Need editing help for my thesis (professor comments included in document) and in according to the template attached
Need to edit the thesis document according to professor comments and provide additional references and citations according to my topic and research. Attached is the sample dissertation template and my thesis document. My thesis document should be according to the thesis template and my thesis document has professor comments. I need each comment to be addressed and edited as per the professor’s instructions. Also, try to gather and include additional references and citations for my research work and title. Formatting should be in APA 7th and according to the sample template. All the professor comments should be answered perfectly and reviewed carefully. !! KEEP EVERYTHING CONFIDENTIAL !!
dissertation Cloud ComputingBlockchain
YOUR ABBREVIATED TITLE
1
YOUR ABBREVIATED TITLE 17
For the header, Type: your abbreviated title in all capital letters. (No more than 50 characters, including spaces). The page number is also in the header, flush right starting with 1.
The entire document should be double spaced with Times 12 Font.
Type your dissertation approved title on line 5.
Your Approved Thsisis Title Here in Upper and Lowercase Letters
Type only your first and last name on line 6. Do not list other degrees.
First and Last Name
University of the xxxxx
Type University of the Cumberlands on line 7.
Month and Year of Graduation
Month and Year only should be typed on line 8.
Approval for Recommendation
Include a copy of the signed form.
This xxxxxx is approved for recommendation to the faculty and administration of the University of the Cumberlands.
Dissertation Chair:
Dissertation Evaluators:
Acknowledgements is where you thank those who have helped you achieve this goal.
Acknowledgments
There are many to whom a debt of gratitude is owed for their assistance in conducting this research…. (It is appropriate to thank key faculty, friends, and family members, as well as ministers and God. It is advisable to limit the comments to one page)
The word “Abstract” should be centered and typed in 12-point Times New Roman.
Abstract
This study examined the differences………………
Do not indent the first paragraph in the abstract.
Table Of Contents
Chapter One: Introduction
Overview………………………………………………………………………………1
Background and Problem Statement………………………………………………….2
List of
Tables
Table 1: Name of the Table…………………………………………………………………1
List of
Figures
Figure 1: Name of the Figures …………………………………………………………………1
Chapter One
Introduction
Indent each new paragraph. Write the introduction to your topic here.
Overview
Indent each new paragraph. Write an overview to your study here.
Background and Problem Statement
Indent each new paragraph. Write your background and problem statement here.
Purpose of the Study
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Research Questions
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Theoretical Framework
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Limitations of the Study
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Assumptions
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Definitions
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Summary
Indent each new paragraph. Write your summary of chapter one here.
Chapter Two
The literature review should be a minimum of 20 pages of synthesized literature.
Review Of Literature
Introduction
Indent your introduction. Introduce your thesis map here for your dissertation topic and literature review you will cover.
Main Heading (level 2 heading)
Subheading should be flush left, Bold italic, Title Case Heading (level 3 heading)
Subheading should be indented, boldfaced, Title Case Heading, ending with a period. (level 4 heading)
Summary
Chapter Three
Procedures And Methodology
Introduction
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Research Paradigm (qualitative or quantitative)
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Research Design
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Sampling Procedures and or/
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Data Collection Sources
In Data Collection Resources section, reference Informed Consent and IRB approval placed in Appendices.
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Statistical Tests
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Summary
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Chapter Four
Research Findings
Introduction
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Participants and Research Setting
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Analyses of Research Questions
List and number research questions one at a time.
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Supplementary Findings (if any)
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Summary
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Chapter Five
Summary, Discussion, And Implications
Introduction
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Practical Assessment of Research Question(s)
In the Practical Assessment of Research Question section, focus in this section on how your research question findings align or differ from scholarly published literature on the topic.
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Limitations of the Study
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Implications for Future Study
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Summary
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References
All citations and references must match throughout the dissertation. Follow APA guidelines on formatting.
Appendix A
Appendices – This section contains tables, figures, and possible data sources that could not be placed in the text of the paper due to its size, as well as copies of consent forms and IRB letters.
Tables
Appendix B
Figures
Appendix C
Consent Forms
Appendix D
IRB Approval
Running Head: BLOCKCHAIN ENABLED DATA SECURITY AND INTEGRITY IN CLOUD 5
Implementation of DIS through Smart Contract In Blockchain-Enabled Security
By
Karthik Meduri
University of the Cumberlands
Dr. Darcel Holmes Tolliver
Month and Year of Graduation
II
Contents
Chapter One 1
Introduction 1
Overview 2
Background and Problem Statement 5
Problem Statement 6
Purpose of the Study 7
Research Questions 8
Theoretical Framework 9
Limitations of the Study 11
Assumptions 12
Definitions 14
Summary 16
Chapter Two 17
Literature Review 17
Introduction to Blockchain 17
Introduction to Cloud Computing 18
History of Cloud Computing 19
Cloud Computing Benefits 21
Risks Associated with Cloud Computing 22
Cloud computing and Blockchain technologies 23
Blockchain as Disruptive Technology 25
Security Impacts of Hackers 28
Implementing Blockchain for Data Security 29
Improvements and Advantages of Blockchain Technology 31
Data Integrity Issues 32
Data Privacy Issues 34
Blockchain Address on Data Privacy and Integrity Issue 36
IoT Devices Used at Home 37
Data Storage 37
Compromising IoT Data 40
The Uniqueness of Blockchain Technology 40
The Relation between Cloud Computing and Blockchain 41
Cloud Computing Model 41
Servers Remote Location 42
CIA Triad Model 42
Blockchain Protection 43
Chapter Three 46
Procedures and Methodology 46
Introduction 46
Research Paradigm (qualitative) 49
Research Design 50
Sampling Procedures 52
Data Collection Sources 54
Integrating of blockchains and the internet of things 57
Summary 62
References 64
List of figures
Figure 1; Zavapro Enterprise twitter account snapshot
9
I
III
Chapter One
Introduction
The rapid growth in cloud computing has not solved data security that has been a challenge for many years now. The issue has resulted in many scholars researching this problem, and one of the techniques they have come up to solve is the Blockchain technique discussed in this research paper. The application of blockchain technology in cloud computing while using the former security mechanism is a promising data security technique. Blockchain has become a frontier field by the uniqueness of its technological supremacy, with experts believing that it will solve trust mechanisms and data legitimacy (Wei et al., 2020). Moreover, the unfolding of the internet resulted in disseminating information to leap with information flowing efficiently globally without third force implementation with the lack of quality transfer. According to Wei et al., (2020), internet value has laid a foundation for the entire human society to enter a straightforward and reliable credit community (Wei et al., 2020). With most organizations facing incredible responsibility in protecting their user’s data, they also face data breaching consequences. For this, the organizations need security control measures to guard in case of cyberattacks. (‘Smart Eye Technology,.’ 2020, October 09).
The purpose of Chapter One is to present the problems in technology and how data security can be improved through the use of cloud computing and blockchain based system so as to achieve data integrity and scalability of an organization. I
n other words, blockchain based integrity is reliable, easy to use, efficient and scalable when it comes to incorporate the safety of the firm’s data. Moreover, it is through blockchain technology that data security through cloud computing has been made possible, furthermore, the convinienece of the technology also makes the data safe from attacks. The rationale and research also addresesses how Blockchain technology aliminates reliance on third-party in the procession of data, hence enhancing data integrity for both data owners and consumers. Comment by Darcel Ford: If this is your problem, then cite it. I need to see your literature review evolve around it.
Thesis statement
Implementation of DIS through Smart Contract In Blockchain-Enabled Security helps promote reliance, trust and efficiency in the verification of the data provide security and reliability with regards to internet on things and devices that are configured directly with the internet. This helps to promote data integriry, confidentiality and the implementation of security as a result of encouraged use of Internet on things application. Comment by Darcel Ford: I am not sure where you would like to add this section but you are writing a dissertation and soon will be a doctor.
Overview
This study focuses on data privacy and integrity. In this case, more and more people appreciate the Internet of Things (IoT) in business, healthcare, production, and even homes, meaning that there is a lot of data transfer between devices and individuals who rely on Cloud Services for storage (Dimitrov, 2016). An issue in security arises since data may become vulnerable to attacks. As the data generation increases, attackers find ways to capitalize on this trend (Shim et al., 2020). Security is often a great part of the data management and the blockchain sector’s idea (Cheng et al., 2017). Without security and encryption, there is much vulnerability in the system that will fail in the entire sector. Having security in the system ensures the flow of data and ensures trust from the users. The issue of third parties involved in data storage and dissemination rises. Such parties include Third-Party Auditors (TPAs), who are perceived as a threat to some extent (Juels and B. S. K. Jr., 2018). Traditionally, a Integrity Management service (ISM) was based on a centralized node, which posed a risk to data privacy and integrity (Loukil et al., 2021).
In this case, T
the organization that uses the ISM services are able to acknowledge privacy and integrity when it comes to securing data for organization. Comment by Darcel Ford: Start here
Do you have a report to conclude about this information. Comment by Darcel Ford: Is this a new acronynm? Use parenthesis for the acronynm and then you can use it freely. Place it in your definition section. Comment by Darcel Ford: reference
Furthermore, Therefore, this study aims to find a full replacement of the centralized node Integrity Management Service with a decentralized Blockchain-enabled data security and integrity service in cloud environments. Also t
aken into account in the paper is the applicability of blockchain technology in is enhancing Cloud Storage Services’ integrity property. This architecture allows access to remotely stored data through a decentralized control system (Latif et al., 2021). A blockchain-based data framework is proposed to provide decentralized data integrity and privacy verification for IoT data stored in different cloud platforms that are partially trusted. Blockchain, a technology commonly used in cryptocurrency, powers fully decentralized systems. (Srivastava, 2020). For instance, Zavapro Enterprise is a company that mainly deals with selling electronics and machines. The company’s sole purpose is to offer business to their customers and provide customized computers and laptops. The devices are customized in the company where they are shared online to their customers’ requirements. To impact online, the company must ensure that they have social media accounts to reach most of their target audience, the youth. For starters, Zavapro Enterprise is a Saudi company started by a famous prince who invested much capital. At first, the company did not bring as many profits as discussed before in the company. It was required that the company focus on its sales and marketing strategies. As a result, Zavapro Enterprise employed another company to provide a perfect marketing plan for their social media accounts. Comment by Darcel Ford: Rewrite this sentence. I am not able to follow you here. Do you have any statistics or facts relevant. For example, in 2018, 4.07 million etc. Comment by Darcel Ford: For example. Comment by Darcel Ford: I have asked you to cite this but you have not. Why?
