1. Home
  2. Workshops
  3. BLESS Workshop

BLESS Workshop

The 1st International Workshop on BLockchain Enabled Sustainable Smart Cities (BLESS 2018)

Kansas City, MO, USA, Sept. 19, 2018

In Conjunction with the 4th IEEE Annual International Smart Cities Conference (ISC2 2018)

 

Prof. Bhaskar Krishnamachari from University of Southern California (USC) will give a plenary keynote talk on  “Decentralized Data Markets for Smart Cities”.

 

[collapse title=”Technical Program (11:15 am – 5:30 pm)” active=”true”]

Session #1 (11:15am – 12:15pm) “

Session Chair: Nathan Whittaker (Vizsafe, Inc, USA)

  • Towards a Decentralized Data Marketplace for Smart Cities
    Gowri Ramachandran, Rahul Radhakrishnan and Bhaskar Krishnamachari (University of Southern California, USA)
  • Blockchain-inspired Framework for Runtime Verification of IoT Ecosystem Task Fulfillment
    Tieming Geng and Chin-Tser Huang (University of South Carolina, USA)
  • Efficient and Secure Communications in Smart Cities using Edge, Caching, and Blockchain
    Khashayar Kotobi (The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, USA); Mina Sartipi (University of TN at Chattanooga, USA)

 

Lunch: 12:15 pm – 1:30 pm

 

Session #2 (1:30pm – 3:30pm) 

Session Chair: John Lindsay (Coaster – Smooth Driver Monitoring, USA)

  • Vizsafe: The Decentralized Crowdsourcing Safety Network
    Peter Mottur (Vizsafe, Inc., USA); Nathan Whittaker (Vizsafe, Inc, USA)
  • Towards Secure and Smart Healthcare in Smart Cities Using Blockchain
    Jinglin Qiu, Xueping Liang and Sachin Shetty (Old Dominion University, USA); Daniel Bowden (Sentara Healthcare, USA)
  • Attack Surface Analysis of Permissioned Blockchain Platforms for Smart Cities
    Amanda Davenport (University of Minnesota, USA); Sachin Shetty and Xueping Liang (Old Dominion University, USA)
  • Exploring the Attack Surfaces in Blockchain Enabled Smart Cities
    Xueping Liang and Sachin Shetty (Old Dominion University, USA); Deepak K Tosh (University of Texas, El Paso, USA)
  • A Microservice-enabled Architecture for Smart Surveillance using Blockchain Technology
    Deeraj Nagothu, Ronghua Xu, Seyed Nikouei and Yu Chen (Binghamton University, USA)

 

Coffee Break: 3:30 pm – 4:00 pm

 

Session #3 (4:00pm – 5:30pm) 

Session Chair: Xueping Liang (Old Dominion University, USA)

  • Real-Time Index Authentication for Event-Oriented Surveillance Video Query using Blockchain
    Seyed Nikouei, Ronghua Xu, Deeraj Nagothu and Yu Chen (Binghamton University, USA); Alexander Aved (University of Central Florida, USA); Erik Blasch (Air Force Research Lab, USA)
  • Smart Contracts for Incentivizing Sensor Based Mobile Smart City Applications
    John Lindsay (Coaster – Smooth Driver Monitoring, USA)
  • Blockchain Based Election Infrastructures
    Rafer Cooley, Shaya Wolf and Mike Borowczak (University of Wyoming, USA)

 

Note: each paper has 15 minutes for presentation + 5 minutes Q & A

[/collapse]
[collapse title=”Call for Papers (Passed)” active=”false”]

Enabled by the proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT), edge-fog-cloud computing, and interconnected networks, smart cities are capable of innovative solutions to change the lifestyles of its residents. Unavoidably the potential benefits come along with new challenges and concerns related to information security and privacy. Blockchain technology has been attracting considerable attention beyond the initial applications in e-currency or smart contracts. Researchers and developers from both academia and industry have recognized the potential of blockchain technology as a trusted platform for the information and communication infrastructure of smart cities.

