XChange: A Universal Mechanism for Asset Exchange between Permissioned Blockchains

Permissioned blockchains are increasingly being used as a solution to record transactions between companies. Several use cases that leverage permissioned blockchains focus on the representation and management of real-world assets. Since the number of incompatible blockchains is quickly growing, there is an increasing need for a universal mechanism to exchange, or trade, digital assets between these isolated platforms. There currently is no universal mechanism for inter-blockchain asset exchange without a requirement for trusted authorities that coordinate the trade. We address this shortcoming and present XChange, a universal mechanism for asset exchange between permissioned blockchains. To achieve universality and to avoid trusted authorities that coordinate a trade, XChange does not provide atomic guarantees but leverages risk mitigation strategies to reduce value at stake. Our mechanism records the specifications and progression of each trade within records on a distributed log. XChange reduces the economic gains of adversaries by bounding the total amount of fraud they can commit at any time. After having committed fraud, an adversary is forced to finish its ongoing trades before it can engage in new trades. We first present a four-phased protocol that coordinates an asset exchange between two traders. We then outline how trade records can be stored on TrustChain, which is a lightweight distributed ledger specifically built for the tamper-proof storage of data elements. We implement XChange and conduct experiments. Our experiments demonstrate that XChange is capable of reducing the economic gains of adversaries by more than 99.9% when replaying a real-world trading dataset. A deployment on low-resource devices reveals that the latency added to a trade by XChange is only 493 milliseconds. Finally, our scalability evaluation shows that XChange achieves over 1’000 trades per second and that its throughput, in terms of trades per second, scales linearly with the system load.

     

On the adoption of blockchain for business process monitoring

Being the blockchain and distributed ledger technologies particularly suitable to create trusted environments where participants do not trust each other, business process management represents a proper setting in which these technologies can be adopted. In this direction, current research work primarily focuses on blockchain-oriented business process design, or on execution engines able to enact processes through smart contracts. Conversely, less attention has been paid to study if and how blockchains can be beneficial to business process monitoring. This work aims to fill this gap by (1) providing a reference architecture for enabling the adoption of blockchain technologies in business process monitoring solutions, (2) defining a set of relevant research challenges derived from this adoption, and (3) discussing the current approaches to address the aforementioned challenges.

     

区块链的数据管理技术综述

最近几年,随着加密货币和去中心化应用的流行,区块链技术受到了各行业极大的关注.从数据管理的角度,区块链可以视作是在一个分布式环境下众多不可信节点共同维护且不可篡改的账本.由于节点间相互不可信,区块链通过共识协议,确保数据存储的一致性,实现去中心化的数据管理.针对区块链的安全性以及共识协议,已有诸多工作进行全面的分析.将从数据管理的角度,分析区块链技术与传统数据库下数据管理技术的异同.分布式数据管理的研究已经持续数十年,涵盖了数据存储模式、事务处理机制、查询执行与验证、系统可扩展性等诸多方面,并已有诸多技术广泛应用于实际的分布式数据库中.该类工作往往假定存在中心可信节点或者节点只可能发生崩溃而不存在恶意攻击.然而在区块链环境中,系统设计需考虑不可信节点可能的攻击行为以及拜占庭容错.这给数据管理带来了新的问题与挑战.因此,将梳理并分析国内外有关区块链数据管理的文献,并展望未来的研究方向.     

区块链跨链技术进展研究

随着区块链技术的发展,各种具有不同特点、适用于不同应用场景的区块链如比特币、以太坊等公有链以及私有链、联盟链大量共存.由于区块链的相互独立性,现存各区块链之间的数据通信、价值转移仍面临挑战,价值孤岛现象逐渐显现.区块链的跨链技术是区块链实现互联互通、提升可扩展性的重要技术手段.对跨链技术领域的成果进行了系统总结：首先,分析了跨链技术的需求及面临的技术难点;其次,总结了正在发展的跨链技术,并介绍了24种主流跨链技术的原理与实现思路;然后,综合分析了跨链技术存在的安全性风险,并列举了12项主要问题;最后,总结探讨了跨链技术的未来发展趋势.     

