Decision support system for blockchain (DLT) platform selection based on ITU recommendations: A systematic literature review approach

in Expert systems with applications (2023), 211

Blockchain technologies, also known as Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT), are increasingly being explored in many applications, especially in the presence of (potential) dis-/mis-/un-trust among ... [more ▼]

Blockchain technologies, also known as Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT), are increasingly being explored in many applications, especially in the presence of (potential) dis-/mis-/un-trust among organizations and individuals. Today, there exists a plethora of DLT platforms on the market, which makes it challenging for system designers to decide what platform they should adopt and implement. Although a few DLT comparison frameworks have been proposed in the literature, they often fail in covering all performance and functional aspects, adding that they too rarely build upon standardized criteria and recommendations. Given this state of affairs, the present paper considers a recent and exhaustive set of assessment criteria recommended by the ITU (International Telecommunication Union). Those criteria (about fifty) are nonetheless mostly defined in a textual form, which may pose interpretation problems during the implementation process. To avoid this, a systematic literature review regarding each ITU criterion is conducted with a twofold objective: (i) to understand to what extent a given criterion is considered/evaluated by the literature; (ii) to come up with ‘formal’ metric definition (i.e., on a mathematical or experimental ground) based, whenever possible, on the current literature. Following this formalization stage, a decision support tool called CREDO-DLT, which stands for “multiCRiteria-basEd ranking Of Distributed Ledger Technology platforms”, is developed using AHP and TOPSIS, which is publicly made available to help decision-maker to select the most suitable DLT platform alternative (i.e., that best suits their needs and requirements). A use case scenario in the context of energy communities is proposed to show the practicality of CREDO-DLT. •Blockchain (DLT) standardization initiatives are reviewed.•To what extent ITU’s DLT assessment criteria are covered in literature is studied.•A mathematical formalizations of the ITU recommendations are proposed.•A decision support tool (CREDO-DLT) is designed for DLT platform selection.•An energy community use case is developed to show the practicality of CREDO-DLT. [less ▲]

BlockPerf: A Hybrid Blockchain Emulator/Simulator Framework

in IEEE Access (2021), 9

Blockchain is increasingly used for registering, authenticating and validating digital assets (financial assets, real estate, etc.) and transactions, governing interactions, recording data and managing ... [more ▼]

Blockchain is increasingly used for registering, authenticating and validating digital assets (financial assets, real estate, etc.) and transactions, governing interactions, recording data and managing identification among multiple parties in a trusted, decentralized, and secure manner. Today, a large variety of blockchain technologies is expanding in order to fulfill technical and non-technical needs and requirements. Within this context, determining and most importantly evaluating the characteristics/performance of a given blockchain platform is crucial for system designers before deploying it. A number of blockchain simulators have been proposed in the literature over the past few years, as reviewed in this paper, but are often limited in several respects (lack of extensibility, do not allow for evaluating all aspects of a blockchain...). This paper extends and improves a state-of-the-art simulator (BlockSim) into a new simulator called ‘‘BlockPerf’’ to overcome those limitations. Both simulators are compared based on a real-life (benchmarking) Bitcoin scenario, whose results show that BlockPerf provides more realistic results than BlockSim, improving by around ≈50% (in average) the outcomes. [less ▲]

A Family of Lightweight Twisted Edwards Curves for the Internet of Things

in Blazy, Olivier; Yeun, Chan Y. (Eds.) Information Security Theory and Practice, 12th IFIP WG 11.2 International Conference, WISTP 2018, Brussels, Belgium, December 10-11, 2018, Proceedings (2018, December)

We introduce a set of four twisted Edwards curves that satisfy common security requirements and allow for fast implementations of scalar multiplication on 8, 16, and 32-bit processors. Our curves are ... [more ▼]

We introduce a set of four twisted Edwards curves that satisfy common security requirements and allow for fast implementations of scalar multiplication on 8, 16, and 32-bit processors. Our curves are defined by an equation of the form -x^2 + y^2 = 1 + dx^2y^2 over a prime field Fp, where d is a small non-square modulo p. The underlying prime fields are based on "pseudo-Mersenne" primes given by p = 2^k - c and have in common that p is congruent to 5 modulo 8, k is a multiple of 32 minus 1, and c is at most eight bits long. Due to these common features, our primes facilitate a parameterized implementation of the low-level arithmetic so that one and the same arithmetic function is able to process operands of different length. Each of the twisted Edwards curves we introduce in this paper is birationally equivalent to a Montgomery curve of the form -(A+2)y^2 = x^3 + Ax^2 + x where 4/(A+2) is small. Even though this contrasts with the usual practice of choosing A such that (A+2)/4 is small, we show that the Montgomery form of our curves allows for an equally efficient implementation of point doubling as Curve25519. The four curves we put forward roughly match the common security levels of 80, 96, 112 and 128 bits. In addition, their Weierstraß representations are isomorphic to curves of the form y^2 = x^3 - 3x + b so as to facilitate inter-operability with TinyECC and other legacy software. [less ▲]