KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Stephan Nilsson is the CEO and co-founder of UNISOT, a Web3 Supply Chain Traceability & Sustainability platform that offers global interoperability and traceability with data monetization. Stephan has over 30 years of experience in IT-system integrations, including the last two decades as an SAP Integration Architect. Stephan is also the President and co-founder of the Norway Blockchain Association and serves as the Scandinavian Ambassador of the Bitcoin Association. Stephan has been active in the Bitcoin Blockchain space since 2012 and started integrating SAP ERP with the Public Blockchain in 2015. The UNISOT platform empowers all actors in global supply chains to achieve sustainability and prove their product quality and sustainability to customers using public blockchain, IPv6, and Federated Learning technologies.

Talk Title: Disrupting AI: The Public Blockchain and IPv6 as Catalysts for Monetizing AI Models and Creating New Revenue Streams

Abstract: In today's data-driven world, data privacy concerns and data ownership have become paramount. Federated Learning (FL) emerges as a cutting-edge AI approach that allows organizations to collaborate on machine learning models without sharing sensitive data. By harnessing the power of the Public Blockchain and IPv6, FL enables a giant leap forward, unlocking new realms of data privacy, economic incentives and new revenue streams for data creators/owners.

In this presentation, Stephan Nilsson CEO & cofounder of UNISOT, delves into the concept of Federated Learning, explores how the Public Blockchain and IPv6 enhance it, and highlights the pivotal role of nano-transactions in fostering economic incentives for sharing AI learning models. Furthermore, Stephan will show the practical implementations of these techniques in the UNISOT Web3 Supply Chain Traceability Platform.

Federated Learning in combination with the Public Blockchain and IPv6 enables the aggregation of knowledge learned from distributed data sources while preserving data privacy, making it an ideal solution for collaborative learning in global supply chains, in sectors such as Agriculture, Food & Beverage, Construction, Apparel & Fashion, Healthcare, Oil & Gas, Automotive, Finance, Insurance, etc.

Prof. Dr. Roberto Di Pietro, Fellow IEEE and ACM Distinguished Scientist, is currently Full Professor of Cybersecurity at KAUST, Saudi Arabia. Previously, he has served as Global Head of Cybersecurity Research for Bell Labs (Alcatel-Lucent/Nokia) for almost 4 years. In that capacity, he coordinated three Security Research Depts.—based in Paris, Munich, and Espoo—counting 40+ researchers and research engineers. Besides his position at Nokia Bell Labs, Dr. Di Pietro was Professor at University of Padua, with tenure). Prior to the above assignments, he was a Faculty at University of Roma Tre (with tenure), always dedicated to security research and education. He started his Computer Scientist professional career back to 1995, serving for a few years as a military senior technical officer within the Italian MoD, managing complex ICT projects with focus on resilience, security, and security. Dr. Di Pietro is the Editor in Chief for Secure Communications and Network (Wiley-Hindawi), in the Advisory Board for FGCS, and associate editor for Computer Communications (ComCom - Elsevier), Computer Networks (ComNet - Elsevier), Pervasive and Mobile Computing (Elsevier - PerCom), International Journal of Information Security (Springer), Journal of Computer Security (IOS Press), and IET Information Security; he was AE for several leading journals, including IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing. He is regularly invited to deliver keynote speeches, and he has been taking part to 300+ TPC of conferences and workshop (e.g. ACM CCS, IEEE Security & Privacy, IEEE IN- FOCOM, IEEE CNS, PETS, ESORICS, ACM WiSec), and has been serving as reviewer of international projects for the EU Commission (6th and 7th FP), research-support National Agencies (France - ANR, Poland, Cyprus, Singapore), the ERC, and Selection Committee member for the ACM Heidelberg Laureate Forum (2019-2022).

Talk Title: From an Electronic Cash System to DeFi - A journey through cryptocurrencies evolution and their security issues

Abstract: Cryptocurrencies, despite their recent success, are not a recent innovation, and their future is everything but secured. In this talk, we will first survey some of the foundational aspects of crypto, starting from their first attempts and the reasons for their failure. We will later move to the first few successful implementations of electronic cash systems, and discuss the first attacks (spread over several logical layers and with different levels of complexity) they have been subject to. We will also explore the more recent evolution of cryptocurrencies (parachains) and, again, the security issues and attacks this new model has been subject to. We will conclude with a highlight on recent research results that indicate what could be the next source of (in)-security for cryptocurrencies.

