PONE-D-22-34006BPKEM: a biometric-based private key encryption and management framework for blockchainPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Xu,

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PLOS ONE

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"We gratefully acknowledges 2021 Guangdong province special fund for science and technology project, Grant Number: STKJ2021201; Research on Food Production and Marketing traceability Software system based on Blockchain, Grant Number: STKJ2021011; 2020 Li Ka Shing Foundation Cross-Disciplinary Research Grant, Grant Number: 2020LKSFG08D; Guangdong basic and applied basic research fund project, Grant Number: 2021A1515012527; Free application project of Guangdong Natural Science Foundation, Grant Number: 2018A030313438; Special projects in key fields of colleges and universities in Guangdong Province, Grant Number: 2020ZDZX3073,2022ZDZX1008. "

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"Funding: This research was financially supported by 2021 Guangdong province special fund for science and technology project, Grant Number: STKJ2021201; 

Research on Food Production and Marketing traceability Software system based on Blockchain, Grant Number: STKJ2021011; 

2020 Li Ka Shing Foundation Cross-Disciplinary Research Grant, Grant Number: 2020LKSFG08D; 

Guangdong basic and applied basic research fund project, Grant Number: 2021A1515012527;

Free application project of Guangdong Natural Science Foundation, Grant Number: 2018A030313438; 

Special projects in key fields of colleges and universities in Guangdong Province, Grant Number: 2020ZDZX3073,2022ZDZX1008.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: N/A

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: In this paper, the authors propose a biometric-based stable key generation (BKG) method to encrypt the blockchain’s private key and guarantee the security of the entire process of creating private keys, encrypting them, and recovering them.

What’s more, the contributions of this paper can be summarized into two aspects including proposing a comprehensive management solution and creating distinguishing descriptors based on several biometric factors.

The whole paper is finished with some other problems. There is a long way to go before it can be accepted. We point out the specific problems as follows:

1. There is no performance analysis in this paper. Both security and efficiency are the necessary indices to assess the value of a work. However, no performance analysis is found in this paper. As a consequence, the superiority of the proposed protocol in performance is not demonstrated.

2. In Related work, the authors don’t explain clearly why they use the main technology they have presented. What’s more, the authors just simply show the references’ main idea and they don’t analyze these references and explain the development of this main technology.

3. In section 4.3.1, the authors propose a universal and stable distinguishable descriptor extraction method. However, they don’t give a specific explanation. And the given schematics can’t explain well about the methodology. There are many other similar methods similar to what this paper shows. So, the authors should give a detailed and clear explanation, not a few similar words.

4. There are some typos in this paper. For example, in contributions, the sentence “we propose A comprehensive management solution for the blockchain’s private key system …...” should be “we propose a comprehensive management solution for the blockchain’s private key system …...” Please carefully check this paper and correct similar errors.

5. Table and pictures in this paper are not standard. It is suggested that the author check the format of the full text to improve its readability of the full text.

Reviewer #2: A novel method based on bio-metrics is introduced for private key encryption

Section 3 must be strengthened

section 5 must include more experimental graphical results

some of the following interesting works on block chain must be reviewed

1. "A secure and efficient authentication and data sharing scheme for Internet of Things based on blockchain."

2. "BBAAS: Blockchain-Based Anonymous Authentication Scheme for Providing Secure Communication in VANETs."

3. "EAAP: Efficient Anonymous Authentication With Conditional Privacy-Preserving Scheme for Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks."

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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BPKEM: a biometric-based private key encryption and management framework for blockchain

PONE-D-22-34006R1

Dear Dr. Xu,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Pandi Vijayakumar, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

The authors have done all the corrections given in the previous round and hence the paper can be accepted in the present format.

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #2: N/A

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #2: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #2: All the comments given by the reviewer are done.

Hence, the manuscript can be accepted.

This manuscript can be published in the broad subject area.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #2: No

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