Smart contracts categorization with topic modeling techniques

One of the main advantages of the Ethereum blockchain is the possibility of developing smart contracts in a Turing complete environment. These general-purpose programs provide a higher level of security than traditional contracts and reduce other transaction costs associated with the bargaining practice. Developers use smart contracts to build their tokens and set up gambling games, crowdsales, ICO, and many others. Since the number of smart contracts inside the Ethereum blockchain is several million, it is unthinkable to check every program manually to understand its functionality. At the same time, it would be of primary importance to group sets of Smart Contracts according to their purposes and functionalities. One way to group Ethereum’s smart contracts is to use topic modeling techniques, taking advantage of the fact that many programs representing a specific topic are similar in the program structure. Starting from a dataset of 130k smart contracts, we built a Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model to spot the number of topics within our sample. Computing the coherence values for a different number of topics, we found out that the optimal number was 15. As we expected, most programs are tokens, games, crowdfunding platforms, and ICO

Charlotte Ross, Eccentricity and Sameness. Discourses on Lesbianism and Desire between Women in Italy, 1860s-1930s

Review of the book Eccentricity and Sameness. Discourses on Lesbianism and Desire between Women in Italy, 1860s-1930s by Charlotte Ross.La quasi assenza di rappresentazioni del desiderio omoerotico tra donne nella storia italiana viene consacrata come assiomatica. In Eccentricity and Sameness. Discourses on Lesbianism and Desire between Women in Italy, 1860s-1930s, Charlotte Ross smentisce questo assunto fornendo un’analisi dettagliata della storia del desiderio tra donne e della genealogia della soggettività lesbica. Il libro, pubblicato da Peter Lang nella collana “Italian Modernities” diretta da Pier Paolo Antonello e Robert Gordon, è l’unico volume che, al suo interno, si occupi di sessualità.

Evaluating Machine-Learning Techniques for Detecting Smart Ponzi Schemes

International audienceEthereum is one of the most popular platforms for exchanging cryptocurrencies as well as the most established for peer to peer programming and smart contracts publishing [3]. The versatility of the Solidity language allows developers to program general-purpose smart contracts. Among the various smart contracts, there may be some fraudulent ones, whose purpose is to steal Ether from the network participants. A notorious example of such cases are Ponzi schemes, i.e. a financial frauds that require investors to be repaid through the investments of others who have just entered the scheme. Within the Ethereum blockchain, several contracts have been identified as being Ponzi schemes. The paper proposes a machine learning model that uses textual classification techniques to recognize contracts emulating the behavior of a Ponzi scheme. Starting from a contracts dataset containing exclusively Ponzi schemes uploaded between 2016 and 2018, we built models able to properly classify Ponzi schemes contracts. We tested several models, some of which returned an overall accuracy of 99% on classification. The best model turned out to be the linear Support Vector Machine and the Multinomial Naive Bayes model, which provides the best results in terms of metrics evaluation

Smart Contracts Posts and Topic on Reddit

<p>A dataset including two CSVs collecting Reddit posts including respectively:<br>- Permalink: The post's link<br>- Title: The post's title<br>- author: The author's name.<br>- authorUrl: The URL to the author's profile<br>- commentCount: The number of comments related to the post<br>- id: The id of the post<br>-createdDate: The creation date of the reddit post<br>- query: Contains the URL of the board<br>- category: The category related to the subreddit post<br>- score: post score<br>- awardCount: number of awards<br>- silverCount: number of silver gildings<br>- goldCount: number of gold gildings<br>- platinumCount: number of platinum gildings<br>- upvoteRatio: the upvote ratio</p&gt

Setzu. L'albero dell'identità

Per ragioni storiche profonde ogni centro abitato, anche il più minuscolo, ha in Sardegna un rapporto organico profondo con il proprio territorio e presenta sempre peculiarità culturali che meritano di essere rivitalizzate. La ricerca storica può far molto per evidenziare questi profili di identità ai fini di una loro valorizzazione nei progetti di sviluppo locale. Nel caso di Setzu questo libro si sforza anche, a tal fine, di ri-costruire le trame più antiche delle solidarietà che lo hanno legato ai comuni vicini e all’intera Marmilla