Salil Kanhere is a Professor in the School of Computer Science and Engineering at UNSW Sydney, Australia where he leads the Information Security and Privacy (ISPri) research group and is affiliated with the UNSW Institute for Cyber Security (IFCYBER). His research interests span the Internet of Things, blockchain, cybersecurity, distributed computing and applied machine learning. He has published over 300 peer-reviewed articles and is leading several government and industry funded research projects on these topics. He received the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award (2020) and the Humboldt Research Fellowship (2014) from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany. He is the recipient of 8 Best Paper Awards. Salil has held visiting positions at I2R Singapore, Technical University Darmstadt, University of Zurich, the Graz University of Technology and RWTH Aachen and is on the advisory board of three SMEs. He is an ACM Distinguished Member and served as an ACM Distinguished Speaker from 2019-2021. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and an IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Visitor. He serves as the Editor in Chief of the Ad Hoc Networks journal and as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management, Computer Communications, and Pervasive and Mobile Computing. He has served as General Chair and/or TPC Chair of several IEEE/ACM international conferences such as IEEE PerCom, IEEE ICBC, IEEE Blockchain, IEEE LCN, IEEE CNSM, IEEE WoWMoM, ACM MSWiM and EWSN. Salil has co-authored a book titled Blockchain for Cyberphysical Systems published by Artech House.

Talk Title: Practical and Extensible Decentralised Identity Management

Abstract: Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) is an emerging, user-centric, decentralised identity approach affording entities greater control over their identity and data flow during digital interactions. For digital credentials to be widely accepted, there is a need for an end-to-end system that provides secure verification of the participant identities and credentials to increase trust, and a data minimisation mechanism to reduce the risk of oversharing the credential data. The talk will first present an overview of the decentralised identity ecosystem. Next we will introduce CredChain, a blockchain-based SSI platform that allows secure creation, sharing and verification of credentials. Beyond the verification of identities and credentials, the self-sovereign identity architecture allows users to have full control over their credential data using a digital wallet, including the ability to selectively disclose part of credential data, as necessary. Current SSI solutions, assume the issuers to be “official” entities (e.g., government agencies) who must follow a stringent process to vet their credentials. However, there is no systematic support for directing the same level of trust agencies for individual users who may issue credentials (e.g., delegation of access, consent letter) in the context of business processes. A verifier who relies on user-issued credentials to complete a business process (e.g., a postal worker handing over parcel to someone other than the addressee) bears the risk of accepting these credentials without reliance on a trust agency. The last part of the talk presents a Verifiable Credential-based Trust Propagation Protocol (VCTP) that allows individual users to be trusted as verifiable issuers in the SSI platform by establishing a trust propagation credential template in the blockchain.

Abdallah Shami Jorge P. Zubelli obtained his PhD in Applied Mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley (1989), his MSc from the National Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IMPA – Brazil) in 1984, and his Electrical Engineering degree from IME-RJ in 1983 with specialization on Telecommunications Engineering. He has previous experience as Professor of Mathematics at IMPA and heading the Laboratory for Analysis and Mathematical Modeling in the Physical Sciences (LAMCA – IMPA). His main research area is Inverse Problems and Mathematical Modeling with focus on its applications to real world problems where he published in highly selective journals such as Science, Plos One, SIAM Journal of Numerical Analysis, SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics, and Physical Review B. He supervised 13 PhD thesis and over 30 MSc students. He coordinated a number of academic projects and research networks such as a PROSUL Latin America network (2008-2011), a Math-AmSud France-Latin America network (2009-2010), and an ALFA European Union and Latin America network (2003-2007). He also coordinated a number of industrial projects in Energy and Finance with corporations such as Petrobras and the Brazilian stock exchange BMF-Bovespa (currently called B3). He participated in the Erasmus+ network Greening Energy Market and Finance headed by the University of Bologna. He was member of a number of editorial boards including Computational and Applied Mathematics (Springer), the SEMA-SIMAI Springer Series and Mathematics of Planet Earth Springer Series. He is currently in the editorial board of the International Journal of Applied Finance (IJTAF), Mathematics and Computers in Simulation, and Advances in Continuous and Discrete Models. He was the chair of the organizing committee of a number of international meetings including the 17 editions of Research in Options (RiO), Mathematical Modelling of Biophysical Phenomena, the 2008 Joint Meeting of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and the Brazilian Mathematical Society. He served as elected member at IMPA’s board of directors, as elected member of IMPA’s technical and scientific council (CTC) and and at the Brazilian Mathematical Society.He is currently a member of the advisory council of the International Institute of Physics (IIP-Brazil).

