Blockchain-based Data Storage Security Architecture for e-Health Care Systems: A Case of Government of Tanzania Hospital Management Information System

A research article was published by IJCSNS International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, VOL.22 No.3, March 2022Health information systems (HIS) are facing security challenges on data privacy and confidentiality. These challenges are based on centralized system architecture creating a target for malicious attacks. Blockchain technology has emerged as a trending technology with the potential to improve data security. Despite the effectiveness of this technology, still HIS are suffering from a lack of data privacy and confidentiality. This paper presents a blockchain-based data storage security architecture integrated with an e-Health care system to improve its security. The study employed a qualitative research method where data were collected using interviews and document analysis. Execute-order-validate Fabric’s storage security architecture was implemented through private data collection, which is the combination of the actual private data stored in a private state, and a hash of that private data to guarantee data privacy. The key findings of this research show that data privacy and confidentiality are attained through a private data policy. Network peers are decentralized with blockchain only for hash storage to avoid storage challenges. Cost-effectiveness is achieved through data storage within a database of a Hyperledger Fabric. The overall performance of Fabric is higher than Ethereum. Ethereum’s low performance is due to its execute-validate architecture which has high computation power with transaction inconsistencies. E-Health care system administrators should be trained and engaged with blockchain architectural designs for health data storage security. Health policymakers should be aware of blockchain technology and make use of the findings. The scientific contribution of this study is based on; cost-effectiveness of secured data storage, the use of hashes of network data stored in each node, and low energy consumption of Fabric leading to high performanc

Narwhal and Tusk: A DAG-based Mempool and Efficient BFT Consensus

We propose separating the task of reliable transaction dissemination from transaction ordering, to enable high-performance Byzantine fault-tolerant quorum-based consensus. We design and evaluate a mempool protocol, Narwhal, specializing in high-throughput reliable dissemination and storage of causal histories of transactions. Narwhal tolerates an asynchronous network and maintains high performance despite failures. Narwhal is designed to easily scale-out using multiple workers at each validator, and we demonstrate that there is no foreseeable limit to the throughput we can achieve. Composing Narwhal with a partially synchronous consensus protocol (Narwhal-HotStuff) yields significantly better throughput even in the presence of faults or intermittent loss of liveness due to asynchrony. However, loss of liveness can result in higher latency. To achieve overall good performance when faults occur we design Tusk, a zero-message overhead asynchronous consensus protocol, to work with Narwhal. We demonstrate its high performance under a variety of configurations and faults. As a summary of results, on a WAN, Narwhal-Hotstuff achieves over 130,000 tx/sec at less than 2-sec latency compared with 1,800 tx/sec at 1-sec latency for Hotstuff. Additional workers increase throughput linearly to 600,000 tx/sec without any latency increase. Tusk achieves 160,000 tx/sec with about 3 seconds latency. Under faults, both protocols maintain high throughput, but Narwhal-HotStuff suffers from increased latency

An In-Depth Investigation of Performance Characteristics of Hyperledger Fabric

Private permissioned blockchains, such as Hyperledger Fabric, are widely deployed across the industry to facilitate cross-organizational processes and promise improved performance compared to their public counterparts. However, the lack of empirical and theoretical results prevent precise prediction of the real-world performance. We address this gap by conducting an in-depth performance analysis of Hyperledger Fabric. The paper presents a detailed compilation of various performance characteristics using an enhanced version of the Distributed Ledger Performance Scan. Researchers and practitioners alike can use the results as guidelines to better configure and implement their blockchains and utilize the DLPS framework to conduct their measurements

CD/CV: Blockchain-based schemes for continuous verifiability and traceability of IoT data for edge-fog-cloud

This paper presents a continuous delivery/continuous verifiability (CD/CV) method for IoT dataflows in edge¿fog¿cloud. A CD model based on extraction, transformation, and load (ETL) mechanism as well as a directed acyclic graph (DAG) construction, enable end-users to create efficient schemes for the continuous verification and validation of the execution of applications in edge¿fog¿cloud infrastructures. This scheme also verifies and validates established execution sequences and the integrity of digital assets. CV model converts ETL and DAG into business model, smart contracts in a private blockchain for the automatic and transparent registration of transactions performed by each application in workflows/pipelines created by CD model without altering applications nor edge¿fog¿cloud workflows. This model ensures that IoT dataflows delivers verifiable information for organizations to conduct critical decision-making processes with certainty. A containerized parallelism model solves portability issues and reduces/compensates the overhead produced by CD/CV operations. We developed and implemented a prototype to create CD/CV schemes, which were evaluated in a case study where user mobility information is used to identify interest points, patterns, and maps. The experimental evaluation revealed the efficiency of CD/CV to register the transactions performed in IoT dataflows through edge¿fog¿cloud in a private blockchain network in comparison with state-of-art solutions.This work has been partially supported by the project “CABAHLA-CM: Convergencia Big data-Hpc: de los sensores a las Aplicaciones” S2018/TCS-4423 from Madrid Regional Government, Spain and by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation Project “New Data Intensive Computing Methods for High-End and Edge Computing Platforms (DECIDE)”. Ref. PID2019-107858GB-I00; and by the project 41756 “Plataforma tecnológica para la gestión, aseguramiento, intercambio preservación de grandes volúmenes de datos en salud construcción de un repositorio nacional de servicios de análisis de datos de salud” by the PRONACES-CONACYT, Mexic

