Blockchain Technology in the Oil and Gas Industry: A Review of Applications, Opportunities, Challenges, and Risks
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paper_title: Blockchain Authentication of Network Applications: Taxonomy, Classification, Capabilities, Open Challenges, Motivations, Recommendations and Future Directions

paper_content:

Abstract As the first and last line of defence in many cases, authentication is a crucial part of a system. With authentication, any unauthorised access to the system can be prevented. This work maps the research landscape through two means. The first is a comprehensive taxonomy of blockchain technology in authentication over networking. The second is identification of different types of authentication systems under various platforms that use blockchain technology. This work also provides useful and classified information which can enhance the understanding of how various authentication systems can be combined with blockchain technology. In addition, problems associated with this blockchain technology and proposed solutions are surveyed to fulfil the requirements of the network applications. Moreover, this work highlights the importance, capabilities, motivations and challenges of blockchain technology with distinct applications in various fields. Finally, recommendations and future research directions are discussed.
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paper_title: A survey on security and privacy issues of blockchain technology

paper_content:

Blockchain is gaining traction and can be termed as one of the furthermost prevalent topics nowadays. Although critics question about its scalability, security, and sustainability, it has already transformed many individuals' lifestyle in some areas due to its inordinate influence on industries and businesses. Granting that the features of blockchain technology guarantee more reliable and expedient services, it is important to consider the security and privacy issues and challenges behind the innovative technology. The spectrum of blockchain applications range from financial, healthcare, automobile, risk management, Internet of things (IoT) to public and social services. Several studies focus on utilizing the blockchain data structure in various applications. However, a comprehensive survey on technical and applications perspective has not yet been accomplished. In this paper, we try to conduct a comprehensive survey on the blockchain technology by discussing its structure to different consensus algorithms as well as the challenges and opportunities from the prospective of security and privacy of data in blockchains. Furthermore, we delve into future trends the blockchain technology can adapt in the years to come. Index Terms- Blockchains, Future Trends of Blockchains, Security, Privacy
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paper_title: A peer-to-peer transaction authentication platform for mobile commerce with semi-offline architecture

paper_content:

Trusted third-party (TTP) based transaction authentication is traditionally applied to authenticate mobile commerce transactions. However, several issues can arise with this, including seller fraud, TTP performance bottlenecks, and the risk of operations being interrupted. A peer-to-peer mobile commerce transaction authentication platform (MCTAP) with a semi-offline transaction authentication mechanism is proposed in this work. In this, both buyer and seller mutually authenticate and sign the digital receipt for each other. The trusted transaction authentication center thus no longer needs to operate online transaction verification processes, and only has to deal with consumer disputes. MCTAP can raise the efficiency of transaction authentication and provide solutions for the one-way transaction notification systems adopted by most online shopping sites that may encounter seller fraud. The proposed solution is compared to other TTP-based and secure electronic transaction based transaction authentication mechanisms, and the results indicate that the MCTAP has the advantages of efficiency and a higher security level.
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paper_title: An Overview of Blockchain Technology: Architecture, Consensus, and Future Trends

paper_content:

Blockchain, the foundation of Bitcoin, has received extensive attentions recently. Blockchain serves as an immutable ledger which allows transactions take place in a decentralized manner. Blockchain-based applications are springing up, covering numerous fields including financial services, reputation system and Internet of Things (IoT), and so on. However, there are still many challenges of blockchain technology such as scalability and security problems waiting to be overcome. This paper presents a comprehensive overview on blockchain technology. We provide an overview of blockchain architechture firstly and compare some typical consensus algorithms used in different blockchains. Furthermore, technical challenges and recent advances are briefly listed. We also lay out possible future trends for blockchain.
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paper_title: Conceptualizing Blockchains: Characteristics&Applications

paper_content:

Blockchain technology has recently gained widespread attention by media, businesses, public sector agencies, and various international organizations, and it is being regarded as potentially even more disruptive than the Internet. Despite significant interest, there is a dearth of academic literature that describes key components of blockchains and discusses potential applications. This paper aims to address this gap. This paper presents an overview of blockchain technology, identifies the blockchain's key functional characteristics, builds a formal definition, and offers a discussion and classification of current and emerging blockchain applications.
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paper_title: Blockchain technology in the chemical industry: Machine-to-machine electricity market

paper_content:

The purpose of this paper is to explore applications of blockchain technology related to the 4th Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) and to present an example where blockchain is employed to facilitate machine-to-machine (M2M) interactions and establish a M2M electricity market in the context of the chemical industry. The presented scenario includes two electricity producers and one electricity consumer trading with each other over a blockchain. All participants are supplied with realistic data produced by process flow sheet models. This work contributes a proof-of-concept implementation of the scenario. Additionally, this paper describes and discusses the research and application landscape of blockchain technology in relation to the Industry 4.0. It concludes that this technology has significant under-researched potential to support and enhance the efficiency gains of the revolution and identifies areas for future research.
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paper_title: Storage Protocol for Securing Blockchain Transparency

paper_content:

There are several studies that propose identity management that utilizes blockchain technology. In Ethereum, the main programmable blockchain system, data on a blockchain are saved as encoded binaries for executing automatic verification. To decode a binary, users need to know the application binary interfaces (ABI) that describes the data structure of the registered information. However, the manner by which ABI are shared in the current blockchain protocol is opaque. To resolve this problem, we describe a new protocol for embedding the ABI on a blockchain transaction when a registrant registers information. Our method enables users to read registered data with information on the blockchain alone, and it guarantees transparency without requiring users to trust third parties.
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paper_title: Blockchains and Smart Contracts for the Internet of Things

paper_content:

Motivated by the recent explosion of interest around blockchains, we examine whether they make a good fit for the Internet of Things (IoT) sector. Blockchains allow us to have a distributed peer-to-peer network where non-trusting members can interact with each other without a trusted intermediary, in a verifiable manner. We review how this mechanism works and also look into smart contracts—scripts that reside on the blockchain that allow for the automation of multi-step processes. We then move into the IoT domain, and describe how a blockchain-IoT combination: 1) facilitates the sharing of services and resources leading to the creation of a marketplace of services between devices and 2) allows us to automate in a cryptographically verifiable manner several existing, time-consuming workflows. We also point out certain issues that should be considered before the deployment of a blockchain network in an IoT setting: from transactional privacy to the expected value of the digitized assets traded on the network. Wherever applicable, we identify solutions and workarounds. Our conclusion is that the blockchain-IoT combination is powerful and can cause significant transformations across several industries, paving the way for new business models and novel, distributed applications.
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paper_title: Unlocking Blockchain: Embracing New Technologies to drive Efficiency and Empower the Citizen

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With their innovative and fundamentally liberalising approach to data storage, distributive ledger technologies (DLTs) like blockchain—and other associated technologies offer immense benefits to both the public and private sectors, not least in terms of upping efficiency. Lovers of freedom should also note, however, that they offer an important chance to empower individuals in their necessary engagements with the state, and to rebuild societal trust for the common good. ::: ::: In this paper, we propose the establishment of a UK-based international blockchain competition, and a public-facing **‘Chief Blockchain Officer.’** We also propose a UK **‘blockchain departmental target’**: a long-term aim for government departments to make a 1% efficiency saving by embracing blockchain and other associated innovative technologies. A renewed UK focus on efficiency and the opportunities of new technology would be inspirational, and we look forward to discussing these proposals, and carrying out further research into Distributed Ledger Technologies.
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paper_title: Conceptualizing Blockchains: Characteristics&Applications

paper_content:

Blockchain technology has recently gained widespread attention by media, businesses, public sector agencies, and various international organizations, and it is being regarded as potentially even more disruptive than the Internet. Despite significant interest, there is a dearth of academic literature that describes key components of blockchains and discusses potential applications. This paper aims to address this gap. This paper presents an overview of blockchain technology, identifies the blockchain's key functional characteristics, builds a formal definition, and offers a discussion and classification of current and emerging blockchain applications.
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paper_title: On the Activity Privacy of Blockchain for IoT

paper_content:

Blockchain has received tremendous attention as a distributed platform to enhance the security of Internet of Things (IoT). The history of communications is stored in blockchain which introduces auditability. On the flip side, new privacy risks are introduced as the entire history of IoT device communication is exposed to participants. We study the likelihood of classifying IoT devices by analyzing the temporal patterns of their transactions, which to the best of our knowledge, is the first work of its kind. We apply machine learning algorithms on blockchain data to analyze the success rate of device classification. Our results demonstrate success rates over 90% in classifying devices. We propose three timestamp obfuscation methods, namely combining multiple packets into a single transaction, merging ledgers of multiple devices, and randomly delaying transactions, to reduce the success rate in classifying devices which reduce the classification success rates to as low as 24%.
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paper_title: A systematic literature review of blockchain-based applications: Current status, classification and open issues

paper_content:

Abstract This work provides a systematic literature review of blockchain-based applications across multiple domains. The aim is to investigate the current state of blockchain technology and its applications and to highlight how specific characteristics of this disruptive technology can revolutionise “business-as-usual” practices. To this end, the theoretical underpinnings of numerous research papers published in high ranked scientific journals during the last decade, along with several reports from grey literature as a means of streamlining our assessment and capturing the continuously expanding blockchain domain, are included in this review. Based on a structured, systematic review and thematic content analysis of the discovered literature, we present a comprehensive classification of blockchain-enabled applications across diverse sectors such as supply chain, business, healthcare, IoT, privacy, and data management, and we establish key themes, trends and emerging areas for research. We also point to the shortcomings identified in the relevant literature, particularly limitations the blockchain technology presents and how these limitations spawn across different sectors and industries. Building on these findings, we identify various research gaps and future exploratory directions that are anticipated to be of significant value both for academics and practitioners.
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paper_title: An Overview of Blockchain Technology: Architecture, Consensus, and Future Trends

paper_content:

Blockchain, the foundation of Bitcoin, has received extensive attentions recently. Blockchain serves as an immutable ledger which allows transactions take place in a decentralized manner. Blockchain-based applications are springing up, covering numerous fields including financial services, reputation system and Internet of Things (IoT), and so on. However, there are still many challenges of blockchain technology such as scalability and security problems waiting to be overcome. This paper presents a comprehensive overview on blockchain technology. We provide an overview of blockchain architechture firstly and compare some typical consensus algorithms used in different blockchains. Furthermore, technical challenges and recent advances are briefly listed. We also lay out possible future trends for blockchain.
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paper_title: Blockchain as a Service for IoT

paper_content:

A blockchain is a distributed and decentralized ledger that contains connected blocks of transactions. Unlike other ledger approaches, blockchain guarantees tamper proof storage of approved transactions. Due to its distributed and decentralized organization, blockchain is beeing used within IoT e.g. to manage device configuration, store sensor data and enable micro-payments. This paper presents the idea of using blockchain as a service for IoT and evaluates the performance of a cloud and edge hosted blockchain implementation.
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paper_title: An Overview of Blockchain Technology: Architecture, Consensus, and Future Trends

paper_content:

Blockchain, the foundation of Bitcoin, has received extensive attentions recently. Blockchain serves as an immutable ledger which allows transactions take place in a decentralized manner. Blockchain-based applications are springing up, covering numerous fields including financial services, reputation system and Internet of Things (IoT), and so on. However, there are still many challenges of blockchain technology such as scalability and security problems waiting to be overcome. This paper presents a comprehensive overview on blockchain technology. We provide an overview of blockchain architechture firstly and compare some typical consensus algorithms used in different blockchains. Furthermore, technical challenges and recent advances are briefly listed. We also lay out possible future trends for blockchain.
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paper_title: Blockchain characteristics and consensus in modern business processes

paper_content:

Abstract Blockchain technology has attracted a great deal of attentions as an effective way to innovate business processes. It has to be integrated with other Business Process Management system (BPM) components to implement specified functionalities related to the applications. The current efforts in integrating this technology into BPM are at a very early stage. To apply Blockchain into business processes efficiently, Blockchain and business process characteristics must be identified. Inconsistency of confirmation settlement that heavily relies on the implementation of consensus protocol poses a major challenge in business process operations, especially ones that are time-critical. In addition, validators, nodes responsible for performing consensus operations in a Blockchain system, can introduce bias and as a result are not trustable. This paper first defines Blockchain and also investigates the characteristics of Blockchain and business processes. Then, we suggest an architecture of business processes in Blockchain era to overcome the problems of time inconsistency and consensus bias. The architecture provides persistency, validity, auditability, and disintermediary that Blockchain offers. The architecture also provides flexibility by allowing business partner to select nodes in performing consensus; thus bias is mitigated.
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paper_title: On the Security and Performance of Proof of Work Blockchains

paper_content:

Proof of Work (PoW) powered blockchains currently account for more than 90% of the total market capitalization of existing digital cryptocurrencies. Although the security provisions of Bitcoin have been thoroughly analysed, the security guarantees of variant (forked) PoW blockchains (which were instantiated with different parameters) have not received much attention in the literature. This opens the question whether existing security analysis of Bitcoin's PoW applies to other implementations which have been instantiated with different consensus and/or network parameters. In this paper, we introduce a novel quantitative framework to analyse the security and performance implications of various consensus and network parameters of PoW blockchains. Based on our framework, we devise optimal adversarial strategies for double-spending and selfish mining while taking into account real world constraints such as network propagation, different block sizes, block generation intervals, information propagation mechanism, and the impact of eclipse attacks. Our framework therefore allows us to capture existing PoW-based deployments as well as PoW blockchain variants that are instantiated with different parameters, and to objectively compare the tradeoffs between their performance and security provisions.
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paper_title: A Survey about Consensus Algorithms Used in Blockchain

paper_content:

Thanks to its potential in many applications, Blockchain has recently been nominated as one of the technologies exciting intense attention. Blockchain has solved the problem of changing the original low-trust centralized ledger held by a single third-party, to a high-trust decentralized form held by different entities, or in other words, verifying nodes. The key contribution of the work of Blockchain is the consensus algorithm, which decides how agreement is made to append a new block between all nodes in the verifying network. Blockchain algorithms can be categorized into two main groups. The first group is proof-based consensus, which requires the nodes joining the verifying network to show that they are more qualified than the others to do the appending work. The second group is voting-based consensus, which requires nodes in the network to exchange their results of verifying a new block or transaction, before making the final decision. In this paper, we present a review of the Blockchain consensus algorithms that have been researched and that are being applied in some well-known applications at this time.
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paper_title: PPCoin: Peer-to-Peer Crypto-Currency with Proof-of-Stake

paper_content:

A peer-to-peer crypto-currency design derived from Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin. Proof-of-stake replaces proof-of-work to provide most of the network security. Under this hybrid design proof-of-work mainly provides initial minting and is largely non-essential in the long run. Security level of the network is not dependent on energy consumption in the long term thus providing an energyefficient and more cost-competitive peer-to-peer crypto-currency. Proof-of-stake is based on coin age and generated by each node via a hashing scheme bearing similarity to Bitcoin’s but over limited search space. Block chain history and transaction settlement are further protected by a centrally broadcasted checkpoint mechanism.
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paper_title: A Survey about Consensus Algorithms Used in Blockchain

paper_content:

Thanks to its potential in many applications, Blockchain has recently been nominated as one of the technologies exciting intense attention. Blockchain has solved the problem of changing the original low-trust centralized ledger held by a single third-party, to a high-trust decentralized form held by different entities, or in other words, verifying nodes. The key contribution of the work of Blockchain is the consensus algorithm, which decides how agreement is made to append a new block between all nodes in the verifying network. Blockchain algorithms can be categorized into two main groups. The first group is proof-based consensus, which requires the nodes joining the verifying network to show that they are more qualified than the others to do the appending work. The second group is voting-based consensus, which requires nodes in the network to exchange their results of verifying a new block or transaction, before making the final decision. In this paper, we present a review of the Blockchain consensus algorithms that have been researched and that are being applied in some well-known applications at this time.
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paper_title: A privacy-preserving Internet of Things device management scheme based on blockchain

paper_content:

Blockchain as a new technique has attracted attentions from industry and academics for sharing data across organizations. Many blockchain-based data sharing applications, such as Internet of Things...
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paper_title: Hybrid Cryptographic Protocol for Secure Vehicle Data Sharing Over a Consortium Blockchain

paper_content:

The blockchain technology has recently attracted increasing interests in a wide range of use-cases. Among those, the management of vehicles' data and life cycle over a blockchain has sparked various research initiatives on a global scale, with the promise to prevent automobile frauds and to enable more collaborations between the involved stakeholders. In this paper, we investigate the problem of securing and sharing vehicles' data over a consortium blockchain, and we describe the architecture of the implemented proof-of-concept. Then, we introduce a novel hybrid cryptographic protocol to secure the access to vehicles' data between the involved stakeholders. Finally, we discuss the lessons learned acquired from the preliminary trials and we highlight the future research challenges and opportunities.
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paper_title: From Pretty Good To Great: Enhancing PGP using Bitcoin and the Blockchain

paper_content:

PGP is built upon a Distributed Web of Trust in which a user’s trustworthiness is established by others who can vouch through a digital signature for that user’s identity. Preventing its wholesale adoption are a number of inherent weaknesses to include (but not limited to) the following: 1) Trust Relationships are built on a subjective honor system, 2) Only first degree relationships can be fully trusted, 3) Levels of trust are difficult to quantify with actual values, and 4) Issues with the Web of Trust itself (Certification and Endorsement). Although the security that PGP provides is proven to be reliable, it has largely failed to garner large scale adoption. In this paper, we propose several novel contributions to address the aforementioned issues with PGP and associated Web of Trust. To address the subjectivity of the Web of Trust, we provide a new certificate format based on Bitcoin which allows a user to verify a PGP certificate using Bitcoin identity-verification transactions - forming first degree trust relationships that are tied to actual values (i.e., number of Bitcoins transferred during transaction). Secondly, we present the design of a novel Distributed PGP key server that leverages the Bitcoin transaction blockchain to store and retrieve our certificates.
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paper_title: Step by Step Towards Creating a Safe Smart Contract: Lessons and Insights from a Cryptocurrency Lab

paper_content:

We document our experiences in teaching smart contract programming to undergraduate students at the University of Maryland, the first pedagogical attempt of its kind. Since smart contracts deal directly with the movement of valuable currency units between contractual parties, security of a contract program is of paramount importance.
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paper_title: The Internet Blockchain: A Distributed, Tamper-Resistant Transaction Framework for the Internet

paper_content:

Existing security mechanisms for managing the Internet infrastructural resources like IP addresses, AS numbers, BGP advertisements and DNS mappings rely on a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) that can be potentially compromised by state actors and Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs). Ideally the Internet infrastructure needs a distributed and tamper-resistant resource management framework which cannot be subverted by any single entity. A secure, distributed ledger enables such a mechanism and the blockchain is the best known example of distributed ledgers. In this paper, we propose the use of a blockchain based mechanism to secure the Internet BGP and DNS infrastructure. While the blockchain has scaling issues to be overcome, the key advantages of such an approach include the elimination of any PKI-like root of trust, a verifiable and distributed transaction history log, multi-signature based authorizations for enhanced security, easy extensibility and scriptable programmability to secure new types of Internet resources and potential for a built in cryptocurrency. A tamper resistant DNS infrastructure also ensures that it is not possible for the application level PKI to spoof HTTPS traffic.
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paper_title: Blockchains and Smart Contracts for the Internet of Things

paper_content:

Motivated by the recent explosion of interest around blockchains, we examine whether they make a good fit for the Internet of Things (IoT) sector. Blockchains allow us to have a distributed peer-to-peer network where non-trusting members can interact with each other without a trusted intermediary, in a verifiable manner. We review how this mechanism works and also look into smart contracts—scripts that reside on the blockchain that allow for the automation of multi-step processes. We then move into the IoT domain, and describe how a blockchain-IoT combination: 1) facilitates the sharing of services and resources leading to the creation of a marketplace of services between devices and 2) allows us to automate in a cryptographically verifiable manner several existing, time-consuming workflows. We also point out certain issues that should be considered before the deployment of a blockchain network in an IoT setting: from transactional privacy to the expected value of the digitized assets traded on the network. Wherever applicable, we identify solutions and workarounds. Our conclusion is that the blockchain-IoT combination is powerful and can cause significant transformations across several industries, paving the way for new business models and novel, distributed applications.
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paper_title: The Paradox of Compliance: Infringements and Delays in Transposing European Union Directives

paper_content:

What impact does the negotiation stage prior to the adoption of international agreements have on the subsequent implementation stage? We address this question by examining the linkages between decision making on European Union directives and any subsequent infringements and delays in national transposition. We formulate a preference-based explanation of failures to comply, which focuses on states’ incentives to deviate and the amount of discretion granted to states. This is compared with state-based explanations that focus on country-specific characteristics. Infringements are more likely when states disagree with the content of directives and the directives provide them with little discretion. Granting discretion to member states, however, tends to lead to longer delays in transposition. We find no evidence of country-specific effects.
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paper_title: Disclosure as Governance: The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and Resource Management in the Developing World

paper_content:

The global promotion of transparency for the extractive sector-oil, gas and mining-has become increasingly accepted as an appropriate solution to weaknesses in governance in resource-rich developing nations. Proponents argue that if extractive firms disclose publicly their payments to governments, citizens will be able to hold governments accountable. This will improve the management of natural resources, reduce corruption, and mitigate conflict. These beliefs are embodied in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), initially a unilateral effort launched by Tony Blair that has evolved into a global program. Why has transparency become the solution of choice for managing natural resource wealth, and how has the EITI evolved? This article argues that intersecting transnational networks with complementary global norms facilitated construction of transparency as a solution for management of resource revenues. This in turn promoted the gradual expansion of the institutional architecture, membership, and scope of the EITI despite significant political barriers. (c) 2010 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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paper_title: Impact of the Dodd-Frank Act on Credit Ratings

paper_content:

We analyze the impact of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) on corporate bond ratings issued by credit rating agencies (CRAs). We find no evidence that Dodd-Frank disciplines CRAs to provide more accurate and informative credit ratings. Instead, following Dodd-Frank, CRAs issue lower ratings, give more false warnings, and issue downgrades that are less informative. These results are consistent with the reputation model of Morris (2001), and suggest that CRAs become more protective of their reputation following the passage of Dodd-Frank. Consistent with Morris (2001), we find that our results are stronger for industries with low Fitch market share, where Moody׳s and Standard & Poor׳s have stronger incentives to protect their reputation (Becker and Milbourn, 2011). Our results are not driven by business cycle effects or firm characteristics, and strengthen as the uncertainty regarding the passage of Dodd-Frank gets resolved. We conclude that increasing the legal and regulatory costs to CRAs might have an adverse effect on the quality of credit ratings.
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paper_title: Blockchain Standards for Compliance and Trust

paper_content:

Blockchain methods are emerging as practical tools for validation, record-keeping, and access control in addition to their early applications in cryptocurrency. This column explores the options for use of blockchains to enhance security, trust, and compliance in a variety of industry settings and explores the current state of blockchain standards.
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paper_title: ProvChain: A Blockchain-Based Data Provenance Architecture in Cloud Environment with Enhanced Privacy and Availability

paper_content:

Cloud data provenance is metadata that records the history of the creation and operations performed on a cloud data object. Secure data provenance is crucial for data accountability, forensics and privacy. In this paper, we propose a decentralized and trusted cloud data provenance architecture using blockchain technology. Blockchain-based data provenance can provide tamper-proof records, enable the transparency of data accountability in the cloud, and help to enhance the privacy and availability of the provenance data. We make use of the cloud storage scenario and choose the cloud file as a data unit to detect user operations for collecting provenance data. We design and implement ProvChain, an architecture to collect and verify cloud data provenance, by embedding the provenance data into blockchain transactions. ProvChain operates mainly in three phases: (1) provenance data collection, (2) provenance data storage, and (3) provenance data validation. Results from performance evaluation demonstrate that ProvChain provides security features including tamper-proof provenance, user privacy and reliability with low overhead for the cloud storage applications.
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paper_title: Enabling Blockchain Innovations with Pegged Sidechains

paper_content:

Since the introduction of Bitcoin[Nak09] in 2009, and the multiple computer science and electronic cash innovations it brought, there has been great interest in the potential of decentralised cryptocurrencies. At the same time, implementation changes to the consensuscritical parts of Bitcoin must necessarily be handled very conservatively. As a result, Bitcoin has greater difficulty than other Internet protocols in adapting to new demands and accommodating new innovation. We propose a new technology, pegged sidechains, which enables bitcoins and other ledger assets to be transferred between multiple blockchains. This gives users access to new and innovative cryptocurrency systems using the assets they already own. By reusing Bitcoin’s currency, these systems can more easily interoperate with each other and with Bitcoin, avoiding the liquidity shortages and market fluctuations associated with new currencies. Since sidechains are separate systems, technical and economic innovation is not hindered. Despite bidirectional transferability between Bitcoin and pegged sidechains, they are isolated: in the case of a cryptographic break (or malicious design) in a sidechain, the damage is entirely confined to the sidechain itself. This paper lays out pegged sidechains, their implementation requirements, and the work needed to fully benefit from the future of interconnected blockchains.
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Title: Blockchain Technology in the Oil and Gas Industry: A Review of Applications, Opportunities, Challenges, and Risks

Section 1: INTRODUCTION
Description 1: Introduce the significance of oil and gas resources, current management issues in the industry, and the potential of blockchain technology to address these issues.

Section 2: MOTIVATION
Description 2: Discuss the motivations behind exploring blockchain technology for the oil and gas industry, emphasizing the need for better understanding and implementation.

Section 3: CONTRIBUTIONS
Description 3: Summarize the main contributions of the paper, including the discussion of blockchain technologies, their application in the oil and gas industry, and the analysis of their opportunities, challenges, and risks.

Section 4: THEORIES OF BLOCKCHAIN
Description 4: Provide an overview of the basic theories and key technologies of blockchain, including the concept, characteristics, classification, consensus algorithms, cryptography and security technologies, data record models, and distributed storage systems.

Section 5: BLOCKCHAIN IN OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY
Description 5: Analyze the potential application scenarios of blockchain technology in the oil and gas industry, including trading, management and decision-making, supervision, and cybersecurity. Present real-world examples.

Section 6: DISCUSSIONS
Description 6: Discuss the current status, opportunities, challenges, risks, and development trends of blockchain technology in the oil and gas industry.

Section 7: CONCLUSIONS
Description 7: Summarize the findings and conclusions of the paper, highlighting the potential of blockchain technology in the industry and the steps needed to overcome challenges and risks.