Evaluating Machine-Learning Techniques for Detecting Smart Ponzi Schemes

International audienceEthereum is one of the most popular platforms for exchanging cryptocurrencies as well as the most established for peer to peer programming and smart contracts publishing [3]. The versatility of the Solidity language allows developers to program general-purpose smart contracts. Among the various smart contracts, there may be some fraudulent ones, whose purpose is to steal Ether from the network participants. A notorious example of such cases are Ponzi schemes, i.e. a financial frauds that require investors to be repaid through the investments of others who have just entered the scheme. Within the Ethereum blockchain, several contracts have been identified as being Ponzi schemes. The paper proposes a machine learning model that uses textual classification techniques to recognize contracts emulating the behavior of a Ponzi scheme. Starting from a contracts dataset containing exclusively Ponzi schemes uploaded between 2016 and 2018, we built models able to properly classify Ponzi schemes contracts. We tested several models, some of which returned an overall accuracy of 99% on classification. The best model turned out to be the linear Support Vector Machine and the Multinomial Naive Bayes model, which provides the best results in terms of metrics evaluation

Masullas nella storia

Il titolo di questo libro, Masullas nella storia, contiene una doppia allusione. La prima è alla ricchezza e densità delle vicende storiche di un piccolo borgo della Sardegna interna, rimaste a lungo ignote ai suoi stessi abitanti. E non si tratta di una storia soltanto locale, nell’accezione tradizionale del “locale”, perché gli eventi e i processi che interessano Masullas sul lungo periodo – la decadenza romana e la cristianizzazione delle campagne, l’emancipazione degli uomini dall’economia schiavistica e il loro successivo assoggettamento al feudalesimo, le dominazioni straniere (nel caso sardo prima iberica e poi sabauda) e l’affermarsi lento di tensioni al mutamento e allo sviluppo economico e civile – sono eventi e processi che riguardano la Sardegna e l’intera Europa occidentale. La seconda allusione del titolo è al fermento di conoscenze, idee e suggestioni che la riscoperta della propria storia (cos’altro è l’identità?) ha consentito a un’amministrazione avveduta e coraggiosa di trascriverla in progetti e iniziative di sviluppo. A conferma che la storia e la cultura (cos’altro è la cultura se non la coscienza viva della propria storia?) sono l’ultima linea di resistenza che le comunità locali possono opporre alle pressioni distruttive della globalizzazione

Blockchain Certification and Granular Editing Permissions in Document Management System

Ever-growing digitalization and increasingly competitive markets are driving industry and the public sector into fast-paced transformation. Competitive advantage is being acquired through technology investments made possible by previously unavailable resources, freed by process automation, simplification, and rationalization. Under these contingencies, we propose an innovative document management platform, featuring a collaborative document editing technique and a blockchain certification procedure. The two proposing parties - a private company and an academic organization - mutually agreed on employing open-source technologies as a strategic means to promote software reuse and developer communities’ support, and consequently reduce implementation costs and ensure interoperability

MindTheDApp: A Toolchain for Complex Network-Driven Structural Analysis of Ethereum-Based Decentralized Applications

This paper presents MindTheDApp, a toolchain designed specifically for the structural analysis of Ethereum-based Decentralized Applications (DApps), with a distinct focus on a complex network-driven approach. Unlike existing tools, our toolchain combines the power of ANTLR4 and Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) traversal techniques to transform the architecture and interactions within smart contracts into a specialized bipartite graph. This enables advanced network analytics to highlight operational efficiencies within the DApp’s architecture. The bipartite graph generated by the proposed tool comprises two sets of nodes: one representing smart contracts, interfaces, and libraries, and the other including functions, events, and modifiers. Edges in the graph connect functions to smart contracts they interact with, offering a granular view of interdependencies and execution flow within the DApp. This network-centric approach allows researchers and practitioners to apply complex network theory in understanding the robustness, adaptability, and intricacies of decentralized systems. Our work contributes to the enhancement of security in smart contracts by allowing the visualisation of the network, and it provides a deep understanding of the architecture and operational logic within DApps. Given the growing importance of smart contracts in the blockchain ecosystem and the emerging application of complex network theory in technology, our toolchain offers a timely contribution to both academic research and practical applications in the field of blockchain technology