CICI: UCSS: Blockchain Based Assured Open Scientific Data Sharing and Governance

尽管科学数据共享是科学发现背后的关键驱动力之一，并对我们整个社会的福祉发挥着关键作用，但科学数据共享仍然是一个充满安全和完整性风险的问题。这是因为必须严格执行对数据使用的某些限制(例如，为数据修改维护适当的审计日志)，而现有技术很难以无缝方式实现这一点。为了在遵守使用限制的同时共享科学数据、保护数据完整性并获取科学可重复性的来源，需要开发新的软件工具来支持跨越多个组织边界的这些功能。作为该项目的一部分，构建的基于区块链的新型数据共享系统可能会导致知识库的进步，即如何在开放的科学发现过程中自动平衡安全和完整性要求与信息共享的冲突目标。反过来，该系统可以显著增加用于广泛学科的研究目的共享的数据量和种类，从而通过进一步提高现代网络基础设施的能力和培养跨学科数据密集型研究的新机会，直接满足NSF关于利用数据革命的大想法。此外，通过积极将我们的研究成果纳入本科和研究生水平的课程开发，我们在开放数据的新时代培养了下一代跨学科科学家。为了实现上述目标，该项目构建了一个创新系统，其中利用区块链技术来确保科学数据共享。首先，该项目开发了一个为开放科学数据共享量身定做的政策规范框架。使用这个框架，科学家可以很容易地指定任何使用限制(例如，不重新识别人类对象，不修改数据，如果数据因黑客攻击而丢失，则通知我们)。稍后，使用区块链框架，这些限制将被捕获，并通过智能合同存储。该框架的一个新的方面是，利用机器学习技术，它可以分析基于智能合同的来源信息，以自动检测潜在的异常数据修改。为了测试我们框架的能力，该项目使用了一个基于多传感器的数据收集和数据共享项目，以了解城市污染的影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Despite being one of the key driving forces behind scientific discovery and playing a critical role for the well-being of our society as a whole, scientific data sharing remains an issue fraught with security and integrity risks. This is because certain restrictions on data usage (e.g., maintaining appropriate audit logs for the data modifications) must be enforced rigorously, which is difficult to accomplish with existing technologies in a seamless manner. The need to share scientific data while honoring usage restrictions, protecting data integrity, and capturing provenance for scientific repeatability requires development of new software tools that can support these capabilities across multiple organizations’ boundaries. The novel blockchain based data sharing system built as a part of this project may result in advancing the knowledge base on how to automatically balance the conflicting goals of security and integrity requirements and information sharing in the context of open scientific discovery process. This system in return can significantly increase volume and variety of data shared for research purposes across a broad range of disciplines, thereby directly addressing the NSF Big Idea on Harnessing the Data Revolution, by further advancing capabilities of modern cyberinfrastructure and fostering novel opportunities for interdisciplinary data-intensive research. Furthermore, by actively incorporating our research results into the curriculum development, at both undergraduate and graduate levels, we foster the next generation of interdisciplinary scientists in a new era for open data.To achieve the above stated goals, this project builds an innovative system where blockchain techniques are leveraged for assured scientific data sharing. First, the project develops a policy specification framework tailored for open science data sharing. Using this framework, scientists may easily specify any usage restriction (e.g., do not re-identify human subjects, do not modify data, notify us if the data is lost due to hacking). Later on, using the blockchain framework, these restrictions will be captured, and stored via smart contracts. One novel aspect of the proposed framework is that, using machine learning techniques, it can analyze the smart contract based provenance information to automatically detect potentially anomalous data modifications. To test the capabilities of our framework, the project uses a multi-sensor based data collection and data sharing project for understanding the impact of urban pollution as a case study.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.