Talk Title: Local Volatility Estimation Driven by the Available Data in Option Pricing and Risk Management

Abstract: The Black-Scholes model for option pricing led to a tremendous development of trading of financial instruments in stock exchanges throughout the world. Such a model provided a fair way of evaluating option prices making use of simplified assumptions. However, soon it was realized that the Black-Scholes model was inadequate and required realistic extensions. One of the most well-accepted of such extensions is to consider variable diffusion coefficients thus leading to the so-called local volatility models. During the last few years, together with a number of collaborators, we have investigated different theoretical as well as practical methods for the calibration of local volatility models in different markets. This talk will summarize some of our findings and provide some perspectives of future research on the topic.

Abdallah Shami is currently a Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and the Acting Associate Dean (Research) of the Faculty of Engineering, Western University, London, ON, Canada, where he is also the Director of the Optimized Computing and Communications Laboratory. He has chaired key symposia for the IEEE GLOBECOM, IEEE International Conference on Communications, and IEEE International Conference on Computing, Networking and Communications. He was the elected Chair for the IEEE Communications Society Technical Committee on Communications Software and the IEEE London Ontario Section Chair. He is currently an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, IEEE Internet of Things Journal, and IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials journals.

Talk Title :Zero-Touch Network Security: Use-Case Driven Analysis

Abstract: The Zero-touch network and Service Management (ZSM) framework represents an emerging paradigm in the management of the fifth-generation (5G) and Beyond (5G+) networks, offering automated self-management and selfhealing capabilities to address the escalating complexity and the growing data volume of modern networks. The ZSM framework leverage advanced technologies such as Machine Learning (ML) to enable intelligent decision-making and reduce human intervention. However, the implementation of such networks faces certain security challenges that may hinder their development and deployment. In this talk, we will discuss the security vulnerabilities and issues associated with Zero-touch Networks. We will also explore potential automated solutions to these security concerns, with a particular emphasis on using Automated ML (AutoML) technologies. Case studies discussing autonomous intrusion detection systems and the development of defense mechanisms against Adversarial ML (AML) attacks will be presented. Lastly, we will delve into some of the challenges and future research directions for the development of secure Zero-touch Network (ZTN) approaches.

Srdjan Krčo received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 2005 for his work on remote health monitoring systems. He was with Ericsson for over 10 years, working on the development of 3G networks, M2M, and IoT technologies. Since 2010, Srđan has been managing DunavNET, a company he co-founded. DunavNET designs turnkey solutions based on IoT and ML/AI technologies for agriculture, manufacturing, and cities. In addition to driving DunavNET’s strategic developments, Srdjan is consulting companies and public administrations on digital transformation approaches and strategies. He is active in international collaborative research and innovation projects (e.g., H2020, Horizon Europe) and is teaching IoT, digital transformation, and entrepreneurship at several universities in Europe and Africa. Srdjan has a dozen patents in his name and has published a large number of papers in international journals and conferences. Srđan received the Innovation Engineer of the Year award in 2007 from the Irish Institute of Engineers and has been awarded the Microsoft MVP annual award since 2018. He is a member of the Management Board of the International IoT Forum (www.iotforum.org) and Alliance for IoT and Edge Computing Innovation (www.aioti.eu), and of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Centre of excellence for the digitalization of microbial food safety risk assessment and quality parameters for accurate food authenticity certification in Montenegro.

Talk Title :Towards transparent and trustworthy agri-food supply chain.

Abstract: The talk will address the approach the H2020 DEMETER project used to address the creation of a transparent and trustworthy agrifood supply chain. Combining farm management/decision support tools, a product passport solution, and a decentralized knowledge graph-based framework, a traceable and trustworthy record of the important farm-to-fork events was created.