The company started by opening its social media accounts. The pictures below show how the company successfully ensured that they provide customers with firsthand experience in their social media accounts. Reviewing the social media accounts gives a clear indication of how the media accounts will offer a competitive advantage on all sites. Below is a sample screenshot of the created accounts.
Figure 1; Zavapro Enterprise twitter account snapshot
Today most companies are using social media marketing (SMM) to compete against other companies. It will be essential for our company to have included all the necessary steps in ensuring the social media accounts have a higher number of followers than the company’s competitors. The social media accounts will advertise the company to a bigger audience and ensure that it continues to achieve greater sales (Wollan, Smith & Zhou, 2011). With regards to Blockchain, t
his introduces the concept of smart contracts living within a blockchain. Its implementation enables high efficiency and reliability of Data Integrity Service (DIS) since a Data Integrity as a Service (DIaaS) framework is proposed to enhance this property. Security concerns come in a scenario of Data Owners (DOs) wanting verification of their cloud-stored data. In contrast, Data Consumers (DCs) demand a share of the data, but data consumers lack trust in Third-party auditors whom data owners mostly trust. (Manjunath, P., & Shah, P., 2018). Therefore, in this
documentation, study a suggestion to implement a blockchain-based data integrity service framework is made after considering all concerns and parties involved in the data life cycle. Comment by Darcel Ford: Still missing a reference
Background and Problem Statement
Background Comment by Darcel Ford: Check, is this in your template?
Generally, blockchain is a chain of time-stamped blocks jointly maintained by all of the nodes involved. Blocks are used as containers that handle transactions and are jointly chained through cryptography. Each block should be digitally and electronically signed then chained to the previous via its hash value. When there is a need to add new blocks, they must be appended to the end of a chain, thereby providing immutable data storage. Updating and deletion of data from existing transactions are eliminated. This feature becomes essential for our data integrity and privacy implementation since transactions can be carried out without relying on a third party’s authority. (
X. Liang, S. Shetty, D. Tosh, C. Kamhoua, K. Kwiat, and L. Njilla, 2017). Data Integrity as a Service framework, DIS is built on a Blockchain System so that parties that require it must first start blockchain client on their nodes. Then, every other node is free to leave or join the network. In practice, Cloud Storage Service can work as a node under a blockchain network. Through Smart Contracts, DIS (data integrity service) is implemented in a fully decentralized manner, which increases reliability and efficiency. (
Y. Zeng, X. Zhang, R. Akhtar, and C. Wang, 2019)
Problem Statement
Generic data provenance solutions for IoT-generated data have been hugely researched and worked on, with many focusing on fulfilling most security requirements on integrity and privacy. However, all schemes lack detailed integrity, privacy, and scalability for IoT. Different works have also handled privacy preservation but have not focused on decentralization technique in Data Integrity Services. Additionally, researchers have deployed a privacy-aware life cycle for smart objects; however, provenance has been left out (Bertino et al., 2014). IoT is widely known for using data mining to predict and have a better market outcome. Some currency exchange businesses are carried out online, allowing anyone in need of buying currencies to trade in them. It has allowed most people to trade in currencies, requiring that they know these currencies’ trends in different countries. Mining data can therefore be said to have many advantages since it can give anyone trading in currency on where the currencies are headed. Mining data takes a lot of currency trends all over the world (Vishal,2018). Data mining becomes efficient in currency exchange because data is collected for a long time, and the data being collected is usually very large. By analyzing this data, it becomes possible to know the trends in this data. Ideally, a secure data integrity framework should be implemented in a way that allows for complete, efficient, and reliable decentralization. This framework is a feature that introduces blockchain into data provenance, integrity, privacy, and scalability. Considering the previous shortcomings and taking them into account, such essential aspects of scalability of data integrity have not been working. Therefore, a proposed solution that emphasizes solving scalability alongside an anonymously fully distributed data-provenance scheme for IoT could be implemented on a large scale. In other words, data mining can be incorporated in the securing and the integrity of company’s information and securing currency exchange. Comment by Darcel Ford: You still have not removed the semicolon. Either rewrite the sentence or remove it.
Purpose of the Study
This study aims to introduce Aan essential feature of blockchain is that it enables decentralized systems to achieve data integrity property. A Data Integrity Service is handled in four categories, which are: protocols, data standards, technologies of storage servers, and storage architecture. Data integrity assurance techniques are under storage technologies, and they are RAID and Check-summing. This study’s key contributions are the following: It works to replace the state of Integrity management service or system from a centralized node with another fully decentralized by a blockchain built DIS. The replacement will eliminate third-party auditors whose confidence is required for the complete reliability of integrity service systems (Xu et al., 2019). The feasibility of proposals such as a new framework is also demonstrated in this documentation. It is shown that implementing a decentralized system reduces input/output costs of data integrity verification. This reduction in input/output costs increases the efficiency of verifying big data generated by IoT devices and applications. Moreover, Data Integrity as a Service (DIaaS) framework and protocols that work alongside have been proposed, all convenient for data owners and consumers in verifying data without the need for third parties’ interference. Furthermore, Since data and information are always vulnerable to malicious cyber attackers, this study focuses on providing a solution to safeguard data integrity services to betterment its application in IoT devices and the big data they generate (McGuire, 2017). Comment by Darcel Ford: You still have not provided the reference here
Research Questions
The following are the guiding research questions. They are the guiding points of the study and have been worked on thoroughly to achieve good results of blockchain and data integrity. This study will explore how blockchain challenges will be met through the following research questions:
·
RQ1: How can blockchain be implemented to achieve Data integrity for provenance and scalability purposes?
It can be done by implementing a data integrity service that is blockchain based and offers reliance, efficiency, and scalability of data integrity (missing a reference) Comment by Darcel Ford: Not needed here.
·
RQ2: To what extent can blockchain technology be implemented in cloud computing?
This technology can be implemented in all data life cycle levels, ranging from data generation, storage, and even transfer between entities that rely on data. Convenience is increased, and no step is left out vulnerable to attack since data is not exposed to undesired persons within the life cycle. (U D, 2017) Comment by Darcel Ford: Use this in your literature review.
·
RQ3: What is blockchain technology’s potency on the Internet of Things cloud data privacy and network safety?
Blockchain technology can eliminate the need for reliance on third-party auditors in the process of data integrity verification by both data owners and data consumers. This raises the reliability, trust, and efficiency of the verification process amongst parties. (missing a reference) Comment by Darcel Ford: Move to the literature review.
·
RQ4: Which solutions provide and maintain data privacy for applications and devices that use cloud-based IoT services?
The solution is implementing a blockchain-based system that enables data integrity services to be secure and reliable. Such a system or a service is the deployment of a data integrity framework that is blockchain-based. (McGuire, 2017) Comment by Darcel Ford: Remove. Just need the questions.
·
RQ5: What is the importance of maintaining secure data integrity, confidentiality, and availability in the cloud of things?
It ensures that vulnerabilities are eliminated, thereby encouraging IoT applications in many sectors of life. The more secure data is, the more people are motivated to implement this technology in IoT. (missing a reference) Comment by Darcel Ford: Just the question. You cannot answer before doing research.
·
RQ6: What are the critical aspects of security for preserving public information?
Public information is occasionally vulnerable to cyber-attacks since no one can claim ownership of it. Individuals’ lack of claims poses a risk of lack of enough security measures to safeguard such information. (Manjunath & Shah, 2019) Comment by Darcel Ford: Not needed here.
Theoretical Framework
In Data Integrity Services (DIS), to achieve provenance and scalability for IoT-generated data, blockchain-based Data Integrity as a Service framework is functional. The proposed framework is divided into a blockchain, data owners’ application (DOA), data consumers application (DCA), and cloud-based storage services (Moin et al., 2019). In other words, Cloud storage may either be private or public. The application of the data owners is assumed to generate and upload data to the storage service. Integrity verification involves various consumer and owners’ applications. A Data Integrity Services (DIS) is based on the blockchain system, and those that need it should initiate a blockchain client on their nodes as the first. Other nodes can now freely join or leave an already started chain.
(Manjunath & Shah, 2018). Moreover, Cloud storage is only a service but, a cloud can also work as a node. Implementation of a DIS can then be done as a smart contract existing on a blockchain network. It concerns the system’s efficiency and security. Still, with assumptions like if every involved node wants to benefit themselves, there is a 51% chance of rare in that a malicious cyber-attack would only be willing to mine with their computation power. It is also assumed that achieving consensus in a blockchain network takes a short time, which is longer due to underlying factors like slow networks. Comment by Darcel Ford: Look up what a conceptual model is in research and cite it here. Then state how the model will support your Data Integrity Services (DIS). You must ground the theory based on a model of the past and then it to the gurure. Comment by Darcel Ford: An example of a conceptual framework to accept technology
Conceptual framework of intention to accept technology. Adapated with
permission from “User Acceptance of Information Technology: Toward a Unified View,”
by V. Venkatesh, M. G. Morris, G. B. Davis, and F. D. Davis, 2003, MIS Quarterly,
27(3), pp. 425-478. Copyright © 2003, Regents of the University of Minnesota.
