Research on blockchain smart contract technology based on resistance to quantum computing attacks

Xinhao Zheng

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0302325

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionDecember 13, 2023
9 Feb 2024 Decision Letter - Chin-Ling Chen, Editor PONE-D-23-41869Research on Blockchain Smart Contract Technology Based on Resistance to Quantum Computing AttacksPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Zheng, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 25 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Chin-Ling Chen Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Please note that PLOS ONE has specific guidelines on code sharing for submissions in which author-generated code underpins the findings in the manuscript. In these cases, all author-generated code must be made available without restrictions upon publication of the work. Please review our guidelines at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/materials-and-software-sharing#loc-sharing-code and ensure that your code is shared in a way that follows best practice and facilitates reproducibility and reuse. 3. We note that your Data Availability Statement is currently as follows: [All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.] Please confirm at this time whether or not your submission contains all raw data required to replicate the results of your study. Authors must share the “minimal data set” for their submission. PLOS defines the minimal data set to consist of the data required to replicate all study findings reported in the article, as well as related metadata and methods (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-minimal-data-set-definition). For example, authors should submit the following data: - The values behind the means, standard deviations and other measures reported; - The values used to build graphs; - The points extracted from images for analysis. Authors do not need to submit their entire data set if only a portion of the data was used in the reported study. If your submission does not contain these data, please either upload them as Supporting Information files or deposit them to a stable, public repository and provide us with the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers. For a list of recommended repositories, please see https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/recommended-repositories. If there are ethical or legal restrictions on sharing a de-identified data set, please explain them in detail (e.g., data contain potentially sensitive information, data are owned by a third-party organization, etc.) and who has imposed them (e.g., an ethics committee). Please also provide contact information for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent. If data are owned by a third party, please indicate how others may request data access. 4. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] 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 ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: N/A Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 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 ****** 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 ****** 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: This paper is based on Research on Blockchain Smart Contract Technology Based on Resistance to Quantum Computing Attacks. Thus, this paper is directly related to the theme of this journal. Overall, the paper is organized properly; the concept and future research directions are extensively explained. So, the paper is accepted after following minor changes: 1. Problem of paper and motivation is not clear in introduction 2. Comparison of current work is not given with previous research 3. Pseudo code of algorithm is given but comments of statements are not added for ease of readers 4. Paper contains few grammar mistakes which will be cooperated in final version. 5. Only few references are added in paper, but more than 70 references so to attract readers add few latest references related to this paper, which is mentioned below Laghari, A. A., H. Shah, R. A. Laghari, K. Kumar, A. A. Waqan, and A. K. Jumani. "A Review on Quantum Computing Trends & Future Perspectives." EAI Endorsed Transactions on Cloud Systems 7, no. 22 (2022): e1-e1. Khan, Abdullah Ayub, Sami Bourouis, M. M. Kamruzzaman, Myriam Hadjouni, Zaffar Ahmed Shaikh, Asif Ali Laghari, Hela Elmannai, and Sami Dhahbi. "Data Security in Healthcare Industrial Internet of Things with Blockchain." IEEE Sensors Journal (2023). Laghari, Asif Ali, Abdullah Ayub Khan, Reem Alkanhel, Hela Elmannai, and Sami Bourouis. "Lightweight-BIoV: Blockchain Distributed Ledger Technology (BDLT) for Internet of Vehicles (IoVs)." Electronics 12, no. 3 (2023): 677. Shaikh, Zaffar Ahmed, Abdullah Ayub Khan, Lin Teng, Asif Ali Wagan, and Asif Ali Laghari. "BIoMT modular infrastructure: The recent challenges, issues, and limitations in blockchain hyperledger-enabled e-healthcare application." Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing 2022 (2022): 1-14. Khan, Abdullah Ayub, Zaffar Ahmed Shaikh, Asif Ali Laghari, Sami Bourouis, Asif Ali Wagan, and Ghulam Ali Alias Atif Ali. "Blockchain-aware distributed dynamic monitoring: a smart contract for fog-based drone management in land surface changes." Atmosphere 12, no. 11 (2021): 1525. Shaikh, Zaffar Ahmed, Abdullah Ayub Khan, Laura Baitenova, Gulmira Zambinova, Natalia Yegina, Natalia Ivolgina, Asif Ali Laghari, and Sergey Evgenievich Barykin. "Blockchain hyperledger with non-linear machine learning: A novel and secure educational accreditation registration and distributed ledger preservation architecture." Applied Sciences 12, no. 5 (2022): 2534. Khan, Abdullah Ayub, Zaffar Ahmed Shaikh, Larisa Belinskaja, Laura Baitenova, Yulia Vlasova, Zhanneta Gerzelieva, Asif Ali Laghari, Abdul Ahad Abro, and Sergey Barykin. "A blockchain and metaheuristic-enabled distributed architecture for smart agricultural analysis and ledger preservation solution: A collaborative approach." Applied Sciences 12, no. 3 (2022): 1487. Reviewer #2: The author has proposed a new algorithm to counter quantum attacks on blockchain smart contracts. He has shown mathematical model that consider a vision of quantum computers. It is desired to be considered to incorporate the following suggestions: 1. In 6.1 it needs to justify the reason to use give setup. 2. In 6.2, transactions are performed serially. Please mention that it will affect performance. 3. Fig. 7 should be shown with a direction sign,. ****** 6. 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 #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes: Sandeep Joshi ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: comments.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0302325.r001
Revision 1
28 Mar 2024 Author Response Dear editors and reviewers, It is a great honor for me to have the opportunity to revise my manuscript entitled “Research on Blockchain Smart Contract Technology Based on Resistance to Quantum Computing Attacks”. Your insightful comments and valuable suggestions are highly appreciated and have been carefully addressed in the revision. Following are my detailed response to the specific comments. To facilitate the presentation, I have numbered the comments and responded one by one. 1.Response to Reviewer 1 Comment 1.1: Problem of paper and motivation is not clear in introduction. Response 1.1: Thank you for your insightful comments. In the revised version, I have clarified the problem and the motivation for the research.. “However, with the development of quantum computing technology, existing digital signature algorithms, such as elliptic curve cryptography, lack resistance to quantum computing attacks[14-15]. Therefore, the research motivation of this paper is to address the cross-chain communication, data sharing, and security challenges faced by current blockchain technologies.” Comment 1.2: Comparison of current work is not given with previous research. Response 1.2: Thank you for your insightful comments. I compare the current work with previous studies. “In the above research, existing digital signature algorithms, including elliptic curve encryption, face the risk of being cracked by quantum computing attacks. In the event that a quantum computing attack is able to successfully crack these algorithms, traditional digital signature mechanisms will no longer be secure. This issue will also have an impact on smart contracts, which typically use digital signatures to verify and authorize transactions. If quantum computing attacks crack traditional digital signature algorithms, the security of smart contracts will be jeopardized. Attackers potentially may be able to forge digital signatures or tamper with the execution results of smart contracts. Therefore, this paper proposed a blockchain smart contract technology based on anti-quantum computing attacks, which can effectively deal with quantum computing attacks and protect the security of smart contracts by adopting quantum-secure encryption algorithms and digital signature algorithms. In this way, the risk of quantum computing attacks is reduced, the security of digital signatures is ensured, which is not easy to be cracked or forged by attackers.” Comment 1.3: Pseudo code of algorithm is given but comments of statements are not added for ease of readers. Response 1.3: Thanks for your insightful comments. In the modified version, no statement comments were added. Algorithm 1: Trusted Identity Search Input:BF={0}n, identifier[m]→ Array of query identity collections. id → Identity to be queried i=0 // Loop over the m identity sets identifier to be queried While(i<m){ j=0; // For each identity identifier[i], compute the hash value by hj(identifier[i]) and set the corresponding BF array element to 1 to indicate that the identity may exist. While(i<=k){ BF[ℎj(identifier[i])] = 1; j=j+1;} i=i+1;} //Find id For i in range(0, k+1)： // Iterate through the BF array, if there exists any BF array element of 0, it means the corresponding identity does not exist, return False IF (hi(identifier))!