A detailed review of blockchain-based applications for protection against pandemic like COVID-19

The recent corona virus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has brought the issues of technological deficiencies and challenges of security and privacy, validating and maintaining anonymity, user control over records while fully utilizing the available records etc., that can be encountered in an emergency or pandemic condition. Blockchain technology has evolved as a promising solution in conditions that necessitate immutability, record integrity, and proper records authentication. Blockchain can effectively resolve the technical barriers and effectively utilize the available resources and infrastructure in pandemic situations like the current COVID-19. This paper provides an extensive review of various possible use cases of blockchain and available solutions for protection against the COVID-19 like situation. It gives an insight into the benefits and shortcomings of available solutions. It further provides the issues and challenges of adopting blockchain in a situation like COVID-19 and suggest future directions that can offer a platform for further improved and better solutions

Security and Privacy of Contact Tracing Applications

Αυτή η διατριβή εστιάζει στην ασφάλεια και το απόρρητο των εφαρμογών ανίχνευσης επαφών. Παρουσιάζονται οι κανόνες και οι κατευθυντήριες γραμμές που παρέχονται από το Ευρωπαϊκό Συμβούλιο Προστασίας Δεδομένων και τον Γενικό Κανονισμό Προστασίας Δεδομένων για την ανάπτυξη και τη λειτουργικότητα των εφαρμογών ανίχνευσης επαφών. Στη συνέχεια, γίνεται μια περιγραφή υψηλού επιπέδου των κύριων αρχιτεκτονικών και τεχνολογιών που χρησιμοποιούνται στην ανίχνευση επαφών, παρουσιάζονται τα πλεονεκτήματα και τα μειονεκτήματα καθεμιάς, οι απειλές για την ασφάλεια και οι ανησυχίες για το απόρρητο, καθώς και παραδείγματα της λειτουργικότητάς τους. Υπάρχει επίσης μια ανάλυση σχετικά με τις αναπτυγμένες εφαρμογές ανίχνευσης επαφών σε όλο τον κόσμο τα τελευταία 2 χρόνια, όπου συζητούνται τα ευρήματα, το πόσο αποδεκτή είναι καθώς και το πόσο καλά προστατεύει την ιδιωτικότητα η εκάστοτε εφαρμογή. Πάνω σε αυτήν την ανάλυση, γίνεται έρευνα των trackers και των αδειών που απαιτούνται για κάθε εφαρμογή, και συζήτηση για το πώς αυτά επηρεάζουν την υιοθέτηση της εφαρμογής από το κοινό. Τέλος, υπάρχει η πρότασή μας για τις οδηγίες που πρέπει να ακολουθεί μια ελληνική εφαρμογή ανίχνευσης επαφών για να είναι ασφαλής, ιδιωτική και να υιοθετηθεί με επιτυχία από το κοινό.The focus of this thesis is the security and privacy of contact tracing applications. The rules and guidelines provided by European Data Protection Board and General Data Protection Regulation for the development and functionality of contact tracing applications will be presented, as well as, a high-level description of the main architectures and technologies used in contact tracing, the advantages and disadvantages of each, security threats and privacy concerns and examples of their functionality. There is also an analysis concerning developed contact tracing applications around the world over the past 2 years, where the findings and how acceptable and privacy-proof is each application, are discussed. Based on the aforementioned analysis, the trackers and permissions required for each application are investigated and the manner in which these affect the adoption of the application is discussed. Finally, there is our suggestion of the guidelines a Greek contact tracing application should follow to be secure, private and successfully adopted from the public

Privacy-preserving COVID-19 Contact Tracing Blockchain

The outbreak of the COVID-19 virus has caused widespread panic and global initiatives are geared towards treatment and limiting its spread. With technological advancements, several mechanisms and mobile applications have been developed that attempt to trace the physical contact made by a person with someone who has been tested COVID-19 positive. While designing these apps, user's privacy has been an afterthought and has resulted in mass violations of privacy of the public and the patients. A total of 32 countries have designed apps and rely on them as a strategy to flatten the pandemic curve. Along with lack of privacy, these methodologies are centralized, where they are fully controlled by the government and the healthcare providers. Owing to these and many other concerns, people are hesitant in the adoption of these technologies. This paper presents a detailed analysis of user tracking apps belonging to 32 countries, thus demonstrating that they collect personal data and are a gross violation of user privacy. This paper presents a novel architecture for the efficient, effective and privacy-preserving contact tracing of COVID-19 patients using blockchain. The proposed architecture preserves the privacy of individuals and their contact history by encrypting all the data specific to an individual using a privacy-preserving Homomorphic encryption scheme and storing it on a permissioned blockchain network. The contacts made with a COVID-19 positive patient are identified by performing search queries directly over the Homomorphic encrypted data stored in the blocks. Therefore, only those contacts that are suspected to be COVID-19 positive may be decrypted by the healthcare professional or government for further contact tracing/diagnosis and COVID-19 testing; thereby leading to enhanced privacy

History of Construction Cultures Volume 1

History of Construction Cultures Volume 1 contains papers presented at the 7ICCH – Seventh International Congress on Construction History, held at the Lisbon School of Architecture, Portugal, from 12 to 16 July, 2021. The conference has been organized by the Lisbon School of Architecture (FAUL), NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities, the Portuguese Society for Construction History Studies and the University of the Azores. The contributions cover the wide interdisciplinary spectrum of Construction History and consist on the most recent advances in theory and practical case studies analysis, following themes such as: - epistemological issues; - building actors; - building materials; - building machines, tools and equipment; - construction processes; - building services and techniques ; -structural theory and analysis ; - political, social and economic aspects; - knowledge transfer and cultural translation of construction cultures. Furthermore, papers presented at thematic sessions aim at covering important problematics, historical periods and different regions of the globe, opening new directions for Construction History research. We are what we build and how we build; thus, the study of Construction History is now more than ever at the centre of current debates as to the shape of a sustainable future for humankind. Therefore, History of Construction Cultures is a critical and indispensable work to expand our understanding of the ways in which everyday building activities have been perceived and experienced in different cultures, from ancient times to our century and all over the world