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The second survey published in this Special Issue regards the use of blockchain technology in the development of privacy protocols [[2]]. In this framework, the requests are handled by a data controller, and the generated data request and processing result data are stored in the blockchain ledger and notarized via a trusted institution of the blockchain network. Due to the recent pandemic crisis, many people are spending their days smart working and have increased their use of digital resources for both work and entertainment. The key factors that strengthen or weaken blockchain privacy are identified, and an evaluation framework to analyze the efficiency of blockchain-based privacy solutions is also formulated. [Extracted from the article]

Artificial intelligence is applied to many fields and contributes to many important applications and research areas, such as intelligent data processing, natural language processing, autonomous vehicles, and robots. The adoption of artificial intelligence in several fields has been the subject of many research papers. Still, recently, the space sector is a field where artificial intelligence is receiving significant attention. This paper aims to survey the most relevant problems in the field of space applications solved by artificial intelligence techniques. We focus on applications related to mission design, space exploration, and Earth observation, and we provide a taxonomy of the current challenges. Moreover, we present and discuss current solutions proposed for each challenge to allow researchers to identify and compare the state of the art in this context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vehicular networks are the combination of transport systems and the internet systems formed with the main motive to increase the safety of passengers, although non-safety applications are also provided by vehicular networks. Internet of Things (IoT) has a subsection called Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET)m which in turn has a subsection called Vehicular Ad hoc Network (VANET). Internet of Energy (IoE) is a new domain that is formed using electric vehicles connected with VANETs. As a large number of transport systems are coming into operation and various pervasive applications are designed to handle such networks, the increasing number of attacks in this domain is also creating threats. As IoE is connected to VANETs extension with electric cars, the future of VANETs can be a question if security measures are not significant. The present survey is an attempt to cover various attack types on vehicular networks with existing security solutions available to handle these attacks. This study will help researchers in getting in-depth information about the taxonomy of vehicular network security issues which can be explored further to design innovative solutions. This knowledge will also be helpful for new research directions, which in turn will help in the formulation of new strategies to handle attacks in a much better way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Featured Application: This work can used in location privacy preservation in internet of vehicles. During the procedure, a location-based service (LBS) query, the real location provided by the vehicle user may results in the disclosure of vehicle location privacy. Moreover, the point of interest retrieval service requires high accuracy of location information. However, some privacy preservation methods based on anonymity or obfuscation will affect the service quality. Hence, we study the location privacy-preserving method based on dummy locations in this paper. We propose a vehicle location privacy-preservation method based on dummy locations under road restriction in Internet of vehicles (IoV). In order to improve the validity of selected dummy locations under road restriction, entropy is used to represent the degree of anonymity, and the effective distance is introduced to represent the characteristics of location distribution. We present a dummy location selection algorithm to maximize the anonymous entropy and the effective distance of candidate location set consisting of vehicle user's location and dummy locations, which ensures the uncertainty and dispersion of selected dummy locations. The proposed location privacy-preservation method does not need a trustable third-party server, and it protects the location privacy of vehicles as well as guaranteeing the LBS quality. The performance analysis and simulation results show that the proposed location privacy-preservation method can improve the validity of dummy locations and enhance the preservation of location privacy compared with other methods based on dummy locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Featured Application: This article recalls the concept of cognitive city and provides a timely review of the state of the art in the field of information security and privacy for cognitive cities, understood as artificial-intelligence-augmented smart cities. Also, it suggests several research lines that are going to be relevant in the years ahead, thus, representing an up-to-date starting point for researchers interested in exploring the most relevant security and privacy aspects of cognitive cities. The emerging paradigm of the cognitive city, which augments smart cities with learning and behavioral change capabilities, is gaining increasing attention as a promising solution to the challenges of future mega-cities. Cognitive cities are built upon artificial learning and behavioral analysis techniques founded on the exploitation of human-machine collective intelligence. Hence, cognitive cities rely on the sharing of citizens' daily-life data, which might be considered sensitive personal data. In this context, privacy and security of the shared information become critical issues that have to be addressed to guarantee the proper deployment of cognitive cities and the fundamental rights of people. This article provides a thorough literature review using the recommendations for systematic reviews proposed by Vom Brocke et al. and the PRISMA statement. We analyze peer-reviewed publications indexed in ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, and Web of Science until July 2020. We identify the main challenges on privacy and information security within cognitive cities, and the proposals described in the literature to address them. We conclude that many challenges remain open and we suggest several research lines that will require further examination in the years to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current developments in information technology and increased inclination towards smart cities have led to the initiation of a plethora of features by technology-oriented companies (i.e., car manufacturers) to improve users' privacy and comfort. The invention of smart vehicle technology paved the way for the excessive use of machine-to-machine technologies. Moreover, third-party sharing of financial services are also introduced that support machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. These monetary systems' prime focus is on improving reliability and security; however, they overlook aspects like behaviors and users' need. For instance, people often hand over their bank cards or share their credentials with their colleagues to withdraw money on their behalf. Such behaviors may originate issues about privacy and security that can have severe losses for the card owner. This paper presents a novel blockchain-based strategy for payment of fueling of smart cars without any human interaction while maintaining transparency, privacy, and trust. The proposed system is capable of data sharing among the users of the system while securing sensitive information. Moreover, we also provide a blockchain-based secure privacy-preserving strategy for payment of fueling among the fuel seller and buyer without human intervention. Furthermore, we have also analytically evaluated several experiments to determine the proposed blockchain platform's usability and efficiency. Lastly, we harness Hyperledger Caliper to assess the proposed system's performance in terms of transaction latency, transactions per second, and resource consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the excitement around blockchain is mainly due to promising applications in the financial sector. However, many also believe in the technology's potential to disrupt non-financial sectors and applications, including supply chains, energy, e-voting, healthcare, and education. The application of blockchain within the education sector is expected to make improvements to academic transcripts, credentials, digital libraries, and student records. Research in this domain is rapidly increasing, and current reviews summarize the proposed improvements. On the other hand, the analysis undertaken has remained at a general level that lacks the depth required to cover diverging proposals that have emerged. This review focuses on the application of blockchain for academic transcripts. The aim is to find, among the proposed models, converging aspects that resolve common challenges and may lead to a universally accepted de-facto standard. Furthermore, since academic institutions will serve as oracles to the particular blockchain applications, a discussion on their trustworthiness will be outlined to explore if the proposed applications efficiently address the oracle problem. The outcome of this review highlights the need for a standardized approach built on a public blockchain to promote faster adoption and acceptance. Furthermore, oracles should be incentivized in order for the system to be sustainable, while their identities and activities should be known and identifiable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accountability refers to the need of individuals or organizations to account for their activities, accept responsibility, and disclose results in a transparent manner. Nowadays, the pervasivity of digital systems is making increasingly critical security, reliability, and trustworthiness of such services. When a service is delivered by involving different (eventually conflicting) parties, accountability could be achieved by including in digital transactions a trusted third party (TTP). Blockchain decentralizes trust, thus avoiding to rely on a single TTP. However, to deal with accountability in concrete solutions, the issue of securely integrating digital identity and Blockchain should be solved. The paper describes the results of a three-year research project merging academic and industrial expertise, to design and implement a Blockchain-based platform for service accountability integrating eIDAS-compliant Public Digital Identity. The platform has been used in several real-life contexts made available by industrial project partners, which demonstrated the effectiveness and novelty of the solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]