Anonymous Multi-Hop Locks for Blockchain Scalability and Interoperability

Tremendous growth in cryptocurrency usage is exposing the inherent scalability issues with permissionless blockchain technology. Payment-channel networks (PCNs) have emerged as the most widely deployed solution to mitigate the scalability issues, allowing the bulk of payments between two users to be carried out off-chain. Unfortunately, as reported in the literature and further demonstrated in this paper, current PCNs do not provide meaningful security and privacy guarantees. In this work, we study and design secure and privacy-preserving PCNs. We start with a security analysis of existing PCNs, reporting a new attack that applies to all major PCNs, including the Lightning Network, and allows an attacker to steal the fees from honest intermediaries in the same payment path. We then formally define anonymous multi-hop locks (AMHLs), a novel cryptographic primitive that serves as a cornerstone for the design of secure and privacy-preserving PCNs. We present several provably secure cryptographic instantiations that make AMHLs compatible with the vast majority of cryptocurrencies. In particular, we show that (linear) homomorphic one-way functions suffice to construct AMHLs for PCNs supporting a script language (e.g., Ethereum). We also propose a construction based on ECDSA signatures that does not require scripts, thus solving a prominent open problem in the field. AMHLs constitute a generic primitive whose usefulness goes beyond multi-hop payments in a single PCN and we show how to realize atomic swaps and interoperable PCNs from this primitive. Finally, our performance evaluation on a commodity machine finds that AMHL operations can be performed in less than 100 millisec- onds and require less than 500 bytes of communication overhead, even in the worst case. In fact, after acknowledging our attack, the Lightning Network developers have implemented our ECDSA-based AMHLs into their PCN. This demonstrates the practicality of our approach and its impact on the security, privacy, interoperability, and scalability of today’s cryptocurrencies

Revolutionizing International Remittance Payments Using Cryptocurrency and Blockchain-based Technology

Blockchain is disrupting many traditional industries including financial services. In the case of remittance payments, blockchain is seen as a promising technology that can revolutionize the way we send and receive money. Traditional players like Western Union and Moneygram are facing new entrants in this market such as blockchain startups. This paper will analyze the application of blockchain in remittances in order to determine if it has the potential to transform this industry. Through our analysis of the remittance industry and its current competitive landscape, it seems that it is very likely that blockchain will disrupt the space and completely change it in the next few years. Some of blockchain’s benefits in remittances discussed in this paper consist of reduced costs, increased speed, and the possibility to offer remittance services for the unbanked population

IoT TECHNOLOGY BASED ON AI PLATFORM FOR BLOCKCHAIN E-EDUCATION

The priority elements of the e-government system with Blockchain technologies in the most important socially oriented areas are the electronic health system, electronic education and science system, electronic environment, etc., the introduction of which is designed to make public information open to the public, in particular on the state of the environment, directions and volumes of use of public funds, Land Management, the state of development and use of mineral resources, etc.; automate some processes of management of the relevant areas (personnel, monitoring, finance, reporting); improve the Electronic Document Management System in educational and scientific institutions, healthcare and the environment; ensure that users of the system can receive services in the relevant areas through online services, including checking the validity of documents, registering in electronic queues, and so on. It should be noted that educational institutions provide applicants with "information", which in the learning process should turn into "knowledge". We note that the main difference between knowledge and information is the degree of organization and consciousness of Primary Data. In our opinion, the main difference lies not only in the degree of organization and consciousness of primary data but also in the orientation. So, information is the" raw material " for the formation of knowledge, the main resource, service, and product. Knowledge, in our opinion, is systematic, structured information that an individual has. That is, knowledge is a quality of the individual. A modern successful person needs to learn throughout his life. At the same time, the ability to make decisions independently, the ability to think, and the ability to solve complex interdisciplinary problems in non-standard situations become essential. This makes it necessary for a modern person to have the skills to search, analyze and process information in accordance with the methodology of scientific knowledge using digital technologies. The foundation for obtaining knowledge by a person is education, in the process of which educational institutions provide the applicant with "information" that he must turn into "knowledge". The process of converting information into knowledge in the modern environment is possible only if the information and research competencies are formed

A Decentralized Lightweight Blockchain Nodes Architecture Based on a Secure OpenFlow Protocol Controller Channel

The Blockchain technology raises many concerns because all transactions must be verified by every node in the Blockchain network. Because of this the spread of Blockchain technology in all sectors has been very slow. This paper introduces Blockchain nodes and the difference between nodes and then our approach light node control node based on SDN that has a more secure routing mechanism than only light nodes or networks without full nodes and light nodes. In peer to peer networks nodes connect and disconnect all the time and some of these nodes are malicious and will cost the network security and scalability. We applied a technique that uses route packet information by making a table of the IP address with OpenFlow. We calculate our approach flow measurement performance using large scale simulations. The result showed that by using an IP table we can control the nodes connections and make more scalable, secure ones without the need of full nodes working all the time. The proposed model is a distributed architecture based on Blockchain and OpenFlow protocol technology that provides a low-cost, secure, intelligent, and simple approach in all types of computer network infrastructure

A Systematic Review on Blockchain in Education: Opportunities and Challenges

This study focuses on bloackchain as an emerging technology regarding its use to restructure the systems and advance education upon quality outcomes. What are the benefits of integrating blockchain in education concerning system reformation and advancement in developing better educational process for all encompassing learning outcomes? With the recent developments of blockchain applications across multiple domains, the education industry seems to be benefited from this technology in considerable degree. Transcripts and certificates play a vital role in individual’s life so it needs to be stored in tamper-proof and long term available ledger. In pursuant to addressing afore stated question, this study bring information regarding what blockchain technology is, how it functions and what its uses if it comes to integrate with education at different levels. This may include reviewing the conceptual/knowledge bases, research and development studies and sources that introduce blcokchain including its features but with special highlight on how it has been integrated in the education sector especially in innovative situation.To this end, this study was designed to provide a systematic review of all the literature focused on decentralized ledger technology. Multiple sources were reviewed following a systematicpattern that allows selection of relevant sources, sort out information being guided by the research question and make final selection of required information that connects with what and how of Blockchain in education. Keywords: Blockchain, Education, Ledgers, Certificate, Decentralized technolog