Short Course: Blockchain for Cyberphysical Systems

Tentative Schedule

Blockchain for Cyberphysical Systems

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) encompass a broad range of devices capable of sensing the environment and communicating with other users or devices. Heterogeneity of the devices, low resource availability, no or limited built-in security safeguards, centralized communication infrastructure, and large volumes of personalized data collected by the devices emphasise the trust, security and privacy challenges in CPS. In recent years, blockchain has attracted tremendous attention to address the outlined challenges due to its salient features including decentralization, anonymity, security, trust, and auditability. This talk will discuss our work on blockchain for CPS. I will first discuss the challenges in existing CPS architectures, ranging from scalability, trust, privacy, and data integrity. This talk will explore the role of blockchain in addressing these challenges, along with blockchain design considerations that are pertinent for its application in CPS.

Salil Kanhere received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA. He is a Professor in the School of Computer Science and Engineering at UNSW Sydney, Australia. His research interests include the Internet of Things, cyber-physical systems, blockchain, pervasive computing, cybersecurity, and applied machine learning. Salil is also affiliated with CISRO’s Data61 and the Cybersecurity Cooperative Research Centre. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and ACM, an ACM Distinguished Speaker and an IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Visitor. He has received the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award (2020) and the Humboldt Research Fellowship (2014), both from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany. He has held visiting positions at I2R Singapore, Technical University Darmstadt, University of Zurich and Graz University of Technology. He serves as the Editor in Chief of the Ad Hoc Networks Journal and as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions On Network and Service Management, Computer Communications, and Pervasive and Mobile Computing. He has been involved in the organization of many IEEE/ACM international conferences. He co-authored a book titled Blockchain for Cyberphysical Systems which was published by Artech House in 2020.

Access Control for the Internet of Things and Blockchain: Challenges and Opportunities

This talk is aimed to report on the design and development of emerging access control technologies for smart IoT applications and their convergence in blockchain. This further calls for better designing the IoT infrastructures, optimizing human engagement, and advocating intelligent access control solutions in the broad context of IoT to create a fertile ground for research and innovation. This talk will explore various challenges and opportunities of IoT access control mechanisms using blockchain technology.

Dr. Shantanu Pal is a Research Fellow at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia. He is also an associate researcher working with CSIRO’s Data61, Brisbane, Australia. Shantanu holds a PhD degree in Computer Science from Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Shantanu’s research interests are the Internet of Things (IoT), access control, blockchain, big data and distributed applications for cyber-physical systems, mobile and cloud computing, security policy design, machine learning and artificial intelegence, etc. Shantanu published numerous articles in several premium conferences and prestigious journals, including IEEE LCN, IEEE WoWMoM, IEEE GlobeCom, IEEE IoT Journal, IEEE TII Journal, Elsevier JNCA, FGCS, Computer networks, etc. Shantanu is the sole author of the book ‘Internet of Things and Access Control’ published by Springer Nature in 2021. This book made it to BookAuthority's best new Internet of Things ebooks in 2021. As featured on CNN, Forbes, and Inc - BookAuthority identifies and rates the best books in the world based on recommendations by thought leaders and experts.

Improving Data trust and Block Validation in Blockchain for Cyber-physical Systems

Blockchain improves the integrity of data stored on the ledger. However, blockchain cannot guarantee the trustworthiness of CPS data at the origin. The first part of the module will present a data trust mechanism to address this  “garbage in, garbage out” problem for blockchain-based CPS applications. In the second part of the module, we will focus on improving block validation for CPS applications and present a light-weight block validation mechanism based on the reputation of validator nodes.

Dr. Volkan Dedeoglu is a Research Scientist in the Distributed Sensing Systems Group of CSIRO’s Data61. His current research focuses on data trust and blockchain-based IoT security and privacy. He received his PhD in Telecommunications Engineering from the University of South Australia (2013). He obtained MSc in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Koc University (2008), BSc in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Bogazici University (2006), and B.A. in Public Administration from Anadolu University (2008). Before joining to CSIRO, he worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at Texas A&M University on physical layer security for communications. He also holds a Conjoint Lecturer position at UNSW Sydney and an Adjunct Lecturer position at QUT.

Blockchain for Trust and Reputation Management in Cyber-physical Systems

The salient features of blockchain have allowed the development of Decentralised Trust and Reputation Management Systems (DTRMS), which essentially aim to quantitatively evaluate the trustworthiness of network participants and help protect the network from adversaries. In this course, we outline the building blocks of a generic DTRMS and discuss how it can benefit from blockchain. This course also explores how DTRMS is implemented for enhancing security in various Cyber-physical Systems (CPS) applications, including smart city (access control), Collaborative Intrusion Detection Systems and supply chains.

Guntur Dharma Putra received his bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering from Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia, in 2014. He received his master's degree in Computing Science from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, in 2017. He is currently a final year Ph.D. candidate at the School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney, Australia. His research interest covers blockchain applications for securing IoT. Guntur is a student member of the IEEE.

