Blockchain based Asset Registration & Management System

1,2,3,4

Blockchain based Asset Registration & Management System

of Computer Engineering

Abstract Sincethebeginning ofBitcoininJanuary2009by SatoshiNakamoto,thethoughtofcreatingproducts&solving existing real life problems in all facets of life with non centralizedtechnologyi.eThishascreatedalargenumber of possible use case possibilities. A huge amount of potential applications rightfromeducationtohealthcaretodefense havebeentheorizedandmanyhavebeenimplemented.With the emergence of the feature packed, extraordinary BlockchainslikeEthereum &frameworkslikeHyperledger Fabric,theprocessofdevelopingBlockchain basedsoftware and products has been expedited & simplified. This paper statesaboutthevarious applicationsofBlockchain ‘Asset Registration&Management’anddiscussesvariousconcepts, fundamentals&ideasattributedtothesame.

Keywords Hyperledger fabric, Smart contracts, Blockchain,Assets.

I. INTRODUCTION

Generally, in centralized systems data is stored sequestered,inoneplace,whichmakesitvulnerableto attacks and also hampers availability in case of system failures. Although contemporary data storage solutions offerwaysandworkaroundsfortheseproblems,issues like data leaks, tampering of data, introduction of fraudulent data by malicious actors are common. With globaldigitization,innovationsintechnologyandincrease in the instances of cyber attacks, the trust factor of centralizedsystemshastakenahit.

Insuchsituations,thefeaturesofBlockchainTechnology can be leveraged to create safe systems which become saferthemorepopulatedtheyget anexampleofsuch implementationsbeingBitcoin.However,ifwetalkabout storingassetsonBlockchain,weneedsomecontrolover who can upload assets, who can download assets and somethingthatdictateswhatthe entire processshould be.ThisisausecaseofSmartContractsandpermissioned Blockchains like Hyperledger Fabric. Through this project,weattempttocreateasystemwhereaspecific setofpeople liketheemployeesofanorganizationor themembersofatrust,canstoreandtransacttheirassets via blockchain they can upload, download, transfer, update, delete assets, provided they have the required permissions.

Engineering

II. LITERATURE SURVEY

The need for blockchain based identity management is especially obvious in the internet age, according to a paper [1] by Ori Jacobovitz. We have encountered identity management difficulties since the beginningoftheInternet.Security,privacy,andusability arethreeofthemostimportantofthem.

Permissioned blockchain as mentioned in an articleof2021[2] TobecomeanodeonaPermissioned blockchains,onewouldneedauthorizationfromoneor severalparties.TheSovrinBlockchainisaninstanceofa Permissioned Blockchain. Sovrin is administered by a groupofnodesknownasStewards.Thisisdonetoensure thevalidityofthedatawrittenontheledger,whichinthis case is related to digital identification. The Sovrin Foundation trusts and vets its stewards. We're using IBM'sHyperLedgerFabricnetwork,whichissimilarto Sovrin'sblockchaintechnology.

Suporn Pongnumkul, Chaiyaphum Siripanpornchana, and Suttipong Thajchayapong[3] investigated the performance of Ethereum and HyperledgerFabricasprivateblockchainplatformswith varying transaction volumes. When workloads of up to 10,000transactionswereinvolved,theydeterminedthat Hyperledger Fabric gave faster throughput and lower latency than Ethereum. Hyperledger Fabric's average throughputfluctuatesatafarfasterratethanEthereum's. On the other hand, Ethereum can execute more transactions at the same time while using the same processing resources. In the future, Hyperledger Fabric will be able to support a huge number of concurrent transactionswiththesamecomputationalresources.