The smart contract applies data Integrity Service. Information should be locally encrypted to deny access to unauthorized entities then it can be recorded. Each party has an account used for interaction with the contract. Auditing of the transactions is transparent, and starting a service leads to its data synchronization with the whole network. Data owners’ applications have to write data through a smart contract that would be valid and readily accessible to other nodes to reach a consensus. In owners and consumer applications trying to access data using the contracts, more speed should be there since their data is from synchronous data sets (Liu et al., 2017). Moreover, this feature raises the efficiency of our DIS better than that of a cloud-based IMS. Once a smart contract is implemented, parties are free to interact with it conveniently. Only the author can terminate or modify service but not any of the other participants. IoT devices will be identifiable in the blockchain network through public keys generated by IoT cryptographic technologies, and encrypted connections ensure the unique identification of devices (Lhogeshvaree, 2017).
Limitations of the Study
Implementing such a powerful technology of data integrity and security through blockchain faces has limitations in both implementation and use in IoT applications. To achieve it, they have to be countered for good results. The drawbacks that may hinder the blockchain-based framework of data integrity service are explained below. According to Guo and Dias (2020) documented that although a DIaaS framework has been proposed for enhancing data integrity, it is assumed that the third-party auditors will behave responsibly. In practice, their reliability is not guaranteed if a problem has to be solved cryptographically. It limits the elimination of their role in data integrity verification since they trust data owners, but consumers do not trust their involvement (Guo & Dias, 2020). The Blockchain-based systems are not distributed systems in computing this is because blockchain networks rely on nodes formed to function correctly, a chain must incentivize its nodes to participate in the whole network to be healthy. For a distributed system, data transactions must follow rules of use, recording, and data storage. Blockchain may enable this, but synergy and mutual reliance lack for each of the nodes (Nandi et al., 2020).
Scalability in the blockchain is also a significant concern as it limits the completion of transactions due to network congestions. More nodes slow down transactions. For such a case of numerous IoT devices in an application, unpredictable nodes may join a blockchain network that verifies data integrity. Also, blockchain solutions are energy-intensive. Through the proof-of-work algorithm in reaching consensus requires hard work by miners who solve complex mathematical tasks. Every case of update in the data from nodes calls for more work input. This is common in public networks that lack a limit in the number of nodes. This can be solved in private networks that are not easily achievable or accessible (Sun & Zacharias, 2020). The immutability of data in the blockchain, meaning changing data, is impossible. Once an IoT device writes data, then it cannot be removed. In this case, privacy is touched when an entity requires to remove its traces from a system, and it cannot. According to Manjunath & Shah, (2019), other limitations lie in security due to cryptographic cracking, double transacting using similar technology, and congestions in the network due to DDoS attacks are also experienced through solutions there.
Assumptions
Assumptions are made that the Third-Party Auditors are trustworthy from both the data owners and the data consumers. Their involvement in the data life cycle is assumed to be secure when transactions involving data are made. Moreover, it is also assumed that enough nodes in the blockchain are willing to be data miners, thereby ensuring that the blockchain system is kept working. This requires maximum adoption by parties involved in the verification system. The more they are, the more the framework will be in utilization hence its popularity and application in data integrity verification.
Another assumption is that blockchain technology will remain and improve under usage. This is crucial because its growth will support this framework. In this case, it is assumed on paper that the Data owner’s application is the only one that is responsible for generating data and uploading it to the cloud-based storage service or facility. Assumingly, if each of the involved nodes wants to benefit themselves, then a 51% chance of an attack is rare in that a malicious cyber-attack would only be willing to mine with their computation power. Collectively, it is assumed that to reach a consensus in a blockchain network takes a short time, which is longer at the moment due to underlying factors like slow networks. This is done with an apparent hope of improvement in other technologies in networks and internet services.
Definitions Comment by Darcel Ford: Please update your definitions list.
DIS: Data Integrity Service; a service that allows verification of data integrity either by the generating owner or consumers.
TPAs: Third-Party Auditors; play a role in ensuring conformance to set rules of verifying data integrity are met.
DIaaS: Data Integrity as a Service; it is a framework implemented in line with blockchain technology to enhance the reliability and efficiency of DIS.
DDoS: Distributed Denial of Service; a cybersecurity attack that floods either the resources or bandwidth of systems.
IoT: Internet of Things; stands for a network formed by physical things that have embedded sensors, software in addition to other technologies.
DOA: Data Owners Applications; they are the nodes of a blockchain network responsible for generating and updating data.
DCA: Data Consumers Applications; nodes by the consumers that use generated data for their benefit.
RAID: Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks; a virtualization technology for storage data storage that combines various physical storage devices into one or several logical units to improve performance.
Check-Summing: is an error detection technique that derives small blocks of data from other blocks and checks them for any errors introduced in transactions.
Blockchain: is a technology that forms a system with the capability of recording information in an unchangeable way that is also free of any attacks.
IMS: Integrity management system.
Summary
Critical aspects of cloud-based IoT data security are confidentiality, integrity, and availability. A concept of data prevalence and scalability was introduced in this documentation, with assumptions not left out. Still, they have been considered to propose a system or framework that would enhance integrity’s critical aspect. A blockchain-based service has been primarily discussed on how it can be implemented and its operating mechanisms. Its advantages are reliability in that no party within the blockchain can terminate a process of verification in progress. With an increasing number of clients, data integrity verification’s efficiency can be enhanced, and it generates income through the trade of data from consumers. Payment is made per transaction or service. However, the fundamental function is implementing the framework and protocols where the IoT devices face a low chance of writing smart contracts. Comment by Darcel Ford: Stilll missing the reference. I already request that you do it.
In conclusion, this technology’s applicability is achievable in achieving high data integrity for IoT-generated data.Collectively, the aspect of data security is key in maintain the integrity, confidence and availability of an organization. Blockchain based services is the center of operation and control of the mechanism required by the organization with respect to verification of data and integrity of data.
Chapter Two
Literature Review
Blockchain
This study aims to introduce an essential feature of blockchain that enables decentralized systems to achieve data integrity property. Blockchain is one of the fastest-growing new technology. This research aims at investigating the potentials and possibilities that blockchain technology will bring into life. The increased demand for data and information in the business environment has necessitated a more secure and seamless technology of sharing and storing data. Technology has changed how daily activities are carried out with the same services as blockchain technology has enabled security and data integrity in cloud environments and applications. The Literature searches were conducted using the University of the Cumberland’s search service. In line with this, advanced research is in progress to establish the technology’s full potential and capacity. In general, as the technology is new, the available literature is not as extensive as one could have expected (Natoli et al., 2020). However, the technology itself is already in use in multiple areas, such as in Bitcoin transactions, secure sharing of medical data, voting mechanisms, and real-time IoT operating systems. Comment by Darcel Ford: Still missing a reference. Please check the previous document.
In a vast world of technology, blockchain has outstood as one of the great technology. It is despite other technologies that seemingly offer the same service as blockchain tech does. Here, technology is tasked with dealing with data integrity and security issues in the various cloud environments alongside their numerous applications (Brodkin, 2018).
Where are the researched items from chapter one. Put them here and right the review.
Cloud Computing Comment by Darcel Ford: Where are the researched items you suggest in chapter one.
Cloud computing represents a wide range of cloud computing services that help individuals and organizations choose how, where, and when to use cloud computing. It offers various solutions like software as a service (SaaS), remote desktop session host (RDSH), platform as a service (PaaS), and infrastructure as a service (IaaS). Cloud computing has many benefits. For example, it reduces operational costs; in recent years, cloud technologies have also become a basis for business innovation and new business models. Furthermore, more organizations are switching to cloud solutions. Statistically, it is estimated that close to 77 percent of all enterprises use cloud services to some degree (Müller et al., 2019). Such adoption provides them with advantages such as better networking and real-time interaction. It gives the convenience of access to mature solutions made available on such platforms (Smirnova et al., 2020). Moreover, such advantages provide the IT teams with greater flexibility and agility, allowing them to be more responsive and efficient.
Again I am giving you example how to write the literature review
Literature review of two papers
Sensing, processing and sending the biological information of a patient leads to the concepts called (Internet of things) IOT. The author explained in paper (sheeraz,2020) that monitoring of real time patient symptoms and send to the IOT components for analysis after processing. To obtained high throughputs in WBANs network, its need a cohesive routing schemes. WBANs network contains on implanted sensors sending and receiving the patient data, which leads to increase the bio medical sensors ultimately raise the temperature of a body tissues. To avoid the damaging of body tissues the author proposed a new thermal aware routing algorithm, which support multi ring routing schemes with multi routes from one node to another node.
The author deal with a scheme i.e. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm in the paper (Rayyan, 2019) .During packet transmission EME radiation is engender, which cause a negative upshot on the human body. The Author described the SAR value, where the SAR is the amount of the radio frequencies absorbed by the tissues of the human body. The algorithm finds the relay nodes positioned and the sensors node can send the data through the path with minimum SAR value. Also, this algorithm recovered the success rate of packet transmission.
Cloud Computing Benefits
More and more organizations are adopting cloud solutions like Google Docs, SalesForce.com, and Office 365 to their daily operations. Research has shown that around 77 percent of all enterprises use one cloud service to a certain extent (Arik Hesseldahl, 2020). The service provided through cloud computing provides enterprises with better capabilities. For example, the platform as a service (PaaS) can be used in renting computing infrastructure (Sether, 2020). Individuals and organizations can rent or subscribe to cloud computing infrastructure for different applications accessed via the internet. The software as a service (SaaS) allows the user to rent software from a cloud computing vendor at an affordable cost instead of buying it at a high cost to own and manage it (IBM Cloud, 2020). According to Katie Sloane (2018) vendors provide the service as a managed solution that makes it affordable and reduces maintenance costs.
