appXchain: Application-Level Interoperability for Blockchain Networks

Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize industries by offering decentralized, transparent, data provenance, auditable, reliable, and trustworthy features. However, cross-chain interoperability is one of the crucial challenges preventing widespread adoption of blockchain applications. Cross-chain interoperability represents the ability for one blockchain network to interact and share data with another blockchain network. Contemporary cross-chain interoperability solutions are centralized and require re-engineering of the core blockchain stack to enable inter-communication and data sharing among heterogeneous blockchain networks. In this paper, we propose an application-based cross-chain interoperability solution named appXchain which allows blockchain networks of any architecture type and industrial focus to inter-communicate, share data, and make requests. Our solution utilizes the decentralized applications as a distributed translation layer that is capable of communicating and understanding multiple blockchain networks, thereby delegating requests and parameters among them. The architecture uses incentivized verifier nodes that maintain the integrity of shared data facilitating them to be readable by the entities of their network. We define and describe the roles and requirements of major entities of inter-operating blockchain networks in the context of healthcare. We present a detailed explanation of the sequence of interactions needed to share an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) document from one blockchain network to another along with the required algorithms. We implement the appXchain solution with Ethereum-based smart contracts for two hospitals and also present its cost and security analysis. We have made our smart contracts code and testing scripts publicly available.

Application-Level Interoperability for Blockchain Networks

Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize industries by offering decentralized, transparent, data provenance, auditable, reliable, and trustworthy features. However, cross-chain interoperability is one of the crucial challenges preventing widespread adoption of blockchain applications. Cross-chain interoperability represents the ability for one blockchain network to interact and share data with another blockchain network. Contemporary cross-chain interoperability solutions are centralized and require re-engineering of the core blockchain stack to enable inter-communication and data sharing among heterogeneous blockchain networks. In this paper, we propose an application-based cross-chain interoperability solution that allows blockchain networks of any architecture type and industrial focus to inter-communicate, share data, and make requests. Our solution utilizes the decentralized applications as a distributed translation layer that is capable of communicating and understanding multiple blockchain networks, thereby delegating requests and parameters among them. The architecture uses incentivized verifier nodes that maintain the integrity of shared data facilitating them to be readable by the entities of their network. We define and describe the roles and requirements of major entities of inter-operating blockchain networks in the context of healthcare. We present a detailed explanation of the sequence of interactions needed to share an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) document from one blockchain network to another along with the required algorithms. We implement the proposed solution with Ethereum-based smart contracts for two hospitals and also present cost and security analysis for the cross-chain interoperability solution. We make our smart contracts code and testing scripts publicly available.

Application-Level Interoperability for Blockchain Networks

Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize industries by offering decentralized, transparent, data provenance, auditable, reliable, and trustworthy features. However, cross-chain interoperability is one of the crucial challenges preventing widespread adoption of blockchain applications. Cross-chain interoperability represents the ability for one blockchain network to interact and share data with another blockchain network. Contemporary cross-chain interoperability solutions are centralized and require re-engineering of the core blockchain stack to enable inter-communication and data sharing among heterogeneous blockchain networks. In this paper, we propose an application-based cross-chain interoperability solution that allows blockchain networks of any architecture type and industrial focus to inter-communicate, share data, and make requests. Our solution utilizes the decentralized applications as a distributed translation layer that is capable of communicating and understanding multiple blockchain networks, thereby delegating requests and parameters among them. The architecture uses incentivized verifier nodes that maintain the integrity of shared data facilitating them to be readable by the entities of their network. We define and describe the roles and requirements of major entities of inter-operating blockchain networks in the context of healthcare. We present a detailed explanation of the sequence of interactions needed to share an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) document from one blockchain network to another along with the required algorithms. We implement the proposed solution with Ethereum-based smart contracts for two hospitals and also present cost and security analysis for the cross-chain interoperability solution. We make our smart contracts code and testing scripts publicly available.

Life in Groups

From its earliest days, Darwin’s theory marked off social from non-social animals. As his ideas developed, he suggested that several processes, would produce natural selection in social animals, which did not occur in their non-social cousins. These included processes based on: blood-relationships (kin selection); dependable reciprocity; and group selection. Complementing his view of evolution as promoting increasing inter-communication between parts of the hominid brain, group dynamics provide the key to understanding the evolution of humanity’s most distinctive and complex forms of agency, according to Descent. While the book deals with a range of the ‘highest’ forms of human agency, including the origins of language, it focuses most on conscience and moral action. It develops a complex theory of conscience in which several different characters play parts: the self-gratifier; the praise-seeker; an arbitrary monitor; a supremely rational judge; and an impulsive hero. Darwin’s group-based approach to understanding humanity was an inspiration to Freud and has widespread resonances in later scholarship—some discordant, many harmonious.

Android Collusion: Detecting Malicious Applications Inter-Communication through SharedPreferences

The Android platform is currently targeted by malicious writers, continuously focused on the development of new types of attacks to extract sensitive and private information from our mobile devices. In this landscape, one recent trend is represented by the collusion attack. In a nutshell this attack requires that two or more applications are installed to perpetrate the malicious behaviour that is split in more than one single application: for this reason anti-malware are not able to detect this attack, considering that they analyze just one application at a time and that the single colluding application does not exhibit any malicious action. In this paper an approach exploiting model checking is proposed to automatically detect whether two applications exhibit the ability to perform a collusion through the SharedPreferences communication mechanism. We formulate a series of temporal logic formulae to detect the collusion attack from a model obtained by automatically selecting the classes candidate for the collusion, obtained by two heuristics we propose. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach is promising in collusion application detection: as a matter of fact an accuracy equal to 0.99 is obtained by evaluating 993 Android applications.

Open Threads-Enabled Mesh Networks in Vehicles for Real-Time Traffic Monitoring

The exponential increase of traffic on roads has led to numerous disastrous consequences. These issues demand an adaptive solution that ensures road safety and decreases the traffic congestion on roads. New paradigms such as Cloud computing and internet of things are aiding in achievement of the inter-communication among the vehicles on road. VANETs are designed to provide effective and efficient communication systems to develop innovative solutions but are restricted due to mobility constraints. This chapter proposes an IP-based novel framework composed of open threads integrated with VANETs exchanging information to create a mesh network among vehicles. This novel Open Threads-based infrastructure can help in achieving a more economical, efficient, safer, and sustainable world of transportation which is safer and greener. This chapter also discusses and compares various thread-enabled microcontrollers by different vendors that can be utilized to create a mesh network.

A Hybrid Transition for IPv4-IPv6 Co-existence in Small Size Organization

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the current generation Internet protocol developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to handle the shortage of IP addresses in IPV4. The transition from IPv4 to IPv6 is gradually being done not happening as anticipated. It is unavoidable to have both IPv4 and IPv6 networks during the transition period, but unfortunately they are not compatible in nature. It is essential to maintain the IPv4 and IPv6 coexistence. The inter-communication ability of IPv4 and IPv6 is the dire need of network community. Many transition techniques are proposed in the recent years. This paper discussed the key difficulties in IPv4-IPv6 transition, and introduced the hybrid approach for coexistence of IPv4 and IPv6. It hybrid the advantages of weightage and tunneling translation techniques for providing inter-communication ability of IPv4 and IPv6. The proposed algorithm has been simulated and the performance metrics; transmission latency, throughput, jitter and delay have been analyzed from end to end host, through various scenarios includes IPv4 only, IPv6 Only, Dual stack, GRE tunneling. The performance of the proposed algorithm is analyzed and the future scope is discussed.