The University of Bologna's Luca Foschini, Andrea Gavagna, Giuseppe Martuscelli, and Rebecca Montanari[4]analysetheFabricplatform'stransaction performancebypinpointingthepiecesthatcontributethe mosttototaloverheadatafine graineddegreelevel.They were particularly interested in how the programming language used to generate the chaincode as well as the number of participating endorser peers influence transaction delay. They were particularly interested in how the programming language used to generate the chaincodeaswellasthenumberofparticipatingendorser peersinfluencetransactiondelay.

METHODOLOGY

Transactingandinterchanging assetsisacrucial part of human development. A digital asset is anything that can be saved and transmitted digitally (using a computer) that can be owned and thus, can have ownershipandusagerightsassociatedwithit.Duetothe adversityanduniquenessofdigitalassets,rangingfrom audio files to video files, pdfs, docs to any type of documents,thescopeofourprojectonlyextendstodigital assets that can be tokenized using a cryptographic protocol,orso calledcryptoassets.

Digital Asset Management Systems(DAMS) ensurethatoperationsoractionsareonlyperformedona digital asset by individuals or organizations or any department thathave therightaccesstothe rights and permissionsfortheasset.

2)Viewingalltheassetsinthesystem

3)Viewingassetsownedbytheusercurrentlyloggedin

4)Uploadinganewasset

5)Deletinganewasset

6)Suggestingeditstoanexistingasset.

7)Viewingsuggestededitsforanassetthatisowned bytheuserthatiscurrentlyloggedin.

8)Approving or denying suggested edits for an asset thatisownedbytheuserthatiscurrentlyloggedin.

9)Allowing other users the permission to update an assetownedbytheuserthatiscurrentlyloggedin.

10)Assigninganotheruserasanownerofanassetthat isownedbytheuserthatiscurrentlyloggedin.

11)Downloadinganasset.

III.I User Registration and User Login

ForUserRegistrationandLoginSystemwehaveused utmost security standards. Passwords that users are going to use for registrations or for login purposes wouldbesecuredthrougharigoroushashingprocess and would be hashed by bcrypt hash to make the identity of an user very secure. Login information wouldbestoredincookiesonthebrowser,sothatthe sitecanrecognisetheusersandtheiractivitiescanbe monitored.

III.II Uploading an asset

Users have to login before uploading an asset. Once an asset is uploaded, that asset would be sent to the node serverandthatnodeserverwouldinturnsendtheasset tothecloudplatform.Fromthatcloudplatformitwould gotoIBMblockchainplatformfromwhichablockwould beinstantiatedandthatassetwouldbedistributedinthe networkusingsmartcontracts.

III.III Viewing all existing assets in the system

III. METHODS

SoinanyDigitalAssetManagementsystem,there canbealot ofusersandtheseuserscanhavetheability to perform various actions on the asset in the system basedontheauthoritytheyhave.Followingactionsuser can perform regarding the asset and website are as follows:

1)Userregistrationanduserlogin

Inablockchainsystem,sinceeveryblockisconnectedto eachother.Wheneveranewassetisuploadeditmustbe verifiedbyeverynodeinthenetworksinceeverynodein the network has a complete copy of the blockchain. Thereforeonceanassetisuploadeditisvisibletoallthe users inthenetwork.

III.IV Suggesting edits, Viewing edits, approving or denying those edits.

In a blockchain network where a complete copy of blockchainisavailabletoallthenodes,thereforeeveryone onthenetworkcanseetheassetuploadedbyanyother user.Soifsomeuserwantstosuggestsomeeditsthenthat canbedone.Viewingofthosesuggestededitsisalso

possible,butsincetheperson

III.VI.II Certificate Authorities

norightovertheasset,thatuser

editthatasset. Thereforetheownerhastoapproveordenytherequest madebytheotheruser.

III.VAllowingotherusertoeditanasset,Assigningother userastheowneroftheasset

Inourblockchainprojectiftheuserwishestoallowother userstoeditsomecontentsoftheasset,thentheownerof theasset cangivepermissionto the userwhowantsto edit.Theowneroftheassetcanalsoassignotherusers theownershipoftheasset.Thisfeatureprovestobequite important in certain use cases of an organization or in NFTsortoprovidelicensingtootherusersetc.