Furthermore, there is a developing pattern in utilizing cloud environments for ever-developing storage and data processing needs. In any case, receiving a cloud computing worldview may have positive just as negative consequences for service shoppers’ data security. A negative effect would be unauthorized cloud services that could increase malware infections or data exfiltration since the organization cannot protect resources it does not know. On the other hand, the positive consequence is that organizations can provide unique services using large-scale computing resources from cloud service providers and then add or remove IT capacity to meet peak and fluctuating service demands while only paying for actual capacity used. Other significant security issues exist in current cloud computing environments (Christidis et al., 2020). After examining the security mechanisms that significant cloud service providers authorized, a forthcoming cloud service can utilize a risk analysis approach. This service will break down the data security risks before placing the confidential data into a cloud computing environment.
Risks Associated with Cloud Computing
The risks linked with moving to Cloud Computing are consumers have reduced visibility and control, on-demand self-service simplifies unauthorized use, internet-accessible management APIs can be compromised, separation among multiple tenants fails, data deletion is incomplete, credentials are stolen, vendor lock-in complicates moving to other CSPs, increased complexity strains IT staff, insiders abuse authorized access, stored data is lost, CSP supply chain is compromised, insufficient due diligence increases cybersecurity risk (Timothy Morrow,2018)
. In as much as cloud computing is overwhelmed by advantages, it also poses a certain degree of danger and disadvantages to its users. Cloud computing poses a risk of company cloud resources being compromised as the APIs are accessed via the web. These are the gateways used by clients to interact with cloud services. If security is not configured correctly, they may be compromised by hackers.
Moreover, moving to the cloud increases the complexity of operations in the IT team. They ought to have the skill level and capacity to operate and maintain data migration from local servers to the cloud. This kind of complexity introduces new forms of risks, such as a lack of proper implementation methods and a lack of knowledge on policies. Abuse of authorized access is another common form of risk. An example of this is an IT administrator downloading clients’ files to use for his gain (Boixo et al., 2019). According to Gartner (2020), there are seven significant risks fraught with cloud computing. These risks are associated with any cloud vendor. They include Privileged user access, Regulatory compliance, Data location, Data segregation, Recovery, Investigative support, and Long-term viability are the top seven risks that users often overlook. Furthermore, customers must demand transparency, avoiding vendors that refuse to provide detailed information on security programs. They should ask questions related to the qualifications of policymakers, architects, coders, and operators. The testing level is done to verify that service and control processes are functioning as intended and that vendors can identify unanticipated vulnerabilities.
Blockchain as Disruptive Technology
In recent years there have been some misconceptions about Blockchain as Bitcoin, and it is only used for cryptocurrencies. Many organizations felt the blockchain disruptive technology and started experimenting with this Ledger technology upon research. Some of the organizations to experiment with blockchain technology are Starbucks, PepsiCo, Etc. These retail operations and sales sector organizations experienced profits and improved efficiency by reducing efforts and time. Thus, blockchain can have a massive impact on the economy in many sectors. Moreover, blockchain is a reasonably new technology that has presented many potentials. This new technology materialized during 2019 as a public ledger of Bitcoin transactions (Sharma et al., 2019). Blockchain technology is getting applications within an extensive range of fields, smart contracts, digital assets and stocks, record keeping, cloud storage, ID systems, and ridesharing, among others.
This new technology is getting the globe by storm. Through its regionalized, apparent, and safe form, blockchain has materialized as a disorderly technology for the subsequent generation of various industrialized appliances. One of its applications is in cloud computing facilitated through cloud computing. Blockchain offers innovative solutions to deal with the Cloud of Things’ challenges regarding data privacy and network safety, decentralization to enhance blockchain operations’ effectiveness within this setting. In recent findings in blockchain’s application are how Ledger technology can improve efficiency other than the financial sector. How can we improve the consumer device or consumer usage application? How can this disrupt the transportation sector? What impact and advantages of this system can bring over the traditional financial system? This way, many questions, and concerns are arising with the evolution of this technology. One of the critical developments in citizen engagement could be voting (Sangita et al., 2019). Voting is the fundamental right of every citizen. Every individual will try to cast their vote or make use of it. In general, this voting procedure happens manually.
It means one has to go to a designated place, also called a polling booth. The citizens use the ballot paper or the electronic voting machine, which prints the ballot paper. There is much scope for abusing this system. Blockchain voting could eliminate these problems. The voters are provided with tokens or coins in the digital wallet. Then they can send the token or coin to their chosen representative. Thus, voting is recorded as a transaction, and it cannot tamper (Natoli et al., 2020). It can help provide the cryptographic proof-of-work system that can prove the integrity of the election data. Nonetheless, blockchain technology is not ready to be implemented in a short time. Since each country differs in currencies and security policies, it would be susceptible to capacity problems, system failures, unanticipated bugs, and technically unsophisticated users. The second problem is energy consumption. Blockchain technology uses hashing and proof-of-work concepts by utilizing miners in the network.
The miners need high computation power, which results in the consumption of more energy. The third challenge is governance, where governments will restrain themselves. The incentives for the miners are inadequate to maintain infrastructure and collaboration. There will be several other forces that try to control the network. Another challenge is blockchain, a job killer since it is a platform for radical automation (Natoli et al., 2020). Blockchain may be resistant to centralization and control. However, political or economic rewards are significant enough to capture it by the powerful forces. It is also true to say that businesses across the globe have started integrated blockchain technology into their systems. It results in a range of benefits in the business model, especially with cloud computing and significant data growth. After a transaction is made and verified, the transaction is stored in a block together with an infinite number of other transactions and packaged with the user’s information (Sharma et al., 2019).
However, the task of verifying the transactions is done by a network of computers rather than a human being. After verification, the transaction is flagged with a green light and stored in a block together with other verified transactions. After that, the block is given a unique hash and then added to the Blockchain (Sharma et al., 2019). Thus
, Blockchain technology is currently being tested in different work cultures to experiment with the benefits and limitations and not have it.
Blockchain has gained popularity fast because it has revolutionized the way transactions are made. Typically, the time taken to complete transactions is usually long and is expensive as well. However, blockchain does not need third-party facilitators to process transactions, thus making the process faster.
The technology behind the blockchain relies on the combination of three technologies:
· Cryptographic keys are two keys, namely the private and public keys, that help perform successful transactions among two parties by generating secure digital signatures.
· It is a peer-to-peer network containing a shared ledger. The ledger securely stores transaction-related information for each individual (Boixo et al., 2019).
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A means of computing – This is a way of storing and recording transactions and network records.
Security Impacts of Hackers
Blockchain technology is one of the best tools currently available to protect data from hackers. It prevents impending fraud and reduces the possibility of data being compromised or stolen. For hackers to access or destroy a blockchain, they will have to destroy every user’s computer in the global network. In case of any interference, the undamaged computers will keep functioning to authenticate and store a record of all information on the network unless a hacker simultaneously depletes the whole network. The impossibility of bringing down an entire network increases with the number of users on a particular network. Therefore, large blockchain networks have a lower risk of being hacked due to their complexity. Moreover, the intricate configuration gives blockchain technology the capability to offer security to the information stored and shared online (Kantarci et al., 2019). Before implementing any encrypting technology, it is always good to study and analyze the technology before implementing it in the system. We may need to understand all the facts about the technology and see whether it is compatible with its performance.
Again, having studied the technology, we will plan the data flow simulation to be well compatible with the new technology upon installation. A good analysis will give modules of the implementation plan so that the entire organization will be un-operational during the system’s implementation.
Implementing Blockchain for Data Security
Rapid developments in digital technology have brought about new risks around data security. Blockchain provides secure data authentication and essential cryptography vaulting techniques. It refers to blockchain capabilities that are naturally encrypted, making it possible to provide proper validation. Blockchain technology has proven to be strong enough to address how to secure data and avert mischievous cyber-attacks. In addition, Encryption technology has evolved to create algorithms. There are classified into two that is asymmetric and symmetric. It is the two significant algorithm classes, and it is discussed in this paper. The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is an encryption algorithm that uses data splinting to encrypt and has a private key that makes it secure for data encryption and message encryption. Moreover, they are then subdivided into other algorithms that belong to this class. Advanced encryption standard is one of the best-applied algorithms in symmetric and has the best security assurance for the data involved. RSA is also the best in this class when it comes to asymmetric algorithms as it is considered safe as it uses two keys for encryption and decryption. The enterprise system had security requirements that could all be met by introducing this specific encryption technique.
Encryption of a new system is usually a large project. The larger the system, the larger the encryption process, which means certain costs are associated with the process. An example of a cost usually included in this type of project is the cost of labor. Certain individuals will be involved in creating the project itself, which means they will need to be paid for their services. Cost may also include the buying of certain products that will be essential in the encryption process. Thus, to begin an encryption project, the project’s cost should be one of the main priorities, which will ensure the project’s smooth running. Neverteless, Blockchain technology motivates its users to re-design and reformulate their data security concerns compared to other traditional methods (Tharani et al., 2020). Blockchain is revolutionary and has found applications in different fields such as finance, healthcare, and sports. The tremendous increase in its use can be attributed to the advantages and capabilities that blockchain provides. For example, the initially required applications to be run through a trusted intermediary can be operated separately without a central authority but still achieve the same functionality with the same certainty. Given that there is no need for trusted intermediaries, there is faster reconciliation between parties.