可编辑区块链: 模型、技术与方法

可编辑区块链是区块链领域新兴而颇有争议的热点课题, 致力于在保障区块链安全可信等良好性质的前提下实现链上数据的可控编辑操作. 本文系统性地梳理和研究了可编辑区块链技术在信息安全和监管等领域面临的现实需求, 提出了可编辑区块链的工作框架, 并从数据修改、删除、插入、过滤和隐藏五个环节详细阐述了可编辑区块链的技术与方法, 最后讨论了该领域亟需解决的若干关键问题.     

Elastic Smart Contracts in Blockchains

In this paper, we deal with questions related to blockchains in complex Internet of Things (IoT)-based ecosystems. Such ecosystems are typically composed of IoT devices, edge devices, cloud computing software services, as well as people, who are decision makers in scenarios such as smart cities. Many decisions related to analytics can be based on data coming from IoT sensors, software services, and people. However, they are typically based on different levels of abstraction and granularity. This poses a number of challenges when multiple blockchains are used together with smart contracts. This work proposes to apply our concept of elasticity to smart contracts and thereby enabling analytics in and between multiple blockchains in the context of IoT. We propose a reference architecture for Elastic Smart Contracts and evaluate the approach in a smart city scenario, discussing the benefits in terms of performance and self-adaptability of our solution.      

基于多层次区块链的医疗数据共享模型

基于区块链的医疗数据共享能够有效地提升医疗数据的可信性,但是面临着链上存储容量有限、缺乏数据隐私保护等问题。针对这些问题,提出一个基于多层次区块链的医疗数据共享模型。对个人医疗数据进行加密后上传到链下的分布式存储中,并将数据索引信息上传到链上,利用多层次区块链协同技术和链上链下混合存储方式提高存储效率;引入差分隐私保护联邦学习中模型参数,提升数据的隐私安全。实验结果表明,相对于以太坊而言,该方案机构存储开销平均下降了60%左右,用户存储开销平均下降30%左右。     

企业级区块链技术综述

在传统跨机构交易的企业应用中,各个机构都是独立记录己方的交易数据,机构间数据的差异会引起争议,通常需要人工对账或中介机构来解决,因而增加了结算时间和交易费用.区块链技术实现了交易数据在写入前共识验证、写入后不可篡改的分布式记账,可信地保证了多机构间的数据一致性,避免了人工对账和中介机构.区块链是一种去中心化、不可篡改、可追溯、可信的、多方共享的分布式数据库,企业级区块链是节点加入需经许可的适用于企业级应用的区块链技术.结合Hyperledger Fabric,Corda和Quorum等企业级区块链平台,提出了企业级区块链的系统架构;从交易流程、区块链网络、共识机制、区块链数据、智能合约、隐私保护几方面阐述了企业级区块链的原理与技术;针对企业级区块链的现状,总结了当前的研究挑战与未来的发展趋势.     

Hybrid concurrency control protocol for data sharing among heterogeneous blockchains

With the development of information technology and cloud computing, data sharing has become an important part of scientific research. In traditional data sharing, data is stored on a third-party storage platform, which causes the owner to lose control of the data. As a result, there are issues of intentional data leakage and tampering by third parties, and the private information contained in the data may lead to more significant issues. Furthermore, data is frequently maintained on multiple storage platforms, posing significant hurdles in terms of enlisting multiple parties to engage in data sharing while maintaining consistency. In this work, we propose a new architecture for applying blockchains to data sharing and achieve efficient and reliable data sharing among heterogeneous blockchains. We design a new data sharing transaction mechanism based on the system architecture to protect the security of the raw data and the processing process. We also design and implement a hybrid concurrency control protocol to overcome issues caused by the large differences in blockchain performance in our system and to improve the success rate of data sharing transactions. We took Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric as examples to conduct cross-blockchain data sharing experiments. The results show that our system achieves data sharing across heterogeneous blockchains with reasonable performance and has high scalability.     

基于星火区块链的跨链机制

针对当前区块链技术飞速发展的过程中,不同区块链之间相对孤立,数据不能交互共享的问题,提出一种基于星火区块链的跨链机制.首先,对常见跨链技术和当前主流跨链项目作了分析,研究了不同技术和项目的实现原理,并总结了它们的区别和优缺点;然后,利用主子链模式的区块链架构,设计了智能合约组件、交易校验组件、交易超时组件等关键核心组件...     

