Peer-to-Peer System Design Trade-Offs: A Framework Exploring the Balance between Blockchain and IPFS

The current state of the Web, which is dominated by centralized cloud services, raises several concerns on different aspects such as governance, privacy, surveillance, and security. A way to address these issues is to decentralize the platforms by adopting new distributed technologies, such as IPFS and Blockchain, which follow a full peer-to-peer model. This work proposes a set of guidelines to design decentralized systems, taking into consideration the different trade-offs these technologies face with regard to their consistency requirements. These guidelines are then illustrated with the design of a decentralized questions and answers system. This system serves to illustrate a framework to create decentralized services and applications, that uses IPFS and Blockchain technologies and incorporates the discussion and guidelines of the paper, providing solutions for data access, data provenance and data discovery. Thus, this work proposes a framework for the design of decentralized systems and contributes a set of guidelines to decide in which cases Blockchain technology may be required, or when other technologies, such as IPFS, are sufficient

Open peer-to-peer systems over blockchain and ipfs: An agent oriented framework

In recent years, the increasing concerns around the centralized cloud web services (e.g. privacy, governance, surveillance, security) have triggered the emergence of new distributed technologies, such as IPFS or the Blockchain. These innovations have tackled technical challenges that were unresolved until their appearance. Existing models of peer-to-peer systems need a revision to cover the spectrum of potential systems that can be now implemented as peer-to-peer systems. This work presents a framework to build these systems. It uses an agent-oriented approach in an open environment where agents have only partial information of the system data. The proposal covers data access, data discovery and data trust in peer-to-peer systems where different actors may interact. Moreover, the framework proposes a distributed architecture for these open systems, and provides guidelines to decide in which cases Blockchain technology may be required, or when other technologies may be sufficient

Does HIPAA Provide Enough Protection for Healthcare in the Age of Ransomware and Current Cybersecurity Threats

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) was released the same year the term “phishing” was coined. The Act provided administrative, physical, and technical safeguards to implement for security standards with “required” and “addressable” implementation specifications. Since that time, the healthcare technology landscape has tremendously changed. This study explores four questions: What is the observed (reported) trajectory (frequency) of cases of ransomware attacks compared to other types of data breaches? What are examples of ransomware cases that are not reportable based on HIPAA regulations? What are the examples of the “worst-case” consequences of inadequate protection against ransomware attacks? Which HIPAA regulations should be changed or updated to protect against ransomware? The data shows a significant increase by year in ransomware p\u3c.026, malware p\u3c.006, phishing p\u3c.008, unauthorized access p\u3c.000 and hacking incidents p\u3c.000. Also, 24% of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)1.1. Cybersecurity Framework did not map to HIPAA Security. The study suggests that healthcare organizations should adopt and implement a cybersecurity framework, and the United States Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) should consider an update to the HIPAA Security standards

A Mobile Transient Internet Architecture

This paper describes a new architecture for transient mobile networks destined to merge existing and future network architectures, communication implementations and protocol operations by introducing a new paradigm to data delivery and identification. The main goal of our research is to enable seamless end-to-end communication between mobile and stationary devices across multiple networks and through multiple communication environments. The architecture establishes a set of infrastructure components and protocols that set the ground for a Persistent Identification Network (PIN). The basis for the operation of PIN is an identification space consisting of unique location independent identifiers similar to the ones implemented in the Handle system. Persistent Identifiers are used to identify and locate Digital Entities which can include devices, services, users and even traffic. The architecture establishes a primary connection independent logical structure that can operate over conventional networks or more advanced peer-to-peer aggregation networks. Communication is based on routing pools and novel protocols for routing data across several abstraction levels of the network, regardless of the end-points’ current association and state. The architecture also postulates a new type of network referred to as the Green Network. The Green Network has protocols to coordinate routing traffic and to allow for the identification and authentication of devices, services, users and content characterized as Digital Entities. Transmission is assumed to initiate and terminate at transient physical locations. The network implements every reasonable effort to coordinate a prompt delivery to the transient end-points using whatever means available. This paper is a conceptual logical model of the intended architecture and specifics about its particular components and their implementations will be discussed in future papers

Integration of substance use disorder services with primary care: health center surveys and qualitative interviews.

BackgroundEach year, nearly 20 million Americans with alcohol or illicit drug dependence do not receive treatment. The Affordable Care Act and parity laws are expected to result in increased access to treatment through integration of substance use disorder (SUD) services with primary care. However, relatively little research exists on the integration of SUD services into primary care settings. Our goal was to assess SUD service integration in California primary care settings and to identify the practice and policy facilitators and barriers encountered by providers who have attempted to integrate these services.MethodsPrimary survey and qualitative interview data were collected from the population of federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) in five California counties known to be engaged in SUD integration efforts was surveyed. From among the organizations that responded to the survey (78% response rate), four were purposively sampled based on their level of integration. Interviews were conducted with management, staff, and patients (n=18) from these organizations to collect further qualitative information on the barriers and facilitators of integration.ResultsCompared to mental health services, there was a trend for SUD services to be less integrated with primary care, and SUD services were rated significantly less effective. The perceived difference in effectiveness appeared to be due to provider training. Policy suggestions included expanding the SUD workforce that can bill Medicaid, allowing same-day billing of two services, facilitating easier reimbursement for medications, developing the workforce, and increasing community SUD specialty care capacity.ConclusionsEfforts to integrate SUD services with primary care face significant barriers, many of which arise at the policy level and are addressable

Performing Hybrid Recommendation in Intermodal Transportation – the FTMarket System’s Recommendation Module

Diverse recommendation techniques have been already proposed and encapsulated into several e-business applications, aiming to perform a more accurate evaluation of the existing information and accordingly augment the assistance provided to the users involved. This paper reports on the development and integration of a recommendation module in an agent-based transportation transactions management system. The module is built according to a novel hybrid recommendation technique, which combines the advantages of collaborative filtering and knowledge-based approaches. The proposed technique and supporting module assist customers in considering in detail alternative transportation transactions that satisfy their requests, as well as in evaluating completed transactions. The related services are invoked through a software agent that constructs the appropriate knowledge rules and performs a synthesis of the recommendation policy