Implementation is an important process in any project. According to Tharani et al (2020), Implementation is the last process before maintenance, and it is where the system itself begins to be used. Some many problems and challenges are recognized at this stage. In addition, analyzing the implementation process notifies the developers of all the challenges that have occurred on the new system, and necessary changes can be conducted to make the system as good as possible. In the encryption process, the implementation stage also notifies the users of their responsibilities. In this particular stage, it is clear how different users can handle their responsibilities. In simpler words, it is clear that by analyzing the implementation process, it is easier to improve the system to be better.
Improvements and Advantages of Blockchain Technology
Blockchain technology operates on a distributed ledger technology. A distributed ledger means that it disintegrates large amounts of data into smaller parts and distributes them across a whole network of computers. Therefore, it does not have a central control center, which helps secure data (Smirnova et al., 2020). The technology also checks its data across the computer networks and validates the information regularly with each other. Blockchain technology also provides a decentralized network of the database, which is very transparent. It also offers encryption and validation procedures to protect user data. Moreover, Blockchain has many advantages when compared with other technology available in the world today. The first of all is the transparency that the technology holds. Despite its being a public address, the technology enhances a transparent ledger for the user to be free from enjoying the entire technology.
The technology involves great efficiency of the entire platform. IT ensures that the users have all they need to trust the system and consider this technology over the other technology available. In this case, Data security and encryption are also a great pilar of the technology. The platform’s data is often secure that they are encrypted for just the intended user to be the only one to access. Essentially communication is more often incorporated into just two parties, the sender and the recipient. Therefore, the type of encryption included mostly does not support multiparty involvement. However, people can always interrupt a message between two parts that can prioritize them (Fromknecht, 2018). Moreover Fromknecht also added that when they try to intercept the data flow, there is always replay security. In addition, IT may cause a lack of revisiting the passwords and changing them to avoid uniformity in the security part. Allowing the user to sign using message authentication codes can also cause a reply security problem.
Data Integrity Issues
Data integrity is defined as the accuracy and validity of data in its existence. According to James, compromised data does not benefit companies because of vital information loss (Zafar et al., 2017). For fear of losing information, companies focus on maintaining data integrity as a solution to other issues. Data can be interfered with in various ways. Therefore, enterprises should ensure that when they transfer data, it is intact and undistorted. In this case, validation procedures and checking methods are kept abreast of data integrity. According to computer experts, data integrity is essential for various reasons. First, valid and accurate data eases search-ability, recoverability, traceability, and connectivity. Data integrity enables stability and performance in the process of boosting maintainability and reusability. Data can be compromised, resulting in various issues.
For one, data integrity can bear the issue of bugs, hacking, viruses, and other cyber threats. When this category of problems attacks company data, essential information is lost or stolen by unknown people. Besides viruses, data integrity can experience transfer errors due to unintended changes or information interfered with during transfer. Another issue is the human errors that can be malicious or unintentional by individuals. Mostly, human error compromises physical machines and hardware, such as a disk crash. If companies cannot be keen on handling data, privacy issues can also take advantage and compromise everything.
It is very common for applications to have many vulnerabilities after being developed. Thus, a dependency check must be done on the project to get the same security vulnerabilities available. The maven dependency checks on our Artemis software were thus very important, and in running it, some vulnerabilities were found. They include;
· Cross-site scripting- Our code showed the following risks and vulnerabilities. Since it was a finance software, certain codes interact with the excel documents, which means there are great risks of cross-site scripting. This vulnerability is when the attackers target the scripts embedded in the application pages executed on our client’s side.
· Ghost Script/configure- This is one of the dependencies that was displayed in our report. Its risk to our program is high and must be solved before the program software was released to the public.
LDAP Injection – This vulnerability was found in most of the codes that included java access to our database. The issue with this type of vulnerability is that it would bring significant security issues to our application, which meant it was a great risk. This type of vulnerability is where attackers will have the power to include lines of code in our input fields, and by doing so, they will have access to manipulate the codes directly, even being on the client-side.
Insecure Storage of Information – The information that the clients would provide during registration would have no secure storage as our codes’ encryption system and algorithms were very weak. It meant that if an attacker was to gain access to the application server’s storage
There are always ways to identify problems in a system security protocol. After every implementation of a system, there are expected to have problems associated with the new change. It is always advisable to address the issue before it is too late to do so. Moreover, the following are some of the ways we can address the facts about the challenges. Using the access control permeation, assign each other member user data allocated or involved with his department (Vincent,2010). Invest more in the power and data processing units to give the users fast and continuous data flow. Educate the members about the usage and the critical and basic interaction with the system.
Data Privacy Issues
Data privacy is a data security section that ensures proper handling of information at par with its regulatory obligations (Liu et al., 2019). Although data integrity and privacy are often used interchangeably, they mean different. Hence, while data security safeguards data from hackers’ interference, data privacy controls how information is gathered and shared. Data privacy cannot be far from the reasons why data integrity is essential. According to Liu, (2019), there always security threats, no matter how good encryption technology may be. That is why the administrators are always good and keeping an eye on the system to ensure that everything is flowing accordingly. One of the most popular security threats that might occur is having a data interruption. IT is where a staff in an organization obtain information that might be encrypted to a higher level to his/her post at the time. It may be a threat since an organization may wish to keep some of it encrypted as they may have very classified information about the organization’s history.
Furthermore, there are various types of security threats that affect a person or information stores on computer devices. Security threats can be defined as how attacks may use to gain access to information that they are not intended to access. Some of these ways that they may use include;
• Eavesdropping – The act of intercepting and listening to communicate through telephone lines or wirelessly through the internet.
• Data interception – Like eavesdropping only in this case, the information is blocked from reaching its destination.
• Data falsification – Faking important documents to attain a service that is only limited to people who contain the particular document.
First, organizations request data from associates to directly link with the consumers on the ground. As such, it helps build a better relationship healthy for the company. Therefore, keeping confidential the same information even benefits the enterprises. Secondly, data privacy is an entitled right of an individual, and thus it is free from uninvited surveillance. Gloria suggests that keeping safe and silent one’s credentials is critical while in contemporary society. In addition, analysts have studied data privacy issues and came up with several (Zafar et al., 2017). One of the problems found was leaking confidential data to third parties. Secondly, she listed the illegal gathering of data and assumption regulatory restrictions such as CCPA and GLBA as related issues of the subject. In her argument, Maggie confirms that blockchain was the only remedy to both integrity and privacy matters. Furthertmore in order to solve the system’s issue, being slower than before would require the system to be rechecked and find the exact areas that made the system slow by making necessary compromises, which will help the system become as fast as before. Most encrypting technologies are very complex, and they may cause some machines to lag; thus, the encryption technique should consider the system being used. To solve users not complying with their responsibilities could be done by changing the users’ user responsibilities who could not handle their responsibilities. Some users could also receive extensive user training, which will assist them in understanding the system better.
Blockchain Address on Data Privacy and Integrity Issue
It is recommended that when using blockchains, parties should first assume that they write every data into the blockchains to be easily managed (Crosby et al., 2020). However, copying every data into the blockchains to solve integrity issues is costly and slow at the same time. Therefore, to address the integrity problem, experts recommend keeping the data on the chain and the encrypted data or taking alternative options as follows. First, save a hash of data straight onto the un-permission blockchain in Bitcoin or Ethereum. Equally, a member can store a hash of data onto a personalized blockchain. The last option that one may consider is utilizing data anchoring software to present data into blockchains. Through these options, data integrity can be maintained hence safeguarding information. This consideration is preferable because it makes data visible everywhere on the blockchain.
According to Crosby (2020), some researchers hint that blockchains can no longer solve volatile privacy issues. However, in the case that blockchains can be used, experts suggest that they will assist in replacing usernames and passwords to manage individual information. On that note, Samuel and Jonte claim that blockchains will help track and store every confidential data because of its immutable nature.
Data Storage
Data storage is considered a very important part of IoT, where we store everything. It ensures that many security measurements have to be involved in the storage of this data. The entire IoT based on data was not for data; then there is no IoT as we have to compare data with other data relating to the data we the current situation then predict the outcome. This is because there is a lot of necessary data security, the research has to ensure that data is super safe to avoid losing data. Loss of data can be catastrophic as the work is done to collect the data and analyze it, making it very important. It results in data encryption as the following. In addition, symmetric encryption is a type of encryption where data can be access if the user of a node has a private key of the system, and that key can encrypt and decrypt data in the system. The data flowing through the system is always encrypted to a message that cannot be understood, and the receiver must have the key to decrypt the data. Here are some of the symmetric key algorithms;
According to Crosby (2020), the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is one of the widely used encryption methods globally. It also consists of a private key that is used to decrypt the information. He concluded that the method splinted the data into bits and randomly sent them to the receiver node; then, the receiver will have the key to decode the information. The splinted blocks are arranged according to the initial massage. Moreover, the application of encryption technologies to our system is a very important task. The system implementation will ensure that all system users get a taste of how the system works. The encryption will ensure that all our users’ roles and requirements have changed, and thus, the implementation process will show how the system will be working. Furthermore, the implementation process will teach all the users how to manage their keys and guide them to ensure their system remains safe. The enterprise system will have to be added encryption technology to ensure that all the security requirements have been met. The first thing will be to analyze the security requirements.
The system’s analysis also showed that most users did not realize their current requirements and easily left their systems without any passwords, which was a great risk to the whole system. The first step of the application of encryption technologies will be to solve all of these issues. The Data Encryption Standard is the mother of advanced encryption standards as it was not successful given the workload. The failure of the data encryption standard was caused by having a short security key. It will allow those who are so determined to get into the system to crack it and access data without the administrator’s authorization. Furthermore, the Triple Data Encryption Standard is one of the strongest encryption technologies in the market. It is called triple as it holds three keys that form an algorithm to create one of the strongest encryption keys. Moreover, Blowfish is one of the financial institution’s priorities and choices when it comes to encrypting data. This technique was designed in 1993 by Bruce Schneier. The objective was to replace Data Encryption Standard (DES). It is also a free encryption technology available.