平行区块链:概念、方法与内涵解析

本文提出了平行区块链的概念框架、基础理论和研究方法体系,并探讨了平行区块链的内涵.平行区块链技术是平行智能理论方法与区块链技术的有机结合,致力于通过实际区块链系统与人工区块链系统的平行互动与协同演化,为目前的区块链技术增加计算实验与平行决策功能,实现描述、预测、引导相结合的区块链系统管理与决策.平行区块链这一新型研究范式可望为下一步区块链研究和未来产业应用提供有益的启发与借鉴.     

基于有向无环图的区块链技术综述

区块链技术已广泛应用于金融、公共服务、物联网、网络安全、供应链等多个领域,但传统单链结构的区块链在吞吐量、交易确认速度和可扩展性方面存在不足,导致其在一些短时高并发量数据场景中难以落地应用。基于有向无环图（DAG）的区块链技术因其具有交易并发确认功能、吞吐量高、可扩展性强等优势受到研究者广泛关注。通过分析研究现有DAG区块链的发展和演化过程、评估方法、优化方向以及应用场景,探索DAG区块链在落地应用中的可行性。阐述主流DAG区块链的研究现状,比较传统区块链与DAG区块链的优势与不足,并分析现有区块链属性评估方法,总结DAG区块链评估结果。在此基础上,从交易确认速度、系统吞吐量、系统安全性、存储结构等方面对比现有DAG区块链的优化方法,介绍DAG区块链在数据管理、基于边缘计算和联邦学习的数据共享以及面向访问控制和隐私保护的数据安全等场景中的应用情况,并指出当前研究中存在的主要问题和挑战,对未来的研究方向进行展望。     

Blockchain-based event processing in supply chains—A case study at IKEA

One of the major areas of interest for deployment of blockchains is in the supply chain sector where decentralisation combined with immutability is expected to enhance the transparency and robustness of transaction processing drastically. In this work we contribute to a feasibility study for permissioned blockchains in the context of a major international retail company. First, we characterise the types, relationships, and volumes of events that are created in the life cycle of a product from creation to ownership transfer. We use the created event model and the data from the company operations to identify the load that such an event processing system would have to manage. Then we create a prototype based on Quorum that deals with a significant subset of the events and expose the blockchain-based prototype to variations in load to identify the maximum throughput and average transaction processing time. This system can then form the basis of understanding the bottlenecks, configuration settings and platform choices needed in future potential deployment.     

基于主子链架构的新型许可公有链

针对现有区块链之间相互独立、互通困难的问题,提出一种“主链+子链”的新型许可公有链架构。首先,在现有的委托权益证明（DPOS）、可验证随机函数（VRF）、实用拜占庭容错（PBFT）等算法的基础上设计了创新双层共识算法,同时加入可信许可机制,使区块链兼具许可和公有的特性;然后,详细描述了主子链的设计过程,主链负责链群管理并提供公共服务,而子链针对不同业务场景独立设计,并且通过连接主链中继实现跨链数据通信,从而实现数据安全隔离;最后,构建实验环境进行测试,以验证许可公有链设计的可行性。实验结果表明,相较于现有的超级账本Fabric等一些区块链,所提出的许可公有链具有显著优势,吞吐量最高可达到每秒25 000次,平均延迟时间可达8 s。为进一步研究不同类型区块链跨链数据互联互通提供了技术支撑。     

多区块链交易分发和事件处理的系统方案

在基于拜占庭容错协议设计的区块链系统中,系统的效率和性能较低,限制了区块链的应用与发展。提出了一种基于多区块链系统支持交易分片和事件处理的系统方案。该方案中,系统被划分为应用客户端、处理系统、各区块链3个层面。应用客户端用于发送交易请求和接收感兴趣的事件, 处理系统进行交易的分发和事件处理 ,各区块链用于区块链内部处理交易请求和事件 。处理系统适配区块链数量可变和不可变的两类多区块链系统,设计了选择区块链的两种策略,即映射关系表和哈希一致性,两种策略在交易分发时依据负载均衡、单调性和一致性的原则,并基于交易的业务类型和业务类型内部ID号把交易请求分发到合适的区块链。每个区块链与处理系统内部的交易调用客户端、事件和消息流客户端建立一一对应关系;每个应用客户端与处理系统内部的交易应用调用服务端、交易应用事件连接服务端、事件消息流服务端交互,发送交易的请求并获取交易的结果。对交易分发的方案和事件处理进行具体的设计,并对系统的整体方案进行了基本的测试和验证。     