III.VI Modules and functions of the system

In this system we have first packaged smart contractsusingIBMblockchainplatform.Next,wehave createdaHyperledgerFabricNetworkonIBMblockchain platform where smart contracts are installed and instantiated.Then we have set up an IBM cloud storage instance in order to retain digital assets uploaded to Digitalassetmanagementapplication.Next,wehaveset upanSMTPserveronmailtraptotestemailnotifications sent by the user. Finally we have created a Vue.js web application,whichmakesuseoftheHyperledgerFabric SDK,tobeusedtointeractwiththenetwork.

III.VI.I Peer system

Ataconceptuallevel,ablockchainnetworkiscomposed mainlyoforganizations(asorganizationsdecideonhowa network is structured, as well as owning nodes and managing identities). At a physical level, however, a Hyperledger Fabric blockchain network is consisted of primarilyofpeernodesthatareownedandorganized by organizations.Nodesarethefundamentalelementsofthe blockchainnetworkbecausetheyhostledgers(database) andsmartcontracts(whicharecontainedinchaincode), andarethereforewheretransactionsareperformedand authenticated.

More accurately,the peer hosts instancesof theledger, andinstancesofsmartcontracts.Becausesmartcontracts andledgersareusedtoencapsulatethesharedprocesses andsharedinformationinanetwork.

The Blockchain network serve as a series of managed communication between nodes to serve a definedbusinessusecase.Forthesecommunicationsto authenticate(toensure,inotherwords,whoiswho,ieto recognise the nodes) requires identities and a whole system of permissions that can be verified during each interaction.

InHyperledgerFabric,theIBMBlockchainPlatform,this property is the Certificate Authority (CA), which forms identitiesintheformofx509certificatesaswellas define whole of an organization through the creation of a MembershipServicesProvider(MSP),whichdefinesthe permissions of identities at a channel and component level.Theseidentitiescanincludeattributesaboutthem, forexample,bylinkingthemtoaorganizationalunit(OU) or aparticularorganization.

An organization MSP(Membership Service Provider),hasanMSPsubfoldercalledadmins.Anyuser whosecertificateidentityisinsidethatadminfolderisan adminoftheorganization.BecausethisMSP(Membership service provider) defines the organization or the department, it is listed in the configuration on every channel which consists the network of which the organizationisamember.Asaresult,wheneveranhead or the admin of the organization tries to perform any action, the signing certificate or identity of the admin (whichisattachedtoallofitscommunication)isverified againstthecertificateslistedinthemembershipservice provider.itischeckedthatthecertificatematchtheone listedinthechannelconfiguration?Ifitdoesmatchthen theotherorganizationswillauthenticateitandtheaction can be performed. If not, the request to perform the actionisdeclined.

III.VI.III Ordering Services

HyperledgerFabricfeaturesakindofanodethatrelieson deterministic consensus algorithms that is called an orderer,alsoknownasan“orderingnode”,thatdoesthis transaction ordering. The collection of ordering nodes formthe"orderingservice".

In addition to promoting final steps, separating the endorsement of smart contract of blockchain execution (which happens at the peers) from ordering gives

HyperledgerFabric advantages in performance and scalability, efficiency, eliminating bottlenecks that can occurwhenexecutionandorderingareperformedbythe samenodes.Theorderingserviceperformsoneotherkey function: it maintains what is known as the "system channel",adefaultchannelthatconsiststhenetworkthat hostsa"consortium",itisthelistoforganizationsthatcan createandjointheapplicationchannels.

specifiedtimeline,orthatfundsarereleasedaccordingto prearrangedorpredeterminedterms,improvingtheflow of goods or capitals respectively. Most importantly however,theexecutionofasmartcontractismuchmore efficientandconvenient andisimperviousagainstallthe errorswhichoccurinmanualhumanbusinessprocesses. Hyperledgerfabricprovidesvariouslanguagesupportfor writing smart contracts or chaincode, which provides greatflexibilityincreatingapplications.