The IoT devices are overwhelmingly outnumbering the number of people. Equally, through their number, there has been more data that comes with challenges. Specialists suggest that out of IoT devices, there come amicably large files, images, and videos that cannot be singly stored (Marin et al., 2019). Thus from their nature, Marin and colleagues recommend the use of zips to store the IoT data. Unlike other small files, IoT documents can be compiled and zipped for easy storage. They argue that when these files are compressed, it becomes easy to store and send them to individuals. After compressing such data, the cloud can now accept the information for safe storage.
Compromising IoT Data
Just like any data, IoT data can also be compromised. Anything negative is possible once the data is susceptible to the public Internet (Xiao et al., 2018). Therefore, at exposure, IoT data can be stolen by unknown people or even distorted. Also, exposed viruses or malicious programs, or hackers can attack IoT data. Usually, the hacked data end up being lost, never to be recovered again. When individuals fear for their data safety, experts recommend using the VPN to protect the data when it is passed from one device to the other. That way, malicious people cannot access the information for interference.
The Uniqueness of Blockchain Technology
Blockchain can be defined as a list of growing records called blocks of data. It is resistant to modifications by design. Since it is a distributed ledger, it is decentralized, and no single entity has complete control of it. Several unique and outstanding features make blockchain technology a success (Christidis, 2020). There are quite a several unique and outstanding features that make blockchain technology a success.
Blockchain is a secure means of managing transactions. It has a decentralized feature meaning the copies of data are in the user’s hands, and the database remains safe. It uses cryptography to cipher and deciphers transactional data throughout the process (Sangita et al., 2019). Since blockchain is decentralized, there is not a central location for data storage. Data is stored in computers on a network called nodes, responsible for verifying the transactions.
The Relation between Cloud Computing and Blockchain
Blockchain has emerged as a disruptive technology due to its transparent, decentralized, and secure nature. It has created a Cloud of Things built by combining cloud computing and the Internet of Things. In this case, blockchain technology has provided innovative solutions to solve the Cloud of Things limitation through decentralization, network security, and data privacy. In contrast, the Cloud of Things provides elasticity and scalability functionalities to enhance blockchain technology’s efficiency. Therefore, the integration of blockchain into the cloud of things has enabled robust data security. According to Christidis (2020), blockchain with cloud technology has found applications in different fields such as smart cities, smart industry, smart transportation, and smart healthcare (Natoli et al., 2020). Integrating blockchain in cloud technology is the future direction to replacing centralized computing models.
Cloud Computing Model
The security layers in a cloud computing model are the endpoint layer, the private network layer, the virtual datacenter layer, the cipher space cloud-services layer, and the internet. The endpoint layer restricts access to protect data in use. Also, it secures software patches. The private network layer protects data in transit and isolates both database servers and web applications. The virtual data center layer uses firewalls and IDS to protect a data center and isolated virtual data center environments (Smirnova et al., 2020). The cipher space cloud-services layer protects the data center from malicious internet content and ensures that data center regulations are followed. On the internet, threats devices such as mobile phones and laptops are trying to read and write information to the servers.
CIA Triad Model
The CIA Triad is a triangular-shaped model designed to guide an organization in designing policies for information. According to Christidis (2020), the first element in the triad is confidentiality. This aspect allows companies to undertake measures that prevent sensitive information from reaching the wrong people. A typical blockchain transaction is arranged into blocks aligned in a blockchain that links each new block. The data elements in a blockchain are not stored in a central location but done across the blockchain networks, ensuring the security of data elements stored. A CIA triad employs the conventional security approach that emphasizes implementing the three main principles: confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The blockchain leans more towards the integrity and availability of the information that is inside. As a result of the decentralized nature, the data remains transparent to everyone that shares the data elements.
Training needs to be done on password-related best practices and data categorization and encryption to instill this measure. Integrity relates to data accuracy and consistency throughout its life cycle (Kantarci et al., 2019). To ensure data integrity, an organization may use access controls to prevent users from modifying data they are not authorized to perform. They may use version control to track the changes that have been made on a document over some time. Availability refers to having data available to all authorized personnel at any given time. It can be ensured by maintaining hardware and performing frequent software updates. Moreover, Christidis (2020), the occurrences such as redundancy and bottlenecks may heavily impact an organization
Blockchain Protection
Ultimately, blockchains can be used to protect IoT data from any danger. According to experts, data in a blockchain is kept on multiple nodes worldwide, filling the loopholes failing. Therefore, nodes should approve and verify the required information and data (Xiao et al., 2018). Secondly, most blockchains are public and visible. This characteristic implies that everyone across the networks can see them. In the same line, history can be tracked, transactions can be seen, and the block is identified. However, if one needs the actual data, they must have a private key to access the content. This request ensures that there is transparency for all online company operations. Specialists embrace blockchain storage because once the information is stored, it is impossible to compromise it (Xiao et al., 2018). In addition, the application of encryption technologies to our system is a very important task. The system implementation will ensure that all system users get a taste of how the system works. The encryption will ensure that all our users’ roles and requirements have changed, and thus, the implementation process will show how the system will be working.
The implementation process will teach all the users how to manage their keys and guide them to ensure their system remains safe. The enterprise system will have to be added encryption technology to ensure that all the security requirements have been met. The first thing will be to analyze the security requirements. Thus, the system’s analysis also showed that most users did not realize their current requirements and easily left their systems without any passwords, which was a great risk to the whole system. The first step of the application of encryption technologies will be to solve all of these issues. In addition, Encryption of a new system is usually a large project. The larger the system, the larger the encryption process, which means certain costs are associated with the process. An example of a cost usually included in this type of project is the cost of labor. Certain individuals will be involved in creating the project itself, which means they will need to be paid for their services. Cost may also include the buying of certain products that will be essential in the encryption process.
Thus, to begin an encryption project, the project’s cost should be one of the main priorities, which will ensure the project’s smooth running. Finally, according to Christidis (2020), blockchains use improved encryption algorithms to protect information making it confidential. Usually, this process applies to financial operations that do not bear any risks with them. Thus by using the blockchain structures, IoT devices can receive and pass information in a similar way; economic operation only allows secure communication between two sides.
Chapter Three
Procedures and Methodology
Introduction
Research Methodology is an expression, hypothetical, and well-informed method of producing data. It refers to the detailed study and critical analysis of techniques for generating and collecting data. The strategic plan of actions, design, or process informs an investigator’s choice of research methods. It is concerned with discussing how a specific research piece should be undertaken towards a given study (Grix, 2018). It provides thorough guidance to the researcher in deciding on the type of data required for a study and which data collection tools will be most convenient for their study. A methodological question that leads the researcher to ask how the topic of study should be handled. Furthermore, the problem of scalability and efficient anonymous data provenance using distributed ledger for the Internet of Things (IoT) has been explored. Mainly, scalability and efficient privacy-preserving data provenance for IoTs are the main requirements of our proposed scheme. A proposed solution is to be implemented in steps. Beginning with implementing and conceptualizing the efficient privacy of IoTs data using an anonymous credential-based light-weight signature scheme (Idemix) and providing scalability and data provenance for the IoTs Node’s data scalable and light-weight distributed ledger (IOTA).
Organizations need to keep their data safe by implementing reliable authentication and cryptographic digital critical vaulting systems. IoT generates big data. Maintaining data privacy for applications and devices, especially those that use the cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT), is an issue due to the high complexity of generated data. Conventional methods (TPA frameworks) cannot satisfy such demands (Srinidhi, Kumar & Venugopal, 2019). In this chapter, we will introduce the research methodology that will aid in this qualitative study. According to Grix ( 2018), the study examines blockchain technology’s efficacy on the data protection of cloud storage devices and blockchain networks. This approach aims to gain an in-depth understanding of cybersecurity solutions, the impact of cyber-attacks, and blockchain cloud computing. This study’s grounded theory approach is discussed in-depth in this chapter (Tharani et al., 2020).
The research method utilized works for Remote servers, and software is used to process cloud computed data. Both data owners and data consumers can access more detailed data and consistent assurance in the suggested blockchain framework without any third-party auditors that attackers use for malicious gains (Manjunath & Shah, 2019). In other words, the study seeks to resolve low security in cloud-based environments by applying protocols and a data integrity framework (Malomo & et al., 2020). RapidMiner is the program used for the collection, processing, and analysis of data. The cloud computing model and CIA triad model verify the data’s protection under several attacks. The CIA Triad model is associated with an approach that handles applying the three core principles: confidentiality, honesty, and availability.
The objectives that guided the concluding of the study fields;
· It was identifying the scope and implementation of blockchain technologies in the field of cloud computing. It covered how much the implementation would be applicable in IoT technology to achieve data integrity and privacy (McGuire, 2017).
· They were suppressing third-party users, applications, and software to achieve data security. It is carried out because third parties are viewed as a potential threat to data integrity. Their involvement raises more concerns in the verification process—these parties include third-party auditors (Leiby, Rennekamp & Trotman, 2021)
Grix (2018) also argues out that confidentiality, decentralization feature, and importance of implementing cloud computing in blockchain technologies is important in this methodology. A proper outline of the better feature drawn from it must be provided to encourage implementing a new data integrity service framework. Those who may choose to use it would consider all of its outlined benefits regarding eliminating the existing systems’ problems (Berdik et al., 2021).
· Analyze the modern approach to security challenges by preserving privacy, reliability, and authentication of public information. – the efficacy of a proposed solution has to be high and clearly outlining how its performance solves the problem in question (Wu, Guo, Wang & Zeng, 2019).
With the right research questions and objectives, the researcher concluded and achieved a purpose: to provide a blockchain-based IoT data integrity service to work alongside the cloud-based storage systems.
