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Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) systems are enhancing the delivery of services and boosting productivity in a wide array of industries, from manufacturing to healthcare. However, IIoT devices are susceptible to cyber-threats such as the leaking of important information, products becoming compromised, and damage to industrial controls. Recently, blockchain technology has been used to increase the trust between stakeholders collaborating in the supply chain in order to preserve privacy, ensure the provenance of material, provide machine-led maintenance, etc. In all cases, such industrial blockchains establish a novel foundation of trust for business transactions which could potentially streamline and expedite economic processes to a significant extent. This paper presents an examination of “Schloss”, an industrial blockchain system architecture designed for multi-factory environments. It proposes an innovative solution to increase trust in industrial networks by incorporating a fairness concept as a subsystem of an industrial blockchain. The proposed mechanism leverages the concept of taxes imposed on blockchain nodes to enforce ethical conduct and discipline among participants. In this paper, we propose a game theory-based mechanism to address security and trust difficulties in industrial networks. The mechanism, inspired by the ultimatum game, progressively punishes malicious actors to increase the cost of fraud, improve the compensation system, and utilise the reward reporting capabilities of blockchain technology to further discourage fraudulent activities. Furthermore, the blockchain’s incentive structure is utilised to reduce collusion and speed up the process of reaching equilibrium, thereby promoting a secure and trustworthy environment for industrial collaboration. The objective of this paper is to address lack of trust among industrial partners and introduce a solution that brings security and trust to the forefront of industrial blockchain applications.
The importance of machine learning (ML) has been increasing dramatically for years. From assistance systems to production optimisation to healthcare support, almost every area of daily life and industry is coming into contact with machine learning. Besides all the benefits ML brings, the lack of transparency and difficulty in creating traceability pose major risks. While solutions exist to make the training of machine learning models more transparent, traceability is still a major challenge. Ensuring the identity of a model is another challenge, as unnoticed modification of a model is also a danger when using ML. This paper proposes to create an ML Birth Certificate and ML Family Tree secured by blockchain technology. Important information about training and changes to the model through retraining can be stored in a blockchain and accessed by any user to create more security and traceability about an ML model.
The aim of this bachelor thesis is to answer the question of what a new world currency system based on a cryptocurrency could look like. For this purpose, the following research questions were posed:
1. What could be the design of an international digital currency?
2. How would a revived gold standard using an international digital currency be designed?
3. How would a revived Bretton Woods System using the Special Drawing Rights from the International Monetary Fund fixed to an international digital currency look like?
To answer these research questions, a comparison was made with the world currency systems that already existed. Here, the problems of the gold standard and Bretton Woods system were deductively crystallised through a literature review and then inductively applied to the possible system.
The study shows that this system is economically feasible and can solve most of the problems of the past world monetary systems. However, as it requires governments and central banks to cede their sovereignty it is unlikely to be actually adopted. Nevertheless, there are advantages of a digital currency issued by the central bank, such as the detachment from interest and money supply, which would also be politically feasible and sensible in the long term.
In recent years, both the Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain technologies have been highly influential and revolutionary. IoT enables companies to embrace Industry 4.0, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which benefits from communication and connectivity to reduce cost and to increase productivity through sensor-based autonomy. These automated systems can be further refined with smart contracts that are executed within a blockchain, thereby increasing transparency through continuous and indisputable logging. Ideally, the level of security for these IoT devices shall be very high, as they are specifically designed for this autonomous and networked environment. This paper discusses a use case of a company with legacy devices that wants to benefit from the features and functionality of blockchain technology. In particular, the implications of retrofit solutions are analyzed. The use of the BISS:4.0 platform is proposed as the underlying infrastructure. BISS:4.0 is intended to integrate the blockchain technologies into existing enterprise environments. Furthermore, a security analysis of IoT and blockchain present attacks and countermeasures are presented that are identified and applied to the mentioned use case.
In modern industrial production lines, the integration and interconnection of various different manufacturing components, like robots, laser cutting machines, milling machines, CNC-machines, etc. allows for a higher degree of autonomous production on the shop floor. Manufacturers of these increasingly complex machines are beginning to equip their business models with bidirectional data flows to other factories. This is creating a digital, cross-company shop floor infrastructure where the transfer of information is controlled by digital contracts. To establish a trusted ecosystem, the new technology "blockchain" and a variety of technology stacks must be combined while ensuring security. Such blockchain-based frameworks enable bidirectional trust across all contract partners. Essential data flows are defined by specific technical representation of contract agreements and executed through smart contracts.This work describes a platform for rapid cross-company business model instantiation based on blockchain for establishing trust between the enterprises. It focuses on selected security aspects of the deployment- and configuration processes applied by the industrial ecosystem. A threat analysis of the platform shows the critical security risks. Based on an industrial dynamic machine leasing use case, a risk assessment and security analysis of the key platform components is carried out.
