Email security remains crucial in todays digital information exchange, with Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), which is one of the widely used encryption techniques for email. However, PGPs key distribution vulnerabilities persist as a significant challenge. We previously integrated blockchain technology with Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) and zero-knowledge proofs (zk-SNARKs) to enhance PGP key distribution. This approach utilized blockchains immutability for secure key sharing and zk-SNARKs for efficient verification without exposing sensitive data. While our initial implementation improved key distribution security, it utilized a fixed ECC key length, which did not address the diverse security needs of users across various contexts. Email communications range from simple personal messages to highly sensitive corporate or government correspondence, each requiring different levels of encryption strength. Additionally, users operate on devices with varying computational capabilities, from smartphones to high-performance workstations. This paper introduces a flexible key length mechanism to our blockchain-based PGP key distribution system. We implement support for multiple ECC key lengths (ECC-256, ECC-384, and ECC-521), allowing users to dynamically adjust encryption strength based on message sensitivity, recipient requirements, and device capabilities. We evaluate this approach by analyzing blockchain performance metrics, including gas consumption, transaction costs, and memory requirements, through case studies of three different scenarios: casual personal email, professional communication, and highly confidential government communication.
The development of fully autonomous, software-defined vehicles has recently become a hot topic. This advancement paves the way for service-oriented and software-centric approaches to in-vehicle computation. However, it also increases the hardware requirement for the ever-growing software demands. As more hardware components are added to the computing system, resource management and security for mixed-criticality operating environments become increasingly challenging, and virtualization has emerged as a promising technology for managing and isolating heterogeneous computing resources in vehicles. However, a major drawback of virtualization is performance degradation and how application processes communicate efficiently with low latencies via a portable application programming interface (API) in a virtualized environment remains a challenge. In this work, we propose a framework, Zenoh Virtualization Link, or ZVLink, that integrates efficient virtualization with a lightweight open-source pub/sub API, Zenoh, to achieve efficient and real-time interprocess communications across colocated virtual machines (VMs). Experimental results demonstrate that an unoptimized Zenoh delivers messages across VMs at 15 MB/s, which is 82
This paper addresses the security challenges in Federated Learning (FL) by proposing FLARE (Federated Learning with Autonomous Robust Enhancements), a blockchain-based solution. While FL enables collaborative model training without sharing raw data, existing systems often rely on a centralized server for aggregation, creating vulnerabilities and a single point of failure. FLARE integrates blockchain to decentralize trust, ensuring that model updates are securely validated, recorded, and tamper-resistant. By leveraging a hierarchical network structure, FLARE enhances scalability, robustness, and client security. The proposed method mitigates risks like model poisoning and malicious clients in real-world federated learning systems.
With the increasing popularity of high-bandwidth applications, the need for applications capable of multi-path aggregation transmission has risen. These applications enhance bandwidth utilization and network redundancy, simultaneously optimizing network performance by employing multiple network paths. However, deploying such technology involves complex processes and necessitates advanced equipment. We propose a solution that leverages an open-source routing platform combined with multi-path aggregation transmission, aiming to enhance network performance through software upgrades rather than hardware replacement. The system comprises a proxy router and an aggregation server, which facilitate the conversion of traditional TCP traffic into multi-path aggregation transmission traffic. Experiments demonstrate that the system substantially improves transmission efficiency and network reliability for users possessing single network interfaces that lack native support for the protocol, thereby broadening the potential applications of multi-path aggregation transmission.
Proxy re-encryption (PRE) enables a semi-trusted entity, known as a proxy, to convert a ciphertext under one public key into a ciphertext under another public key without learning the underlying plaintext. This functionality has numerous applications, including e-mail forwarding and encrypted file systems. Most existing post-quantum PRE schemes are based on lattice assumptions. In this paper, we propose a novel post-quantum PRE scheme based on isogenies. Our scheme is multi-hop bidirectional PRE and provides security against chosen plaintext attacks. We construct the PRE using a natural public key encryption (PKE) derived from CSIDH group actions.