Research Paradigm (qualitative)
Critical or Ground Theory Paradigm
The critical theory originated from authors’ works from the twentieth century affiliated to the University of Frankfurt in the Institute of Social Research (Ryan, 2018). The standing position of critical theorists is based on historical realism. There is the assumption that reality exists, but it must have been shaped by aspects of life such as culture, ethnicity, politics, gender, and religion, which work together to form a social system. Critical theory is subjective in that it is assumed for an object to be researched in a more profound view. Then, it cannot happen without being affected by the researcher (Ryan, 2018). Moreover, to utilize the Critical theory paradigm, researchers tried to be self-conscious of their philosophical presuppositions. They communicated them clearly when they entered into the investigation and collected the required data. This helps eliminate confusion concerning epistemology and social aspects that may have been brought into the research site. (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2018).
Substantial knowledge endorsed by those who had already conducted research and did a detailed study in the topic of interest was viewed critically. The research findings did not eliminate crucial data or information. The rules that govern data security and integrity policies and the different bodies of interest that govern the rules were also considered because such crucial matters involving the proposal of adoption of new technology require governance and observance to set procedures. Following the words of a theorist named Kincheloe (2018), the question of concern for the researcher was, “How the researcher gets stuck with this entity in possession of knowledge and these lenses through which to see the world?”. According to Kincheloe (2018), theoretical and critical educational research aims to change a specific view of how things are done in a given sector and not merely explaining or understanding it (Patton, 2017). In critical research, qualitative data is generated. Critical research is seen as good quality if it considers the situation’s political, cultural, ethnic, and gender variations. It works well with our research questions that are multi-cultural, international, and cross-gender in nature
Research Design
The research was designed to take place in steps, from data collection to data analysis. Data collection is the most fundamental step when it comes to any research that has to be undertaken. Through the data collection, we understand all the variables available in the data in the case. The data is collected in various ways that are established and ensure that the researcher is well enriched with information about the topic in question. Data collected is then sorted and organized to match a given purpose as the intention of the researcher. According to Kincheloe (2018), Data analysis and vitalization have grown to be one of the greatly implemented parts of our society and our technology as it is essential in the current world data details. Data analysis is the process of arranging data and presenting the data in a better and understandable manner. Furthermore, Data visualization is the process of graphical presentation of data or information. The information can be presented using graphs, charts, or any other visual format in data visualization. We have great innovation in our world’s statistic part through data analysis and data visualization and growing our world prediction ideology.
Data visualization has taken businesses into another way of life, and through the help of data analysis, we have great performance in our industries. Through data scientists’ help, the companies have learned that with the help of data of the past, they can analyze the data and try to get simple patterns of the data and be in a position to predict the company’s future performance. They use a data mining method, thus obtaining all relevant and related data for a specific field process the data to be presentable through data visualization. Furthermore, data visualization also can help an organization to identify the market group of their product. This information will help them as they make their advertisements. Having all the information necessary for the market character, the organization will have a way to identify the best product to present to the market and the criteria to present the product. It will help avoid wasting resources trying to get something of less importance to the market and help the organization perfect in a single and more benefit to its returns.
Data analysis and data visualization will help improve an organization’s services as they already know their customer well, what they like, and all they prefer. It will make customers leave happily as the quality of service is customized to their preference. Knowing the customer’s preference and taste of the organization can improve the standard of their services. In addition, the use of Grounded theory design of handling the research was applied. It is a standard design methodology applied in qualitative research. It aims at discovering or constructing theory from a given set of data that has been systematically gathered and comparatively analyzed. It is not very easy, even though it is fundamentally flexible. Since this work aimed to advance and enhance knowledge in blockchain technology, facts were established to reach conclusions using systematic examination and organized methods. Nonetheless, research design is a strategic plan that the researcher used to answer the questions at hand that is supported by philosophical methodologies. The methodology used was the research design that shaped the selection and use of specific methods of acquiring and analyzing the data. The grounded theory appears to be structured but flexible for use (Deterding & Waters, 2018). An explanatory theory was constructed that uncovered a necessary process to the functional area of research through it. The theory generated was founded and based on the collected data.
Sampling Procedures
For the most part, substantiated theoretical studies are followed by theoretical Sampling, which requires data collection and analysis. Purposive Sampling must therefore begin, as in any other qualitative research. Participants in the required technological study provided our group or population of research. The sample included several computer technology practitioners, especially those that deal with cloud computing and IoT technology. They were randomly posted to either group of study as per their wish of contribution towards the study. In other words, the research team had an ethics committee that guided how the research was done. The committee’s responsibility is to ensure that all rules were adhered to by following the right procedures and doing it within the stipulated time. With their permission, the team; sent letters to the participants in different organizations and places of work, inviting them to participate in the continuous qualitative study. The researchers utilized qualitative data. From those who responded they were required to select an initial sample.
Both the purposive and convenience sampling strategies were used for participants; this was to enable their fitting into the study in a way that was more convenient for them. As explained in Derding and Waters. (2018) the two sampling strategies work well with the Critical or Ground Theory Paradigm
Purposive Sampling:
Also known as purposeful or selective Sampling, this sampling method is a participants’ sampling technique commonly used by qualitative researchers to recruit participants into a given study, who then provide in-depth or detailed information regarding the questions or topic under investigation. This technique is highly independent and subjective. The qualitative researcher is also highly determined who generates the qualifying standards that each participant must meet to be involved in the research work. For example, to demonstrate how a criterion can be developed a case of a student seeking to look at current medics’ perceptions of governance styles within specific hospital settings, this single description of a sentence alone can already be used to generate two selection criteria which are: (a) Should be an active medical practitioner and (b) must be working at a specific hospital setting. Additional criteria, including several years in the field or level of medical education, will ensure participants have a similar or almost the same foundation or level of knowledge necessary for a study.
Then, the participation in which the closest to dramatic outcomes were expected was also used in the study. This purposive sampling strategy was used to give the researcher the best possible contact to sufficiently implement data integrity service protocols and frameworks. All of the consenting practitioners and critical players in the IT field contributed to achieving definitive research work. The purposive sample was designed to provide maximum variation in practitioners’ adoption of supportive data integrity services blockchain-based.
Convenience Sampling technique: This is a technique used by qualitative researchers to recruit easily accessible and convenient participants to provide the researcher’s information. It includes utilizing geographic locations and resources that made participants’ involvement convenient. An example followed to guide this technique was that of a teacher who wanted to scrutinize teachers’ reactions following a policy change. Therefore, he decided to utilize a school within the region he worked in to recruit participants. The participants who worked in cloud-based organizations around the researchers’ convenience were also considered for contributing ideas and thoughts towards the case of study. It was vital as it minimized the need for constant travel to and from the place of research.
Data Collection Sources
For this research towards this study, in-depth surveys and publications were used. Surveys are data collection methods that used predefined groups of information providers to give substantial views and contributions to our interest topic. Publications that included journals, books, and online articles were also crucial in covering previous works of other researchers whose interest in the study was in line with ours. According to Kincheloe (2018), the main advantage of surveys is that they involved personal and direct contact between the researchers and the targeted respondents, as well as playing a role in eliminating low or no response rates; the need was to have developed the necessary skills to successfully carry out such a survey (Fisher, 2018, Wilson, 2018). Furthermore, the methods used to collect the data offered flexibility in terms of the responses’ flow, thereby creating room for generating reasonable conclusions that were not initially meant to be regarding our research subject but turned out essential for us. As far as data collection tools were concerned, the research conduction involved questionnaires and RapidMiner, a program used for data collection and analysis, especially qualitative research. Many articles, including journals, books, physical and eBooks, were used to collect valid data for the study.
Data collection was crucial for all introduced technologies, such as blockchain networks and Data Integrity Services and their frameworks. Specific questions were prepared to enable the researcher to guide the data collection process towards the achievement of our research objectives; guiding questions of interest that were included in the research work were the following:
· RQ1: How can blockchain be implemented to achieve Data integrity for provenance and scalability purposes?
· To what extent can blockchain technology be implemented in cloud computing?
· What is the potency of blockchain technology on the Internet of Things cloud data privacy and network safety?
· Which solutions provide and maintain data privacy for applications and devices that use cloud-based IoT services?
· What is the importance of maintaining secure data integrity, confidentiality, and availability in the cloud of things?
· What are the critical aspects of security for preserving public information?
The objectives were:
· To identify the scope and implementation of blockchain technologies in the field of cloud computing. It covered up to what extent the implementation would be applicable in IoT technology to achieve data integrity and privacy.
· Suppressing third-party users, applications, and software to achieve data security. Since third parties are viewed as a potential threat to data integrity, their involvement in the verification process raises more concern. These parties include Third-Party auditors.
· Recognizing the confidentiality, decentralization feature, and the importance of the cloud computing implementation in blockchain technologies. A proper outline of the better feature drawn from it must be provided to encourage implementing a new data integrity service framework. Those who may choose to use it would consider all of its outlined benefits regarding eliminating the existing systems’ problems.
· Analyze the modern approach to security challenges by preserving privacy, reliability, and authentication of public information. – the efficacy of a proposed solution has to be high and clearly outlining how its performance solves the problem in question.