Satya N Gupta Satya N. Gupta is an International expert in NGN technologies, Regulation, Interconnection and Broadband with 42 years’ experience in all aspects of Telecoms, including 25 years with Govt. and Regulator, Dr. Gupta is publicly recognized as an Analyst, Author, Advocate and Advisor on ICT related Policies, Projects and Business. After post-graduation from IISc.Bangalore,he joined Ministry of Communications in 1981 and Ministry of Railways in 1983 and rose to the level of Additional Secretary in TRAI. He is recipient of coveted Minister of Railways award for outstanding performance for digitalisation project. A triple master in Electronics Design Technology, IT Management and Telecom Policy and Regulation, globally known as “NGNguru” he is a trainer and coach for telecommunication technologies, policy and regulation and a Regulatory advocate. Author of "Everything over IP-All you want to know about NGN",he also authored a concept called “Job Factory- Converting Unemployment into Intraprenuership”. His recent research-based work, “Long Tail- Walking the Extra Mile on Rural Broadband Business”, brings out the innovative business models for rural broadband connectivity. He has also established and mentoring a consulting startup named SAAM CorpAdvisors managing “Govt. Affairs as a Service”. He was also awarded Global Visionary Award by Vision World Academy in 2019 for his Mission for Rural Women Empowerment through DigiGaon Job Factory Foundation, a Social Enterprise. Based on his impact making business model “Hotspots- as- Managed Service”, he was awarded PhD (HC) by Commonwealth Vocational University, Kingdom of Tonga, Asia Pac. As founding Chair of “Blockchain For Productivity Forum” he is engaged with various Govt. agencies, Regulatory bodies and Startups with a Mission to create Universal and Ubiquitous Blockchain Infrastructure in the country as shared Commons Digital Public Good.He is also recognized among the top 50 Influencers of Blockchain in the Country by the Community. He is re-elected as Secretary General of ITU-APT Foundation of India, Vice-President and Trustee of DCIF and Chairs BIF committee on Rural Digital Infrastructure. As a member of Expert panel of Commonwealth Telecom Organisation, he conducts training programs in the areas of NGN Technologies, Broadband Policy and Regulation, Interconnection Costing in NGN Era, Spectrum Management, IPV6, Digital Transformation, Blockchain and Blue-Ocean Strategy. He is first Indian recipient of IPv6 Hall of Fame Award-2019 and Lifetime Achievement Award-2022 by Global IPv6 Forum and appointed Chairman of Bharat IPv6 Forum-“Towards Atmanirbhar Connected Bharat”. Presently, he is working as Chairman, BLUETOWN, India & BIMSTEC, S. Asia to forge newer partnerships and “Making It Happen” the Vision of “Connecting the Unconnected people living in Rural areas of World”.

Talk Title : Convergence of Blockchain and IPv6 - Creation of a Universal Public Digital Infrastructure

Abstract: The convergence of Blockchain technology and new Internet ,IPv6 has a great potential for creation of a universal public digital infrastructure which will be Open, Accessible, Secured, Accountable and Affordable. This paper describes the underlying attributes of these two technologies synergising together as described below:
1. Decentralization and Security: Blockchain technology is built on the principles of decentralization and cryptographic security. By integrating Blockchain with IPv6 which enables secured P2P communication, one could potentially create a more secure and decentralized and trusted Internet infrastructure. Each device connected to the IPv6 network could have a unique blockchain-based identity that's tamper-proof and verifiable. This could enhance security by reducing the risks of unauthorized access and cyberattacks.
2. Decentralized DNS: The Domain Name System (DNS) could be decentralized using Blockchain. Traditional DNS is vulnerable to attacks and censorship. By incorporating Blockchain's consensus mechanism, DNS records could be stored on a distributed ledger, reducing the central points of failure and making it more resilient and fast.
3. Secure Data Transmission: The integration of Blockchain with IPv6 will also enable secure peer-to-peer communication and data transmission. Blockchain's encryption capabilities could be used to ensure that data sent between devices remains private and tamper-proof, enhancing privacy and doing away the need for centralized intermediaries.
4. Micropayments and Monetization: Blockchain's capability for facilitating microtransactions and its integration with IPv6 could lead to new ways of monetizing online content and services. Content creators could receive small payments directly from consumers, bypassing the need for intermediaries and potentially doing away with ad-based revenue models.
5. IoT and Supply Chain Management: The Internet of Things (IoT) could also benefit from the convergence of Blockchain and IPv6. IPv6's vast address space could accommodate the growing number of IoT devices, and Blockchain's transparency and immutability could be leveraged for secure and transparent supply chain management.
6. Decentralized Applications (DApps): The combination of Blockchain and IPv6 could foster the development of decentralized applications. These DApps could leverage Blockchain's Smart Contract attribute to create self-executing agreements and automated processes, enhancing efficiency and reducing the need for intermediaries.
7. Global Identity Management: The convergence of Blockchain and IPv6 could lead to the creation of a universal, self-sovereign identity system. Individuals could control their own digital identities, reducing the risks of identity theft and enhancing privacy.
8.Data Ownership and Privacy: Blockchain's capability to provide transparent and auditable data ownership records could help users have ownership, monetisation and better control over their data. This could lead to improved data privacy practices and increased trust between users and online services. However, there are challenges to overcome as well, Blockchain faces scalability challenge, and Blockchain's inherent consensus mechanisms can still be resource-intensive, IPV6 also has its own complexities. Integrating these two complex technologies would require innovative design and engineering, The convergence will need to navigate through the regulatory and governance hurdels, particularly regarding data sovereignty, jurisdiction and legal frameworks for decentralized applications.