IV. RESULTS

III.VI.IV Channels

A channel which consists of a network is a mechanism that facilitates a private layer of communication,allowingsubsetsofnetworkmembersto createaseparateledgerfortheirtransactions.Channels consistingofanetworkarenotjustprivateinthesense thatnetwork memberswho arenotsubjectedtoanyof thechannelareunableseetheinteraction,theyarealso secretinthesensethatunlessanetworkmemberisapart ofthechannel,theywillnotevenknowthatthechannel exists.TheIBMBlockchainPlatformallowschannelstobe easily created and managed. Channel consisting of a network configuration updates allow the members of a channelconsistingnetworktoeditchannelparametersto fittheirusecase.Forexample,morenodescanbeadded toachannelwhichconsiststhenetwork,orthecapacity andability ofachannelcanbechanged.Becausechanges to a channel must be approved by members who are a partofthatchannel,theIBMBlockchainPlatformhasa procedureforthecollectionofnecessaryandimportant signatures.

III.VI.V Smart Contracts

Asmartcontractinablockchainnetworkdefines therulesandregulationsbetweendifferentorganizations or departments in executable code. Applications call a smartcontracttogeneratetransactionsthatarestoredor savedontheledgerordatabase.

Using a HyperledgerFabric blockchain network, we can turn these smart contracts into executable programs knownintheorganization as smart contracts toopen upawholenewwidevarietyofnewpossibilities.That’s because smartcontractscanimplementthegovernance rules or regulations for any type of business object, so that they can be simultaneously performed when the smartcontractofablockchainnetworkisexecuted.For example,asmartcontractofablockchainnetworkmight ensurethata newcardeliveryhastobemadewithina

InthisprojectwehaveusedHyperLedgerFabric as a blockchain platform to build our project. In this project we have ensued various security layers. In HyperledgerFabric,withthehelpofchannelsthenetwork is secured from external threat. Blockchain in itself is secured as a network. In the website, where we have connected the site to the blockchain platform is also secured,wehaveachievedthisbyusingvariousindustry level hashing algorithms. Theuse caseof this project is thatinaparticularorganizationorinadepartment,user canupload,delete,update,changeownershipoftheasset. Suchasgiveninthebelowfigurethatispresented.

V. CONCLUSION

Using blockchain frameworks, we successfully built a highly secure and scalable system for storing, updating, deleting and transferring digital asset management with next to 0 cost for development. Using open source technologies, multiple organizations and governments can implement their own private blockchain network for secureandreliabledatamanagementneeds.

VI. FUTURE WORK

Integrating with the government and providing licensing. Providing legal rights (enforce registrations/copyrights). Smartcontractscanbeusedtoautomaticallyreleasefunds whena certainobjectiveis accomplished.Providing digital certificates, Validating integrity of song/art/design or any other asset. Digital transfer of IP assets (transferring ownership).

REFERENCES

1. Uri Jocobovitz, "Blockchain for Identity management",TechnicalReport #16 02,TheLynneand WilliamFrankelCenterforComputerScienceDepartment ofComputerScience,Ben GurionUniversity,BeerSheva, Israel,2018.

2. Blockchain Identity Management: The Definitive Guide(2021 Update), https://tykn.tech/identity management blockchain/

3. Suporn Pongnumkul, Chaiyaphum Siripanpornchana, Suttipong Thajchayapong, “PerformanceAnalysisofPrivateBlockchainPlatformsin VaryingWorkloads,”September18,2017

4. Luca Foschini, Andrea Gavagna, Giuseppe Martuscelli, a Rebecca Montanari, “Hyperledger Fabric Blockchain: Chaincode Performance Analysis,” 27 July, 2022