Latency performance modelling in hyperledger fabric blockchain: Challenges and directions with an IoT perspective

Blockchain is a decentralized and distributed ledger technology that enables secure and transparent recording of transactions across multiple participants. Hyperledger Fabric (HLF), a permissioned blockchain, enhances performance through its modular design and pluggable consensus. However, integrating HLF with enterprise applications introduces latency challenges. Researchers have proposed numerous latency performance modelling techniques to address this issue. These studies contribute to a deeper understanding of HLF's latency by employing various modelling approaches and exploring techniques to improve network latency. However, existing HLF latency modelling studies lack an analysis of how these research efforts apply to specific use cases. This paper examines existing research on latency performance modelling in HLF and the challenges of applying these models to HLF-enabled Internet of Things (IoT) use cases. We propose a novel set of criteria for evaluating HLF latency performance modelling and highlight key HLF parameters that influence latency, aligning them with our evaluation criteria. We then classify existing papers based on their focus on latency modelling and the criteria they address. Additionally, we provide a comprehensive overview of latency performance modelling from various researchers, emphasizing the challenges in adapting these models to HLF-enabled IoT blockchain within the framework of our evaluation criteria. Finally, we suggest directions for future research and highlight open research questions for further exploration

Application of blockchain technology in strengthening health information system security: a case study of Mount Meru referral hospital

A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements of the Award the Degree of Master of Science in Wireless and Mobile Computing of the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and TechnologyHealth information system (HIS) is a digital technology used in health care data management. Through literature review, it has been observed that HIS are facing security challenges. These challenges are based on centralized system architecture creating a target for malicious attacks. Despite of the effectiveness of this technology, still HIS are suffering from a lack of data privacy and confidentiality. This research developed a blockchain-based system integrated with the Government of Tanzania Hospital Management Information System. The study employed a qualitative research method where data were collected using interviews and document analysis. Execute-order-validate Fabric’s storage security architecture was implemented through private data collection. Privacy and confidentiality are attained through a private data policy. Network peers are decentralized with blockchain only for hash storage to avoid storage challenges. Cost-effectiveness is achieved through data storage within a database of a Hyperledger Fabric. The overall performance of Fabric is higher than Ethereum. Ethereum’s low performance is due to its execute-validate architecture which has high computation power with transaction inconsistencies. Health policymakers should be aware of blockchain technology and make use of the findings. The scientific contribution of this study is based on; the cost-effectiveness of secured data storage, the use of hashes of network data stored in each node, and low energy consumption of Fabric leading to high performance. The system is developed in an integrated data sharing architecture in a peer-to-peer, decentralized network environment. Data sharing and information exchange are maintained without central control, with improved security and privacy of the system

マルチチャネルスキームと階層的リソーススケジューリングを備えた車両のインターネットのための効率的なブロックチェーンに向けて

電気通信大学202

Impact of network delays on Hyperledger Fabric

Blockchain has become one of the most attractive technologies for applications, with a large range of deployments such as production, economy, or banking. Under the hood, Blockchain technology is a type of distributed database that supports untrusted parties. In this paper we focus Hyperledger Fabric, the first blockchain in the market tailored for a private environment, allowing businesses to create a permissioned network. Hyperledger Fabric implements a PBFT consensus in order to maintain a non forking blockchain at the application level. We deployed this framework over an area network between France and Germany in order to evaluate its performance when potentially large network delays are observed. Overall we found that when network delay increases significantly (i.e. up to 3.5 seconds at network layer between two clouds), we observed that the blocks added to our blockchain had up to 134 seconds offset after 100 th block from one cloud to another. Thus by delaying block propagation, we demonstrated that Hyperledger Fabric does not provide sufficient consistency guaranties to be deployed in critical environments. Our work, is the fist to evidence the negative impact of network delays on a PBFT-based blockchain