CS 585/685 (Fall 2022)
Intermediate/Special Topics in Computer Science: Blockchain Technologies

List of Course Projects

Blockchain Technologies for Secure Patient Data Management
Travis Nilest
Problem Description: Many early blockchain solutions became popular due to the transparency of the ledger records, a trait that often limits viability when HIPPA‐protected data is being handled. Today however, there is a growing collection of blockchain solutions that possess multi‐signature protocols that facilitate the storage of private data. While it might not be safe to store HIPPA‐protected data in an immutable blockchain ledger just yet, there have been many proposed approaches for distributed medical recordkeeping. A major objective of this portion of blockchain research is that a decentralized and permissioned ledger places more agency in the hands of the patient and can smooth the transmission of information between medical environments if the patient decides to change healthcare providers.

Blockchain Security outside of Crypto Currency
Elinor Rubin-McGregor
Problem Description: As it currently stands, blockchain is a technology most often associated with cryptocurrency. However, blockchain technology in and of itself offers a level of security that’s difficult for assailants to crack- a feature becoming more and more pressing as technology becomes a larger force in people’s lives. Analyzing how blockchain is used as a tool for security outside of the well-known and highly explored cryptocurrency domain helps highlight the benefits of the technology, which in turn can help shine light on further ways for blockchain to be of value.

Building a Fake Product Identification System
Shashank Gupta and Yuhang Jiang
Problem Description: In this project, we would build a fake product identification system. That is, a system to detect the fake products by using the blockchain technology. Because nowadays some brands have a fake copy of them out there selling the same item at cheaper rates by compromising with the actual quality. Even the experts of the original company may not be able to distinguish between fake products and their real products. In this scenario, we can use blockchain technology to detect original products and add a QR code to them while manufacturing by writing the QR code and product details to the blockchain and letting the smart contract to judge. It is safe because the on chain data is not able to be eliminated and every genuine product has only one valid QR code. People would be able to scan the QR code using their smartphones and their smartphones will tell them whether the product is fake or not.

Effingo: A Decentralized Application for Visible Copyrights for Digital Media via Blockchain Technology
Alex King
Problem Description: A frequent problem that occurs wildly today and throughout history is the misuse of work created by others. Through copyright laws and trademarks, individuals are protected legally when their work is used without authorization of the artist. Many photos are taken by the artist without written permission and are altered to try to avoid copyright infringement. Another aspect this applies to as well is research data being manipulated or altered with no way of having a record of what data is true. The motivation behind this is as an artist I personally dislike sending out my artwork on the internet, and someone else removes my watermark to create a photo to sell on a stock photography website.

Exploring Blockchain Technology in the Fintech Industry
Mingze Xia and Yue Li
Problem Description: This proposed project will explore how to leverage blockchain in the fintect field. Three aspects can be dug out: 1) How do we design a reliable and effective smart contract system to reduce the security risk? Is there any mechanism we can proposed to detect it? 2) Since the blockchain system can be considered a distributed database system, the Byzantine generals problem seems unlikely due to intangible cost. Therefore, how to leverage this characteristic in the Fin-tech area is the key to success; (3) The decentralized identifier (DID), which can be derivate to the zero-knowledge proof, is vital to protect sensitive data, such as user's password, trade secret, etc. How can we pass messages efficiently without secret information will be an essential problem in the financial industry

GitHub Commit Tracking using Blockchain
Samuel Armstrong and Jacob Sobota
Problem Description: GitHub, a collaborative version control platform, has, for many years, been one of the most popular applica- tions for software developers to maintain their codebases. GitHub is free to join, and 190 million repositories were reported in January 2020. Some of the largest include VS Code, Flutter, and Tensorflow. Within each of these repositories, there could be thousands, if not millions, of commits.

Smart Contract Application for Decentralized News Forum
Sandesh Lamichhane and Robert Chirwa
Problem Description: Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right, but it is often the case that those in power seek to quell the voices of others. Creating a place where everyone has free reign to post their idea invites the abuse of the platform and so is not the best solution. There is a need for a decentralized news article contribution site where the majority sensor and reward contributions.