New developments in decentralized ledger technologies may have a huge impact on how we perceive and use money now and in the future. Most notably, it has led to the development of cryptocurrencies and a variation thereof –stablecoins. This thesis discusses the potential impact of Proof of Work based cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin on the money market and the central bank’s ability to maintain control over the money supply. The IS-LM model is used to evaluate the effects of a private-issued digital currency. However, due to the characteristics of POW based cryptocurrencies, their impact on the money market is neglectable. In contrast, private-issued stablecoins of large international businesses with the potential of gaining enough users to overcome hindering network effects may pose a serious threat to the financial system, if there is no regulation on their usage.
As a response to this development and combined with the phenomenon of a declining cash usage in many countries, central banks have started to conduct research in their own digital currency, namely central bank digital currency (CBDC). Countries such as Sweden or The Bahamas have already started with the implementation of trial phases of their respective CBDC. However, design choices of the country’s digital currency differ due to financial, geographical, and cultural circumstances, among others. Nevertheless, many countries have utilized decentralized ledger technologies as the underlying technology for CBDC, showing its promising potential for further research and future developments.
The digital transformation of companies is expected to increase the digital interconnection between different companies to develop optimized, customized, hybrid business models. These cross-company business models require secure, reliable, and traceable logging and monitoring of contractually agreed information sharing between machine tools, operators, and service providers. This paper discusses how the major requirements for building hybrid business models can be tackled by the blockchain for building a chain of trust and smart contracts for digitized contracts. A machine maintenance use case is used to discuss the readiness of smart contracts for the automation of workflows defined in contracts. Furthermore, it is shown that the number of failures is significantly improved by using these contracts and a blockchain.
Die digitale Transformation stellt das Supply Chain Management vor große Herausforderungen. Es muss Antworten und Lösungen finden, um in einem global vernetzten Marktumfeld die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit der Supply Chain sicherzustellen. Das Konzept der Blockchain und der Smart Contracts versprechen großes Potenzial. Gerade im Bereich der Prozessautomatisierung und der Kostensenkung, durch das Entfallen bisher notwendiger Clearingstellen. Allerdings stellt sich auch immer die Frage nach der Datensicherheit und Schutz vor unbefugter Manipulation. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es Anwendungsmöglichkeiten und Potenziale einer Blockchain und Smart Contracts im Supply Chain Management zu identifizieren und zu beschreiben
Formal Description of Use Cases for Industry 4.0 Maintenance Processes Using Blockchain Technology
(2019)
Die Distributed-Ledger-Technology, die Blockchain und Smart Contracts sind derzeit eines der am meisten diskutierten Themen in der Bankenbranche. Es wird viel erforscht im Hinblick auf Potentiale, Anwendungsgebiete und Risiken bezüglich der Nutzung dieser Technologien. Diese Arbeit soll eine Übersicht über den aktuellen Stand in der Branche geben und welche Chancen sich hier-durch ergeben könnten. Auch wird analysiert, welche Auswirkungen Smart Contracts auf die Branche haben könnten. Auch schon deren Entwicklung stellt die Branche vor neue Herausforderungen im Bezug auf Prozesse in der Bank, in der Kollaboration mit Partnern und mit Kunden.
The real-world possibilities for blockchain applications are endless, yet few real-world use cases exist in early 2018 beyond cryptocurrency. Among the many newly initiated and emerging proposals for applications of this unique technology, the area of vehicle emissions provides an opportunity to bring the advantages of cryptography and decentralized databases to the collection and storage of scientific research data. The reporting of vehicle emissions has been a publicly acknowledged area of deceit and scandal, while the cornerstones of blockchain are transparency and consensus. There is, perhaps, a way for this newly expanding technology to provide a disruption to the automotive industry by efficiently and reliably reporting vehicle emissions.
This paper seeks to analyze: the capabilities of an emerging technology when applied to an existing older technology and its utilized environment as well as propose a system for efficiently and reliably collecting and reporting internal combustion engine based vehicle emissions data using blockchain; also, finally, theorize the impact of such a system on the automotive industry.
By combining multiple technologies which already exist in practice, as well as some which are expected to be massively implemented in the near future, it is theoretically possible to establish a blockchain based system for not only recording emissions from every participating vehicle, but also electronically executing a check against local emissions restrictions via smart contracts defined by geo-locational range and GPS referencing. The data can be processed and stored in a way that protects the identity and location history of the driver by assigning responsibility of compliance to the identity of the vehicle. The network can be protected from malicious actors by way of an emissions application specific protocol which involves unique GPS data.
While the short run effects of such a system may be met with pushback from the automotive industry because of increased regulation and impact on sales of internal combustion engine vehicle inventory, the long run effects parallel and may even supplement the future effects of the global trends which make the system possible.