Statistical Test
Statistical analysis will be used to analyze the survey data using the chi-square goodness of fit test. The survey will involve various respondents reviewing how they perceive blockchain technology implementation to facilitate data integrity. The survey will be evaluating various methods on how blockchain can be implemented to facilitate cybersecurity, specifically cloud storage environments and IoT data. The survey will also evaluate people’s perceptions of the implementation to gauge their reaction to these methods. The survey will be based on the project’s objectives. The analysis comprises evaluating the relationship between blockchain implementation and its impact on the promotion of security on cloud computing and IoT data Chi-Square test method to analyze the data (David Jim, 2018). Through the use of the Chi-square test is categorized into two, including the chi-square goodness of fit test and the chi-square test for independence. Chi-square is usually used to determine if the data sample matches a specific population’s distribution. Therefore, it informs if the collected data represents the data that would be expected from an actual population. It measures how a model compares to actual observed data (Adam, 2020). The data must be raw, as random as possible, drawn from independent variables, and mutually exclusive to use the chi-square calculation. Chi-square is very significant in the testing of hypothesis, and therefore it was utilized for this project. The goodness of fit test tries to answer the question “How” (Stephanie, 2014). Goodness-of-fit provides a way of testing how well a sample data fit the larger population of which the sample is intended to represent.
Moreover, The Chi-Square test is a data analysis method used to test the relationship between categorical data. According to Kincheloe (2018), the comparison of the size of any differences between the expected and the actual results, considering the sample size and the number of variables. The Chi-square method utilizes two categorized data sets: the numbered data (n) and Percentage data (%). The uses these variables, i.e., number and percentage of the number of participants advocating for blockchain advantage in promoting cybersecurity in various levels of implementations. Chi-square will be calculated to determine if there is a significant difference between those who see the benefits of blockchain technologies in promoting security in either cloud computing or IoT data (Stephanie, 2014). Furthermore, The Chi-Square Goodness-of-fit test will aim at achieving the project objectives by evaluating answers provided from survey questions. The survey question to provide the project’s appropriate data were based on the objectives (Stephanie, 2014). The survey should be simple enough so that it can be easily understood.
· The first objective is to identify the scope and implementation of blockchain technologies in cloud computing and IoT. It can be achieved by asking how blockchain implementation is applicable in promoting data integrity and privacy? How does the participant feel about blockchain implementation to facilitate cybersecurity? How can blockchain be implemented to enhance cybersecurity?
· The second objective is third-party users, software, and applications being major entry points for cyber threats. Survey questions will be modeled such that; do the participant agrees with this? Is the involvement of third parties concern with cybersecurity?
· Data on how blockchain implementation on IoT impacts security can be obtained through questions such as the potency of blockchain technology on the Internet of Things cloud data privacy and network safety? Is blockchain technology effective in promoting IoT and network security.
· Other questions may include; which solutions provide security for devices and applications that are cloud-based? What solutions can maintain data privacy in these devices? What is the importance of maintaining secure data integrity, confidentiality, and availability in the cloud of things? What are the critical aspects of security for preserving public information?
For those questions that are broad, multiple choices will be offered. Content analysis will be used to facilitate data analysis for the data obtained in the form of explanation. The data will be sorted to allow easier application of the Chi-Square Goodness-of-fit test.
Integrating of blockchains and the internet of things
Feasibility study
There is currently implementation of Blockchain initiatives as a Service by different corporations to determine the viability of incorporating blockchain into the cloud. Launching Baas platforms on the cloud-based Internet of things has made big companies like Amazon, Oracle, and Microsoft have responded to the same. IoT business models based on the BaaS platform are built by the amazon cloud provider and named AWS Blockchain. This AWS Blockchain has been used in building the IoT health care system in the year 2019 (D.C. Nguyen, 2019). The project has helped to incorporate health data exchange on mobile clouds with a high degree of safekeeping of the data with the Etherium blockchain platform that has been hosted on the Amazon cloud. Oracle cloud has also demonstrated many projects in various sectors like banking, the payment industry, and the health sector.
Architectural integration of blockchain and cloud computing
The fog-node blockchain network topology includes distributed side blockchains and a multi-blockchain that could speed up access control while also providing flexible storage for scalable IoT networks. The trust between cloud users and cloud providers is ensured in the blockchain is combined with virtual clouds to support identity checks. On the other hand, data management is frequently important in interconnected devices where IoT is massive, necessitating careful data privacy management. Most Blockchain of Things (BCoT) systems are built on a single cloud and are suitable for certain applications.
According to Kincheloe (2018),
Inter-cloud BCOT integration, on the other hand, would be more efficient and convenient with complex IoT systems that require massive network resources to serve multiple IoT users (Y. Li, L. Zhu, 2017). As a result, multi-cloud models have been added to BCoT architectures for complex collaborative scenarios (P. Zheng,2019).
As shown below, a BCoT computational architecture consists of three major layers: the IoT layer, the cloud blockchain layer, and the application layer.
Figure-01 depicts the conceptual Blockchain Cloud architecture, which comprises three major layers: the IoT Layer, the Cloud Blockchain Layer, and the Application Layer. The following are the specifics of each layer and the overall concept:
IoT layer
As a base station, a router, or a wireless connection, IoT systems are responsible for storing and wirelessly transmitting data from local environments to neighboring gates. An IoT device includes a blockchain account (similar to a Bitcoin wallet) that connects to the blockchain network and performs transactions and interactions with cloud services. In particular, any IoT device with limited resources (for example, a wearable sensor) can act as a lightweight node, participating in the validation process via its representative gateway. In blockchain-based sensor network scenarios such as intelligent homes, small sensors can be connected via its gateway (for instance, a smartphone or a fog node). The gateway handles all the interactions using Blockchain sensors, such as transaction formation, data downloading, and even mining tasks (S. Ali, 2018). Meanwhile, they have enough capacity to support other lightweight IoT sensors while also maintaining a complete blockchain for IoT devices with relatively large resources, such as computers and powerful smartphones
. IoT devices’ interaction is also possible through IoT gateways (Device-to-Device communication in collaborative networks) to ensure marketing communications, which are highly versatile and efficient for IoT users.
The cloud blockchain layer
It plays a central role in the BCoT architecture between industrial applications and IoT networks, and it reflects the technological aspects of a single-cloud BCoT architecture. It has two qualities:
(i) Use blockchain to ensure highly secure network administration.
(ii) Providing on-demand and powerful processing services to large-scale IoT applications. The cloud blockchain level defines both blockchain and cloud computing services.
Application layer
IoT devices’ interaction is also possible through IoT gateways (Device-to-Device communication in collaborative networks) to ensure marketing communications, which are highly versatile and efficient for IoT users. The gateway handles all the interactions using blockchain sensors, such as transaction formation, data downloading, and even mining tasks (S. Ali, 2018). Meanwhile, they have enough capacity to support other lightweight IoT sensors while also maintaining a complete blockchain for IoT devices with relatively large resources, such as computers and powerful smartphones.
Application of BCoT
BCoT integration leads to the appearance of a new set of smart services and applications that offer benefits to human life. Some of the uses are illustrated in the diagram below.
1. Smart healthcare- it is an industrial sector where industries and medical institutions provide healthcare services, medical insurances in facilitating the good health and recovery of their patients. Smart wearable devices, cloud blockchain networks, and medical users encompass the BCoT architectural design. E-health data collected from Internet – of – things wearable sensors is sent to the cloud and secured adequately in decentralized cloud storage facilitated by blockchain.
1. Smart city- With new advancements in cloud computing and IoT technology, smart cities have brought about a paradigm shift for automatically exploiting city resources from connected objects and supplying a broad array of services to residents. By combining cloud computing and blockchain’s appealing technical features, BCoT could be a promising candidate for empowering smart city services. Several recently suggested solutions advocate for using BCoT architectures to enable interconnectivity between citizens and industrial applications for smart cities. (Raza, 2021)
Smart urban intelligence services
A smart city is defined as the intelligent compilation and acquisition of all sets of information produced by residents, computing servers, system management, and widely distributed devices in an integrated smart city network.
1. Smart homes- Home automation shapes an intelligent home, which is the primary feature of a smart city. A home automation network of IoT devices is outfitted with automated devices, intelligent sensors, and detection systems that collect environmental data and send it to a control server, as with a laptop or a cloud platform. Despite numerous positive advantages to residents, smart homes tend to encounter unresolved problems regarding safety, vulnerabilities, attacks, and data protection. BCoT, driven by blockchain and has distributed, secure, and private properties, will be a promising solution to these security problems.
Summary
In conclusion, there was a need to evaluate provided information and data, which is a trend that is increasingly turning permanent in modern society. Thereby more and more qualitative data resources like survey responses were utilized. Therefore, a detailed approach was needed, which consistently transformed contents into a qualitative nature that enabled the appliance of modern statistical and mathematical methodologies to acquire reliable interpretations and insights that were used for sound decisions. This paper provided an in-depth and higher review of integrating two disruptive technologies: blockchain and Cloud of Things. We refer to this synthesis as BCoT because it is becoming more important in industrial applications because of its high security, confidentiality, support services, and performance improvement. Furthermore, with regards to Data visualization, we agree that it can help an organization to identify the market group of their product. It will help the organization target the group and not be resources targeting the non-issue group (S & Sathayanarayana, 2018).
In addition, this information will help them as they make their advertisements. Having all the information necessary for the market character, the organization will have a way to identify the best product to present to the market and the criteria to present the product. It will help avoid wasting resources trying to get something of less importance to the market and help the organization perfect in a single and more benefit to its returns. Thus, Data analysis and data visualization will help improve an organization’s services as they already know their customer well, what they like, and all they prefer. It will make customers leave happily as the quality of service is customized to their preference. Knowing the customer’s preference and taste of the organization can improve the standard of their services. Tufte’s article tries to examine the roles of Morton engineers in the decision to launch the Challenger. The unexpected results are caused by the lack of data and failure to calculate and analyze the data correctly. The engineers had requested all necessary data in the entire database that might be important in the process, but they were never given the data. Failure to analyze the data and delay to seek the cause of the situation was to cause a catastrophic result to the launch (Mahler & Casamayou, 2009).
The author of the article concludes by saying that the engineer did all they were expected to do, just that they lack the necessity to their work that the results were not pleasing. This article shows how important data is in our day-to-day living and how it can perfect our performance.
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