Marco Steger

Bio: Marco Steger is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Smart city & Data sharing. The author has an hindex of 3, co-authored 3 publications receiving 507 citations.

BlockChain: A Distributed Solution to Automotive Security and Privacy

Abstract: Interconnected smart vehicles offer a range of sophisticated services that benefit the vehicle owners, transport authorities, car manufacturers, and other service providers. This potentially exposes smart vehicles to a range of security and privacy threats such as location tracking or remote hijacking of the vehicle. In this article, we argue that blockchain (BC), a disruptive technology that has found many applications from cryptocurrencies to smart contracts, is a potential solution to these challenges. We propose a BC-based architecture to protect the privacy of users and to increase the security of the vehicular ecosystem. Wireless remote software updates and other emerging services such as dynamic vehicle insurance fees are used to illustrate the efficacy of the proposed security architecture. We also qualitatively argue the resilience of the architecture against common security attacks.

SpeedyChain: A framework for decoupling data from blockchain for smart cities

Abstract: There is increased interest in smart vehicles acting as both data consumers and producers in smart cities. Vehicles can use smart city data for decision-making, such as dynamic routing based on traffic conditions. Moreover, the multitude of embedded sensors in vehicles can collectively produce a rich data set of the urban landscape that can be used to provide a range of services. Key to the success of this vision is a scalable and private architecture for trusted data sharing. This paper proposes a framework called SpeedyChain, that leverages blockchain technology to allow smart vehicles to share their data while maintaining privacy, integrity, resilience, and non-repudiation in a decentralized and tamper-resistant manner. Differently from traditional blockchain usage (e.g., Bitcoin and Ethereum), the proposed framework uses a blockchain design that decouples the data stored in the transactions from the block header, thus allowing fast addition of data to the blocks. Furthermore, an expiration time for each block is proposed to avoid large sized blocks. This paper also presents an evaluation of the proposed framework in a network emulator to demonstrate its benefits.

SpeedyChain: A framework for decoupling data from blockchain for smart cities

Abstract: There is increased interest in smart vehicles acting as both data consumers and producers in smart cities. Vehicles can use smart city data for decision-making, such as dynamic routing based on traffic conditions. Moreover, the multitude of embedded sensors in vehicles can collectively produce a rich data set of the urban landscape that can be used to provide a range of services. Key to the success of this vision is a scalable and private architecture for trusted data sharing. This paper proposes a framework called SpeedyChain, that leverages blockchain technology to allow smart vehicles to share their data while maintaining privacy, integrity, resilience and non-repudiation in a decentralized, and tamper-resistant manner. Differently from traditional blockchain usage (e.g., Bitcoin and Ethereum), the proposed framework uses a blockchain design that decouples the data stored in the transactions from the block header, thus allowing for fast addition of data to the blocks. Furthermore, an expiration time for each block to avoid large sized blocks is proposed. This paper also presents an evaluation of the proposed framework in a network emulator to demonstrate its benefits.

Blockchain applications in supply chains, transport and logistics : a systematic review of the literature

Abstract: This paper presents current academic and industrial frontiers on blockchain application in supply chain, logistics and transport management. We conduct a systematic review of the literature and find four main clusters in the co-citation analysis, namely Technology, Trust, Trade, and Traceability/Transparency. For each cluster, and based on the pool of articles included in it, we apply an inductive method of reasoning and discuss the emerging themes and applications of blockchains for supply chains, logistics and transport. We conclude by discussing the main themes for future research on blockchain technology and its application in industry and services.

Toward Secure Blockchain-Enabled Internet of Vehicles: Optimizing Consensus Management Using Reputation and Contract Theory

Abstract: In the Internet of Vehicles (IoV), data sharing among vehicles is critical for improving driving safety and enhancing vehicular services To ensure security and traceability of data sharing, existing studies utilize efficient delegated proof-of-stake consensus scheme as hard security solutions to establish blockchain-enabled IoV (BIoV) However, as the miners are selected from miner candidates by stake-based voting, defending against voting collusion between the candidates and compromised high-stake vehicles becomes challenging To address the challenge, in this paper, we propose a two-stage soft security enhancement solution: 1) miner selection and 2) block verification In the first stage, we design a reputation-based voting scheme to ensure secure miner selection This scheme evaluates candidates’ reputation using both past interactions and recommended opinions from other vehicles The candidates with high reputation are selected to be active miners and standby miners In the second stage, to prevent internal collusion among active miners, a newly generated block is further verified and audited by standby miners To incentivize the participation of the standby miners in block verification, we adopt the contract theory to model the interactions between active miners and standby miners, where block verification security and delay are taken into consideration Numerical results based on a real-world dataset confirm the security and efficiency of our schemes for data sharing in BIoV

Blockchain and supply chain management integration: a systematic review of the literature

Abstract: This paper aims to identify, analyse and organise the literature about blockchains in supply chain management (SCM) context (blockchain–SCM integration) and proposes an agenda for future research. This study aims to shed light on what the main current blockchain applications in SCM are, what the main disruptions and challenges are in SCM because of blockchain adoption and what the future of blockchains holds in SCM.,This study followed the systematic review approach to analyse and synthesise the extant literature on blockchain–SCM integration. The review analysed 27 papers between 2008 and 2018 in peer-reviewed journals.,Blockchain–SCM integration is still in its infancy. Scholars and practitioners are not fully aware of the potential of blockchain technology to disrupt traditional business models. However, the electric power industry seems to have a relatively mature understanding of blockchain–SCM integration, demonstrated by the use of smart contracts. Additionally, the disintermediation provided by blockchain applications has the potential to disrupt traditional industries (e.g. health care, transportation and retail).,The limitations of this study are represented mainly by the scarcity of studies on blockchain–SCM integration in leading journals and databases.,This study highlights examples of blockchain–SCM integration, emphasising the need to rethink business models to incorporate blockchain technology.,This study is the first attempt to synthesise existing publications about the blockchain–SCM integration, shedding light on the disruption caused by, and the necessity of, the SCM reconfigurations.

Towards Secure and Privacy-Preserving Data Sharing in e-Health Systems via Consortium Blockchain

Abstract: Electronic health record sharing can help to improve the accuracy of diagnosis, where security and privacy preservation are critical issues in the systems. In recent years, blockchain has been proposed to be a promising solution to achieve personal health information (PHI) sharing with security and privacy preservation due to its advantages of immutability. This work proposes a blockchain-based secure and privacy-preserving PHI sharing (BSPP) scheme for diagnosis improvements in e-Health systems. Firstly, two kinds of blockchains, private blockchain and consortium blockchain, are constructed by devising their data structures, and consensus mechanisms. The private blockchain is responsible for storing the PHI while the consortium blockchain keeps records of the secure indexes of the PHI. In order to achieve data security, access control, privacy preservation and secure search, all the data including the PHI, keywords and the patients' identity are public key encrypted with keyword search. Furthermore, the block generators are required to provide proof of conformance for adding new blocks to the blockchains, which guarantees the system availability. Security analysis demonstrates that the proposed protocol can meet with the security goals. Furthermor, we implement the proposed scheme on JUICE to evaluate the performance.