MN504-Bitcoin And Ethereum Security And Privacy

Introduction:

The Blockchain technology is a new emerging technology in the field of security solutions. The blockchain technology is based on the cryptography securities [1]. The blockchain technology was announced for supporting the crypto-currency for the security related issues but now the blockchain technology used by many sectors including some business sector also. This type of blockchain is named as private blockchain. Other than this the blockchain is also used for marketing strategies and this type of blockchain is termed as “Snake Oil”. The blockchain technology introduced in the year of 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto [11]. The blockchain technology holds the records of the data and this list of this growing record is termed as a block. Each of these blocks is secured by the cryptographic hash which depends on the previous block of it. Also, these block contains a timestamp and a transaction data. The transaction data of this blockchain is represented as the Merkle tree root hash. The main purpose of this document is to evaluate the blockchain technology and discussing its uses network application management. Further, the challenges, features and architecture of the blockchain will be evaluated in details. Thereafter, socio-technical aspects of the blockchain and the application of it will be discussed.

Architecture of Blockchain Technology:

The blockchain technology is decentralized, distributed and open nature. The distributed nature of the blockchain defines that this blockchain divides the data into several batches. This batch is also termed as the blocks. All of the block holds a cryptographic hash of its preceding block and this sequence continues till the last block of the blockchain. To decrypt every data, the cryptographic hash is a must needed factor, and the cryptographic hash of a block is presented in the next block of it [2]. In this way, the blockchain technology is ensuring the data integrity. Depending on the data stream many times a separate block is produced for a temporary fork purpose. The blockchain technology does not follow the parallel manner for the communication purpose, rather than it is done redundantly. 

The decentralized nature of the blockchain provides a feature to this system which is that it does not have any central point of data storage. The main advantage of not having any central point of data is that it will not face any attack or failure which can collapse the whole system [3]. The decentralization of the data is achieved by peer to peer data storing. As it does not have any centralized database system, it is challenging to maintain the quality of the data. For solving this case, the decentralized system uses replication of database and the computational trust.

The blockchain technology is open to view for all for its openness nature, but the physical access is still required. This open nature of the blockchain gives it the advantage to work without any admin permission [12]. The main advantage of this nature is it does not have to wait for the permission to taking steps against bad sectors. Still, for the new entries in the network proof of work is required.

Blockchain Features:

The blockchain technology mainly features in the security aspects of the crypto-currencies. The main features of the blockchain technology are:

Attack Resistance:

As the blockchain does not feature any type of centralized data system, the attack rates on this system automatically reduce. 

Transparency:

The public blockchain is transparent in the way that it allows the users to see the all of the parties involved in a transaction [4].

Fault Tolerance:

As the blockchain technology uses the decentralized type of system, it is not possible for the attackers to shut down the whole blockchain system at any instance of time. This makes the blockchain system less vulnerable to attacks.

Elimination of Third Party:

The blockchain technology is able to deliver the data from one user to another user without any third party involved in it [5]. Elimination of the third party makes the data more secure and also reduce the cost for the transaction.

Blockchain Challenges:

Though the blockchain technology is a strong security implementation, it yet to be adopted in the mainstream technology because it has some critical challenged also. The main challenges are the:

Integration with Old System:

Implementation of the blockchain technology is not an easy task. The organization may need to replace the full old system to implement the new blockchain technology [6]. This actually increases the cost of the organization. Also, if the full system needs to be replaced, then it also disrupts the normal workflow of the whole organization. To implement this technology without any disruption, the blockchain technology must be integrated with the old existing system of the organization, but this may not be possible for several cases because of unsupportive nature of the old system. 

Cost of Initial Implementation:

For the initial implementation of the blockchain technology, the organization need to invest in several sectors. Firstly, the organization needs to buy the compatible hardware to implement this technology. To operate this hardware a perfect combination of the software and the hardware is needed which also add the cost for the software. Finally, to use this technology perfectly, the organization also need to hire a group of experts which adds another cost. Combining all the cost, it becomes a very large amount and many organizations not likely going to invest such amount of money.

High Energy Consumption:

The blockchain technology uses some critical calculations and mathematics for the encryption and the decryption process [7]. To solve these critical calculations the hardware part needs to work on the full potentials which require an extra amount of power. Excessive workload also heats up the system and for the additional cooling system is required which also needs a power source. It means the whole setup of the blockchain needs a vast amount of power source which many organizations fail to provide.

Blockchain Applications:

The blockchain technology is having its main applications in the field of security of the crypto-currencies and in smart contracts. The applications in this two aspects are the:

Currency Related Application:

In the circumstance of the currency related applications, the blockchain is having a huge impact over the Bitcoin which is a cryptocurrency [8]. The future market of the Bitcoin totally relies on the blockchain technology as it is the main security of this digital cryptocurrencies. The main aim of the digital cryptocurrencies is to transact the valuable assets over a secure network, and this secure network is provided by the blockchain technology. Also, in many banking sectors, the blockchain technology is used for the secure transaction of money.

Smart Contracts:

The blockchain technology is also very much useful in the cases of smart contracts. The main advantage of the smart contract is that it helps to eliminate the cost of the third parties while exchanging any type of valuable assets [9]. This type of middleman charges can be the bank charges when a transaction has been made. One of the main usages of the smart contract is the protecting the copyright files. In this case, the smart contracts can ensure that whenever a copyright file is used for any commercial usage, then the royalty fee must go to the original owner of that copyright file [10]. The blockchain system can perform this operation by storing the ownership rights in the decentralized system. Also, it can reduce the time expenditure and unnecessary cost while it is bringing in more transparency to the transactions. 

Socio-Technical Aspects:

The above discussed two applications of the blockchain technology have some social bearings on it. From the various type of analysis, it is determined that the main social bearing with this type of new technologies is the lack of knowledge. To overcome this problem, awareness about the cryptocurrencies need to be spread among the peoples. Only creating awareness about the cryptocurrency will not do the job. Besides that, it needs to ensure that the peoples have proper knowledge about the framework of the cryptocurrencies and how the transaction system of the cryptocurrencies is done and verified. Proper analysis can help the society adapt this technology faster.

Another discussed application of the blockchain was the implementation of smart contracts to protect the copyright files from unauthorised accesses. Implementing this copyright protection technique also has some type of social barriers. The main social barrier is the acceptance of this technique because this will replace the present copyright protection system. The present system works on the manual system while the new system will be the automatic system. So, there isn uncertainty about that the automatic system will perform like the manual system or not. In this case, a proper analysis report can help to understand that the new automated system is able to do the job with perfection or not.

Conclusion:

 From the above discussion, it can be concluded that the blockchain technology has a major impact on the future security technologies. The blockchain technology can challenge many high security systems of present days. The main advantage of the blockchain technology over the other security technologies is that it uses the decentralized type of database which is a very effective way to safeguard the database system from the external threats. In the discussion, the paper has elaborated on the features, challenges and architectural design of the blockchain technology. It has also described two well-known application which is based on the blockchain technology. In case of successful implementation of how the blockchain technology can help the community is described briefly. The blockchain technology has tons of features in it, but the main problem is that it is very hard to implement in the regular life of the human. May in the future case the procedure of implementing the blockchain technology will be simplified, and in such type of cases, the future generations are going to adopt the blockchain technology on a huge number basis. Also, the blockchain technology can provide the low cost options to the users for transacting assets over a secure network. 

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