Enhancing the security of blockchain-based software defined networking through trust-based traffic fusion and filtration

With the rapid development of Internet-of-Things (IoT), more smart devices can be connected to the Internet, resulting in a dramatic increase of data transmission and communication. Software-Defined Networking (SDN), which separates the control planes and data planes, is considered as a promising solution to provide the scale and versatility necessary for IoT. However, SDN still suffers from several challenges, i.e., the centralized control plane would be a single point of failure. With the wide adoption of blockchain applications, such technologies can have a positive impact on SDN’s performance, i.e., blockchains allow non-confident individuals to interact with each other without the need for a central authority. However, attackers can still inject traffic to influence blockchain nodes from normal operations. Motivated by the recent development of blockchains and SDN, in this work, we focus on blockchain-based SDN and develop BSDNFilter, an IDS-based security mechanism that builds a trust-based filtration by using traffic fusion and aggregation to handle and reduce malicious traffic. Through collaborating with an IT organization, our evaluation in a real blockchain-based SDN environment demonstrates that our BSDNFilter is able to achieve better filtration performance against flooding attacks than similar approaches.     

运行于区块链上的智能分布式电力能源系统:需求、概念、方法以及展望

智能分布式电力能源系统（Intelligent distributed,electrical energy systems,IDEES）具有组件种类繁多,数量庞大,管理困难,利润低微等特点,导致传统中心化的运营管理不再适合此类系统,而区块链技术可能是推行大规模分布式智能电力能源系统重要的技术路径.由于电力能源系统是一种具有社会和技术双重属性的系统,从而注定了其在用区块链实现运行时,必然需要多种区块链来描述和建模其不同的属性,在文中称之为“区块链群”.具体来说,从底层到高层,这个区块链群由分布式数据存储与服务区块链、智能资产管理区块链、电力系统分析区块链、智能合约运营区块链和智能电力交易支付区块链组成.基于区块链技术、分布式文件服务技术、分布式电力系统分析与管理技术,这些不同层次和功能的区块链自我组织、互相协助,最后形成一个分布式自主的电力能源运行系统.在此复杂系统中,频繁而深度的计算与交互衍生出系统智能,笔者期望这种智能将促成稳定、可靠、有效的电力能源生产、传输与消费.     

基于Merkle山脉的数据可信溯源方法

针对物联网（IoT）系统中海量数据存储成本大、数据溯源验证效率低等问题,提出一种基于Merkle山脉（MMR）的可信数据溯源方法MMRBCV。首先,利用IPFS存储IoT数据;其次,采用联盟链和私有链来设计一种双链结构,从而实现数据流转过程的可靠记录;最后,基于MMR设计区块结构,以实现轻量级IoT节点在数据溯源过程中的快速验证。实验结果表明,MMRBCV减少了数据溯源时所下载的数据量,且数据验证时间与MMR结构有关,当MMR可以组成一个完美二叉树时数据验证时间较短。当区块高度为200 000时,MMRBCV的最大验证时间约为10 ms,比SPV的最大验证时间（约为36 ms）缩短了约72%,可见所提方法有效提高了验证效率。     

一体化区块链BaaS平台的设计与实现

针对区块链应用的性能和功能需求，研究了一体化BaaS平台的设计理念，提出了可支持快速联盟业务链构建的 BaaS总体架构，从高可用计算技术、应用标准以及接入规范等方面研究了BaaS平台的设计和实现方法。最后通过50条区块 链中的用户登录、数据上链和链上数据查询三个场景验证了所提方案的可行性。     

区块链智能合约交易并行执行模型综述

以太坊等区块链采用串行方式执行区块中的智能合约交易,虽能严格保障执行后节点间区块链状态的一致性,但这已成为目前制约区块链吞吐率的一个重要瓶颈.因此,采用并行方法优化智能合约交易的执行逐渐成为工业界和学术界关注的重点.总结了区块链智能合约并行执行方法的研究进展,提出了一个研究框架,该框架以智能合约并行执行的阶段为视角,凝练出4种智能合约并行执行模型,即基于静态分析的并行执行模型、基于动态分析的并行执行模型、节点间并行执行模型和分治并行执行模型,然后描述了每种模型下典型的并行执行方法.最后,对交易依赖图和并发控制策略等影响并行执行的因素进行了讨论,并提出了未来可研究的方向.