BLESS’2018 will bring researchers and experts together to present and discuss the latest developments and technical solutions concerning various aspects of blockchain technology in the context of smart cities. BLESS’2018 seeks original unpublished papers focusing on theoretical analysis, emerging applications, novel system architecture construction and design, experimental studies, and social impacts of blockchain. Both review/survey papers and technical papers are encouraged. BLESS’2018 also welcomes short papers that summarize speculative breakthroughs, work-in-progress, industry featured projects, open problems, new application challenges, visionary ideas, and preliminary studies.

 

The topics include but are not limited to: 

  • Attacks on blockchain based systems
  • Blockchain based cyber physical systems for smart cities
  • Blockchain based decentralized service model
  • Blockchain based information hiding/encryption in smart cities
  • Blockchain based infrastructure security
  • Blockchain based lightweight algorithms and protocols for IoT
  • Blockchain based security and privacy solutions for smart cities
  • Blockchain enabled novel applications and services in smart cities
  • Blockchain in edge-fog-cloud computing
  • Fault tolerant blockchain based systems
  • Forensics in blockchain based systems
  • Performance optimization of blockchain based decentralized systems
  • Robust blockchain network architecture
  • Smart contract and distributed ledger for smart cities
  • Security, privacy and trust of blockchain based decentralized systems
  • Theories and directions of blockchain evolution
  • Blockchain in critical infrastructure resilience (power grid, oil and gas, etc)
  • Blockchain for supply chain protection
  • Blockchain for cyber threat management
  • Blockchain for networked identity management
  • Anonymity in permissioned blockchain platforms
  • Scalability of Blockchain
  • Security and privacy issues in distributed consensus protocols
  • Distributed Consensus Protocols and Algorithms
  • Blockchain Network Security Architectures and Protocols
  • Permissioned vs Permissionless Blockchain Platforms for Distributed Systems Security
[/collapse]

[collapse title=”Submission Guidelines” active=”false”]

Original papers from the above mentioned and related topics will be considered. Please submit regular full papers (8 pages) and short papers (4 pages) including all figures, tables, and references. Authors are requested to follow the standard IEEE double column format with Font 10 (http://www.ieee.org/portal/cms_docs/pubs/confpubcenter/pdfs/samplems.pdf). Papers should be submitted electronically in pdf format through the EDAS website (http://edas.info/N25100) together with a short abstract (approximately 150 words). Submitted papers must not have appeared in or be under review/consideration for another workshop, conference or a journal during the review process. Each submission will be reviewed by at least three reviewers.
[/collapse] [collapse title=”Important Dates” active=”true”]

Conference dates:           Sept 19, 2018

Camera-ready due:         Aug 15, 2018

Notification date:            Aug 01, 2018

Submission deadline:      July 15, 2018

[/collapse] [collapse title=”Workshop Co-Chairs” active=”true”]

Dr. Yu Chen, Binghamton University, SUNY, USA

Email: ychen@binghamton.edu

Dr. Sachin Shetty, Old Dominion University, USA

Email: sshetty@odu.edu

[/collapse] [collapse title=” Technical Program Committee ” active=”true”]
  • Norman Ahmed, Air Force Research Lab (AFRL), USA
  • Yue Cao, Northumbria University, UK
  • Audrey Decker, Air Force Research Lab (AFRL), USA
  • Ali Dorri, The University of New South Wales, Australia
  • Andrew Gorczyca, Air Force Research Lab (AFRL), USA
  • Chin-Tser Huang, University of South Carolina, USA
  • Charles Kamhoua, US Army Research Laboratory, USA
  • Salil Kanhere, The University of New South Wales, Australia
  • Adriaan Larmuseau, United Technologies Research Center, USA
  • Guoqi Li, Beihang University, P. R. China
  • Xueping Liang, Tennessee State University, USA
  • Laurent Njilla, Air Force Research Lab (AFRL), USA
  • Mehrdad Nojoumian, Florida Atlantic University, USA
  • Danda Rawat, Howard University, USA
  • Yuzhe Tang, Syracuse University, USA
  • Deepak Tosh, University of Texas, El Paso, USA

[/collapse]