Are Distributed Ledger Technologies Ready for Intelligent Transportation Systems?

The aim of this paper is to understand whether Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) are ready to support complex services, such as those related to Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). In smart transportation services, a huge amount of sensed data is generated by a multitude of vehicles. While DLTs provide very interesting features, such as immutability, traceability and verifiability of data,some doubts on the scalability and responsiveness of these technologies appear to be well-founded. We propose an architecture for ITS that resorts to DLT features. Moreover, we provide experimental results of a real test-bed over IOTA, a promising DLT for IoT. Results clearly show that, while the viability of the proposal cannot be rejected, further work is needed on the responsiveness of DLT infrastructure

Boosting IoT data valorization through the adoption of DLT

During the last decade Internet of Things has become one of the key technologies in supporting digital transformation of several ecosystems such urban or industry ones. The huge amount of data generated in such contexts as well as the imperative requirements in terms of trustworthiness, authenticity and integrity make compulsory the adoption of the proper solutions fitting those requirements. This paper presents the design, implementation and validation of a distributed ledger technology architecture emphasizing services linked to data valorization.This work is supported by the TOKEN Project: “Transformative Impact Of BlocKchain tEchnologies iN Public Services”, Grant Agreement 870603, belonging to the H2020 Framework Program. The authors want to acknowledge the valuable work carried out by the colleagues participating in this initiative

A System Proposal for Information Management in Building Sector Based on BIM, SSI, IoT and Blockchain

This work presents a Self Sovereign Identity based system proposal to show how Blockchain, Building Information Modeling, Internet of Thing devices, and Self Sovereign Identity concepts can support the process of building digitalization, guaranteeing the compliance standards and technical regulations. The proposal ensures eligibility, transparency and traceability of all information produced by stakeholders, or generated by IoT devices appropriately placed, during the entire life cycle of a building artifact. By exploiting the concepts of the Self Sovereign Identity, our proposal allows the identification of all involved stakeholders, the storage off-chain of all information, and that on-chain of the sole data necessary for the information notarization and certification, adopting multi-signature approval mechanisms where appropriate. In addition it allows the eligibility verification of the certificated information, providing also useful information for facility management. It is proposed as an innovative system and companies that adopt the Open Innovation paradigm might want to pursue it. The model proposal is designed exploiting the Veramo platform, hence the Ethereum Blockchain, and all the recommendations about Self Sovereign Identity systems given by the European Blockchain Partnership, and by the World Wide Web Consortium

Egg producer and egg buyer disconnect: Exploring barriers and levers to increase cage-free egg production in China

About 40% of the world's chicken eggs come from China. Although there is interest in cage-free eggs production in China, the transition has been slow. This report focuses on a key reason: A fundamental disconnect between egg producers and buyers (retailers and end consumers). First, this report gives an OVERVIEW of China's egg industry and commitments to cage-free production.Three BARRIERS causing the disconnect are explained: 1. Understanding — Global cage-free egg campaigns have focused on the singular issue of animal welfare. But the concept of animal welfare is not well understood in China and there is confusion about "cage-free" in China's egg marketplace. 2. Cost — Transitioning to cage-free is expensive and comes with considerable financial risk for Chinese producers. And domestic egg buyers are generally unwilling to pay the resulting price increase. 3. Confidence — Egg producers are not confident that food businesses will keep their commitments. In turn, egg buyers can't always trust claims of traceability and verifiability of their eggs. Five LEVERS to align egg producers and buyers are suggested: 1. Support and fund initiatives for producers and buyers that are firmly China led and driven. 2. Improve transparency and accountability of cage-free commitments specifically in China. 3. Ensure the term "cage-free" is associated with trusted, premium products addressing multiple ethical and social concerns. 4. Increase market demand by targeting receptive demographics (those more concerned with animal welfare, safe, healthy food, and a willingness to pay a price premium for products addressing these concerns). 5. Focus engagement with multinational grocery retailers operating in China yet to make cage-free commitments

On the continuous contract verification using blockchain and real-time data

Supply chains play today a crucial role in the success of a company's logistics. In the last years, multiple investigations focus on incorporating new technologies to the supply chains, being Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain two of the most recent and popular technologies applied. However, their usage has currently considerable challenges, such as transactions performance, scalability, and near real-time contract verification. In this paper we propose a model for continuous verification of contracts in supply chains using the benefits of blockchain technology and real-time data acquisition from IoT devices for early decision-making. We propose two platform independent optimization techniques (atomic transactions and grouped validation) that enhances data transactions protocol and the data storage procedure and a method for continuous verification of contracts, which allows to take corrective actions to reduce ¿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 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

Blockchain-based Data Management for Smart Transportation

Smart services for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) are currently deployed over centralized system solutions. Conversely, the use of decentralized systems to support these applications enables the distribution of data, only to those entities that have the authorization to access them, while at the same time guaranteeing data sovereignty to the data creators. This approach not only allows sharing information without the intervention of a “trusted” data silo, but promotes data verifiability and accountability. We discuss a possible framework based on decentralized systems, with a focus on four requirements, namely data integrity, confidentiality, access control and persistence. We also describe a prototype implementation and related performance results, showing the viability of the chosen approach

On the Efficiency of Decentralized File Storage for Personal Information Management Systems

This paper presents an architecture, based on Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) and Decentralized File Storage (DFS) systems, to support the use of Personal Information Management Systems (PIMS). DLT and DFS are used to manage data sensed by mobile users equipped with devices with sensing capability. DLTs guarantee the immutability, traceability and verifiability of references to personal data, that are stored in DFS. In fact, the inclusion of data digests in the DLT makes it possible to obtain an unalterable reference and a tamper-proof log, while remaining compliant with the regulations on personal data, i.e. GDPR. We provide an experimental evaluation on the feasibility of the use of DFS. Three different scenarios have been studied: i) a proprietary IPFS approach with a dedicated node interfacing with the data producers, ii) a public IPFS service and iii) Sia Skynet. Results show that through proper configuration of the system infrastructure, it is viable to build a decentralized Personal Data Storage (PDS).Comment: To appear in the Proceedings of the 25th IEEE Symposium on Computers and Communications (ISCC 2020

On the Efficiency of Decentralized File Storage for Personal Information Management Systems

This paper presents an architecture, based on Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) and Decentralized File Storage (DFS) systems, to support the use of Personal Information Management Systems (PIMS). DLT and DFS are used to manage data sensed by mobile users equipped with devices with sensing capability. DLTs guarantee the immutability, traceability and verifiability of references to personal data, that are stored in DFS. In fact, the inclusion of data digests in the DLT makes it possible to obtain an unalterable reference and a tamper-proof log, while remaining compliant with the regulations on personal data, i.e. GDPR. We provide an experimental evaluation on the feasibility of the use of DFS. Three different scenarios have been studied: i) a proprietary IPFS approach with a dedicated node interfacing with the data producers, ii) a public IPFS service and iii) Sia Skynet. Results show that through proper configuration of the system infrastructure, it is viable to build a decentralized Personal Data Storage (PDS)