=1： Return False //If all the BF array elements are 1, it means all the identities to be queried exist, return True. Return True Comment 1.4: Paper contains few grammar mistakes which will be cooperated in final version. Response 1.4: I have fixed the grammatical errors in the revised version. “In this paper, through the proposed technology based on anti-quantum computing attack, this paper successfully solves the risk of quantum computing attack faced by smart contracts and blockchain, providing a safer blockchain smart contract service.”is modified to “In this paper, through the proposed technology based on anti-quantum computing attacks, this paper successfully solves the risk of quantum computing attacks faced by smart contracts and blockchain, providing a safer blockchain smart contract service. This is of great significance in promoting the development and application of blockchain technology.” “These techniques ensure the security compliance of the business and automate and intelligentize the power business process, thus improving the efficiency of the business process.”is modified to “These techniques ensure the security compliance of the business and automate and intelligentize the power of the business process, thus improving its efficiency.” “The immutability of the blockchain ensures that once a smart contract is predefined, no changes are allowed.”is modified to“The immutability of the blockchain ensures that no changes are allowed once a smart contract is predefined.” Comment 1.5: Only few references are added in paper, but more than 70 references so to attract readers add few latest references related to this paper, which is mentioned below. Response 1.5: Thanks for your insightful comments. I have added the latest references related to this paper in the revised version. [27] Khan A A, Shaikh Z A, Belinskaja L, et al. A blockchain and metaheuristic-enabled distributed architecture for smart agricultural analysis and ledger preservation solution: A collaborative approach[J]. Applied Sciences, 2022, 12(3): 1487. [33] Shaikh Z A, Khan A A, Baitenova L, et al. Blockchain hyperledger with non-linear machine learning: A novel and secure educational accreditation registration and distributed ledger preservation architecture[J]. Applied Sciences, 2022, 12(5): 2534. [40] Khan A A, Shaikh Z A, Laghari A A, et al. Blockchain-aware distributed dynamic monitoring: a smart contract for fog-based drone management in land surface changes[J]. Atmosphere, 2021, 12(11): 1525. [47] Laghari A A, Khan A A, Alkanhel R, et al. Lightweight-biov: blockchain distributed ledger technology (bdlt) for internet of vehicles (iovs)[J]. Electronics, 2023, 12(3): 677. [52] Khan A A, Bourouis S, Kamruzzaman M M, et al. Data Security in Healthcare Industrial Internet of Things with Blockchain[J]. IEEE Sensors Journal, 2023. [61] Laghari A A, Shah H, Laghari R A, et al. A Review on Quantum Computing Trends & Future Perspectives[J]. EAI Endorsed Transactions on Cloud Systems, 2022, 7(22): e1-e1. [64] Shaikh Z A, Khan A A, Teng L, et al. BIoMT modular infrastructure: The recent challenges, issues, and limitations in blockchain hyperledger-enabled e-healthcare application[J]. Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing, 2022, 2022: 1-14. 2.Response to Reviewer 2 Comment 2.1: In 6.1 it needs to justify the reason to use give setup. Response 2.1: Thank you for your insightful comments. In the revised version, I give the reason for using the given settings. “The effectiveness of the scheme proposed in this paper is tested through simulation experiments to verify whether the scheme proposed in this paper is capable of meeting the resistance to quantum computation in cross-chain communication scenarios.” Comment 2.2: In 6.2, transactions are performed serially. Please mention that it will affect performance. Response 2.2: Thank you for your insightful comments. I have elaborated on this in the revision. Table 2 Time for each phase of a digitally signed blockchain transaction Stage Average time Standard deviation of time Signature 0.035 0.003 Verification 0.184 0.004 Transaction 0.235 0.006 According to the results in Table 2, the duration of each phase are all at the microsecond level, which means that the performance of the whole blockchain system system is less affected by the fact that the transactions are done in a "serial" way. However, the serial approach clearly shows the specific flow of each transaction, including the signature and verification process, which is easy to understand and debug. Each transaction is executed in a precise sequence without the complexity and competitive conditions associated with concurrent operations. Comment 2.3: . Fig. 7 should be shown with a direction sign. Response 2.3: Thank you for your insightful comments. I have modified Figure 7. Fig.7 The wallet structure of the blockchain Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0302325.r002
2 Apr 2024 Decision Letter - Chin-Ling Chen, Editor Research on Blockchain Smart Contract Technology Based on Resistance to Quantum Computing Attacks PONE-D-23-41869R1 Dear Dr. Zheng, 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. An invoice will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. 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, Chin-Ling Chen Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0302325.r003
Formally Accepted
10 May 2024 Acceptance Letter - Chin-Ling Chen, Editor PONE-D-23-41869R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Zheng, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, if your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. 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. If we can help with anything else, please email us at customercare@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Prof. Chin-Ling Chen Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0302325.r004

Open letter on the publication of peer review reports

PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.

We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.

Learn more at ASAPbio .