A Decentralized IoT Data Marketplace using Blockchain Technology

The unprecedented rate of IoT adoption presents an opportunity for device owners to trade their IoT data to data buyers. The emerging concept of a blockchain-enabled data marketplace democratizes the trading of private IoT data by empowering data owners to decide who can access their data and for what purpose. However, some properties of IoT make it difficult to trade the generated data in traditional markets. This module focuses on how blockchain can be used to address design challenges in the IoT data marketplace, such as scalability around managing offers/queries listing due to a large number of devices, limited demands that can be served in real-time due to the resource-constrained nature of IoT devices, intangible nature of data that may lead to data-reselling causing monetary loss and privacy-risk concerns due to sensitive information contained in IoT data.

Pooja Gupta is a final year Ph.D. student at the School of Computer Science and Engineering, UNSW, Australia. Her research work focuses on blockchain-enabled IoT data marketplaces. Before commencing her Ph.D., Pooja worked as a Software Engineer at Cisco Systems Pvt Ltd, India. She received her MTech degree in Telecommunication management and network from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (2013). Her BTech is in Electronics and communication engineering from Indian Institute of Information Technology, Jabalpur (2010).

Domestication of Electrical Energy Markets through Blockchain Technology

Energy provision has historically been developed based on one-way, Centralised Energy Trading (CET) systems, leading to a passive role for most energy end-users. The emergence of prosumers (end-users capable of producing and consuming energy locally) is promising to transition the one-way CET systems into two-way, decentralised energy trading (DET) systems. However, DET systems increases cost in two-way grid infrastructure management and require trust in distributed energy resource sharing. Therefore, enabling technologies such as blockchain can help build trust, efficiency, and security in DET systems at a low cost.

Samuel Karumba is a Ph.D. student at UNSW and a postgraduate research student at CSIRO, Australia. He received his MSc. in Computer Science from Strathmore University, in Kenya. Prior to commencing his Ph.D., Samuel worked as a Research Software Engineer at IBM Research, researching and developing blockchain-based industrial solutions for healthcare, financial inclusion and supply chains. His research interests are Blockchain technologies, Distributed Systems and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Blockchain for Supply Chain Traceability

Supply chain involves multiple stakeholders who are involved in competitive/cooperative relationships, and need a common, transparent, and decentralized repository for reliably managing supply chain data. Blockchain can add value to existing supply chains by providing traceability, provenance, and data immutability. However, the physical nature of supply chains draws many challenges for the direct utilization of blockchain. This talk will focus on the fundamental challenges and solutions involved in utilizing blockchain for providing transparency, trust, and privacy in supply chains.  The second part of the talk will highlight the challenges and future research opportunities.

Sidra Malik is an Industrial Fellow jointly with Beston Global Food Company, and University of Technology Sydney, Australia. She has received her PhD in Computer Science in 2021 supported by the School of Computer Science and Engineering, UNSW Sydney and CSIRO Data61. Her research work focuses on providing solutions for traceability, trust and privacy in supply chains. She has also worked at the Trusted Networks Lab, Queensland University of Technology and was involved in final year project supervision at UNSW Sydney. Before commencing her Ph.D., Sidra worked as a Lecturer at COMSATS University, and Software Quality Assurance Engineer at Techlogix, Pakistan. She received her MS degree in Computer and Communication Security from the National University of Science and Technology, Pakistan and her BS is in Computer and Information Sciences from Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Blockchain for Smart Cities: Challenges and Opportunities

Smart cities use information and communication technologies to offer efficient management of services, resources and infrastructure to improve the quality of life for their citizens while addressing environmental and urban challenges and promoting economic growth. The smart city concept relies on digital connectivity and a growing number of networked smart devices and sensors deployed in cities and urban environments, enabling real-time data collection and analytics for data-driven decision making in various smart city applications. In this course, we explore how blockchain technology can address some of the application-specific challenges in smart cities and identify open issues for adopting blockchain in smart city applications.

Dr Regio Michelin is a blockchain engineer. He received  M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), Brazil. His research interests include Blockchain, the Internet of Things, and Cybersecurity. He has worked as a Senior Researcher at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney in the Cybersecurity Cooperative Research Centre (CSCRC). Additionally, he has worked in companies such as ConsenSys, Hewlett-Packard and Dell Inc. He also holds a Visiting Fellow position at UNSW Sydney.

Blockchain for Identity Management

Centralised systems such as email, Facebook, hospital systems, or a bank account requires the provision of various identifiers to identify the users (e.g., self-generated ID-passwords, government-issued identity, or user biometric). However, identifier-based systems are challenging to manage (e.g., memorising the passwords) and sometimes emerge as a privacy threat to the users (e.g., lost or stolen identity cards). In this module, you will learn about the privacy issues with identifier-based systems and explain how a blockchain-based decentralised Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) system can solve many of these issues.

Rahma Mukta is a final year Ph.D. student at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia. Her research interest includes blockchain applications, decentralised identity management, verifiable credentials, and privacy challenges in e-health.