Formal Modeling and Verification of a Blockchain-Based Crowdsourcing Consensus Protocol

Crowdsourcing is an effective technique that allows humans to solve complex problems that are hard to accomplish by automated tools. Some significant challenges in crowdsourcing systems include avoiding security attacks, effective trust management, and ensuring the system’s correctness. Blockchain is a promising technology that can be efficiently exploited to address security and trust issues. The consensus protocol is a core component of a blockchain network through which all the blockchain peers achieve an agreement about the state of the distributed ledger. Therefore, its security, trustworthiness, and correctness have vital importance. This work proposes a Secure and Trustworthy Blockchain-based Crowdsourcing (STBC) consensus protocol to address these challenges. Model checking is an effective and automatic technique based on formal methods that is utilized to ensure the correctness of STBC consensus protocol. The proposed consensus protocol’s formal specification is described using Communicating Sequential Programs (CSP#). Safety, fault tolerance, leader trust, and validators’ trust are important properties for a consensus protocol, which are formally specified through Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) to prevent several security attacks, such as blockchain fork, selfish mining, and invalid block insertion. Process Analysis Toolkit (PAT) is utilized for the formal verification of the proposed consensus protocol

Hacker Combat: A Competitive Sport from Programmatic Dueling & Cyberwarfare

The history of humanhood has included competitive activities of many different forms. Sports have offered many benefits beyond that of entertainment. At the time of this article, there exists not a competitive ecosystem for cyber security beyond that of conventional capture the flag competitions, and the like. This paper introduces a competitive framework with a foundation on computer science, and hacking. This proposed competitive landscape encompasses the ideas underlying information security, software engineering, and cyber warfare. We also demonstrate the opportunity to rank, score, & categorize actionable skill levels into tiers of capability. Physiological metrics are analyzed from participants during gameplay. These analyses provide support regarding the intricacies required for competitive play, and analysis of play. We use these intricacies to build a case for an organized competitive ecosystem. Using previous player behavior from gameplay, we also demonstrate the generation of an artificial agent purposed with gameplay at a competitive level

Revolutionizing Crowdworking Campaigns: Conquering Adverse Selection and Moral Hazard with the Help of Smart Contracts

Crowdworking is increasingly being applied by companies to outsource tasks beyond their core competencies flexibly and cost-effectively to an unknown group. However, the anonymous and financially incentivized nature of crowdworkers creates information asymmetries and conflicts of interest, leading to inefficiencies and intensifying the principal-agent problem. Our paper offers a solution to the widespread problem of inefficient Crowdworking campaigns. We first derive the currently applied Crowdworking campaign process based on a qualitative study. Subsequently, we identify the broadest adverse selection and moral hazard problems in the process. We then analyze how the blockchain application of smart contracts can counteract those challenges and develop a process model that maps a Crowdworking campaign using smart contracts. We explain how our developed process significantly reduces adverse selection and moral hazard at each stage. Thus, our research provides approaches to make online labor more attractive and transparent for companies and online workers

Identifying and Scoping Context-Specific Use Cases For Blockchain-Enabled Systems in the Wild.

Advances in technology often provide a catalyst for digital innovation. Arising from the global banking crisis at the end of the first decade of the 21st Century, decentralised and distributed systems have seen a surge in growth and interest. Blockchain technology, the foundation of the decentralised virtual currency Bitcoin, is one such catalyst. The main component of a blockchain, is its public record of verified, timestamped transactions maintained in an append-only, chain-like, data structure. This record is replicated across n-nodes in a network of co-operating participants. This distribution offers a public proof of transactions verified in the past. Beyond tokens and virtual currency, real-world use cases for blockchain technology are in need of research and development. The challenge in this proof-of-concept research is to identify an orchestration model of innovation that leads to the successful development of software artefacts that utilise blockchain technology. These artefacts must maximise the potential of the technology and enhance the real-world business application. An original two phase orchestration model is defined. The model includes both a discovery and implementation phase and implements state-of-the-art process innovation frameworks: Capability Maturity Modelling, Business Process Redesign, Open Innovation and Distributed Digital Innovation. The model succeeds in its aim to generate feasible problem-solution design pairings to be implemented as blockchain enabled software systems. Three systems are developed: an internal supply-chain management system, a crowd-source sponsorship model for individual players on a team and a proof-of-origin smart tag system. The contribution is to have defined an innovation model through which context-specific blockchain usecases can be identified and scoped in the wild