran , Dai, Hong-Ning , Wang, Qubeijian , Imran, Muhammad , Li, Dengwang
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article , Review
- Relation: Computer Communications Vol. 160, no. (2020), p. 431-442
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- Description: The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT)-enabled e-healthcare can complement traditional medical treatments in a flexible and convenient manner. However, security and privacy become the main concerns of IoMT due to the limited computational capability, memory space and energy constraint of medical sensors, leading to the in-feasibility for conventional cryptographic approaches, which are often computationally-complicated. In contrast to cryptographic approaches, friendly jamming (Fri-jam) schemes will not cause extra computing cost to medical sensors, thereby becoming potential countermeasures to ensure security of IoMT. In this paper, we present a study on using Fri-jam schemes in IoMT. We first analyze the data security in IoMT and discuss the challenges. We then propose using Fri-jam schemes to protect the confidential medical data of patients collected by medical sensors from being eavesdropped. We also discuss the integration of Fri-jam schemes with various communication technologies, including beamforming, Simultaneous Wireless Information and Power Transfer (SWIPT) and full duplexity. Moreover, we present two case studies of Fri-jam schemes in IoMT. The results of these two case studies indicate that the Fri-jam method will significantly decrease the eavesdropping risk while leading to no significant influence on legitimate transmission. © 2020
UAV-enabled data acquisition scheme with directional wireless energy transfer for Internet of Things
- Authors: Liu, Yalin , Dai, Hong-Ning , Wang, Hao , Imran, Muhammad , Wang, Xiaofen , Shoaib, Muhammad
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Computer Communications Vol. 155, no. (2020), p. 184-196
- Full Text: false
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- Description: Low power Internet of Things (IoT) is suffering from two limitations: battery-power limitation of IoT nodes and inflexibility of infrastructure-node deployment. In this paper, we propose an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)-enabled data acquisition scheme with directional wireless energy transfer (WET) to overcome the limitations of low power IoT. The main idea of the proposed scheme is to employ a UAV to serve as both a data collector and an energy supplier. The UAV first transfers directional wireless energy to an IoT node which then sends back the data packets to the UAV by using the harvested energy. Meanwhile, we minimize the overall energy consumption under conditions of balanced energy supply and limited overall time. Moreover, we derive the optimal values of WET time and data transmission power. After analysing the feasibility of the optimal WET time and data transmission, we design an allocation scheme based on the feasible ranges of data size level and channel-fading degree. The numerical results show the feasibility and adaptability of our allocation scheme against the varied values of multiple system parameters. We further extend our scheme to the multi-node scenario by re-designing energy beamforming and adopting multi-access mechanisms. Moreover, we also analyse the mobility of UAVs in the proposed scheme. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.