Hoda Al Khzaimi Hoda Alkhzaimi is an experienced, motivated and innovative leader in industrialization, economic development, green field projects development and tech development. With over seventeen years of successfully driven numerous technological investments internationally and Locally especially in in the UAE. She has successfully led various projects towards achieving strategic, financial and operational efficiencies and synergies worldwide. She has a particular focus in leading and motivating tech-based industrial investments globally. Through her strategic, financial, and operational insight, she has overseen the successful turnaround of multiple large-scale projects, facilitated the research and development process while creating growth potential for each prospect.

Talk Title :Improving Cryptographic Primitives Attack Frameworks

Abstract: We are proposing a framework for analyzing cryptographic primitives in an efficient time and computational complexity utilizing machine learning and links the Side Channel Analysis with Statistical Cryptanalysis. It is a practically powerful attack methodology that aims to overcome the limitations of achieving attack success rates in both techniques and makes it practical for real-world applications. For our links prospect we provided 78 differential characteristics for 6-round SPECK having a combined differential probability of 2−9.12 that deems the attack on lightweight complexity practical. The full deduction of the cipher rounds in practical terms is achievable using this complexity as well. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first multiple-differential characteristic proposed for 6-round SPECK. This 6-round characteristic is used in the DHABI framework to recover the last round key of full-round SPECK implementation having countermeasures in the initial five and last five rounds of the 22-round SPECK cipher. In the future, this framework can be applied to different classes of cryptosystems, i.e: types of symmetric ciphers, with existing statistical cryptanalysis attacks on reduced rounds and the possibility to provide high levels of certainty on extracting secret internal state information using a combined approach with side-channel analysis. As for our machine learning we are utilizing improved profiling analysis which is a powerful class of side-channel attack on cryptographic implementations which works by creating a template of the target device. In addition to improved attacks on randomness utilizing machine learning tools. Creating a good profile of a cryptographic device increases the attack efficiency. Machine learning techniques can be used to improve the profiling of the device. Usually, the dataset created from profiling has an imbalance in class distribution which hampers model generalization and subsequently side-channel attack performance. This work focuses on developing a unique high-performing machine learning model based on hybrid technique of data sampling, data augmentation, and noise addition to reduce the imbalance in class distribution and improve the performance model. Generally, in training a machine learning model, such as neural networks, hyper-parameter tuning helps in optimizing the best model based on the yielded performance results leading to optimal generalization. In this work, we investigate performance improvement by combining an ensemble of machine-learning models, thereby providing a machine-learning model with high generalization. Thus, our contribution is two-fold, we reduce the class distribution imbalance by data sampling methods and optimize the selection of an ensemble of machine learning models thereby improving the model generalization for profiling attacks. The proposed technique was applied to the AES dataset. For the AES dataset, the successful attack required only 200 traces compared to over 1000 traces from a single optimized model, equivalent to an attack improvement of 500%.Additionally, we run a comprehensive randomness analysis through utilizing NIST cryptographic randomness testing with additional others with the goal to provide high-level of certainty in predicting the randomness output of our verified memristor-based PUF. The main aim of this work is the holistic study that focuses on attacking and profiling the cryptographic primitives that we have built using logistic regression (LR), support vector machine (SVM), Gaussian mixture models (GMM), K-means , K-means++, random forest, optimized distributed gradient boosting model (XGBoost) models in addition to neural networks (using SMOTE data oversampling). We have achieved our evaluation results in efficient time, and data complexity. We investigate performance improvement by combining an ensemble of machine learning models, thereby providing a machine learning model with high levle of generalization. In this work, our contribution is two-fold, we reduce the class distribution imbalance by dataset over-sampling methods and optimize the selection of ensemble of machine learning models thereby improving the model generalization for profiling attack.