Secure Data of Industrial Internet of Things in a Cement Factory Based on a Blockchain Technology

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The subject of the paper “Secure Communication for Industrial Internet of Things in a Cement Factory Based on a Blockchain Technology” is timely and valuable to the audience of the Applied Sciences. Researchers presented results from applying blockchain technology into the industrial internet of things in a cement factory.

Overall, the paper is well structured, reads quite well, and covers the existing literature quite well. The analysis of the data is interesting and well documented. However, in my view, some minor amendments are required prior to publication.

Line 79 - sentence starts with small letter

Figure 1 does not have the right proportion. The height seems too large, and the fonts are stretch vertically.

Part in lines 331- 333 needs to be rewritten to better refer to cited works. It doesn’t look well when a sentence starts: „The author or [14] ” or „the authors of [10],[16]”. Behind references are authors.

The sentence in lines 365-370 needs to be rewritten for clarification. Perhaps it misses a verb in the beginning.

Section references needs strong support. The list of references is not well presented. MPDI use own citation style with abbreviated journal names.  There are some missing details, like e.g. lack of DOI numbers and lack of page numbers. MPDI has own citation style, you should use it.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Overall, the papers explains the benefits of using blockchain technology in IIoT, especially for security and decentralization reasons. The present work proposes the use of a private blockchain for an industrial application in a cement factory, which offers low power consumption, scalability, and a lightweight security scheme and which can play an efficient role in controlling access to valuable data generated by sensors and actuators. Overall, the section discussing the results is accurate. Here are some suggestions to improve the paper:

• Section 2: Related works. Present a more extended overview of the current context, like what are the currently used methods and what are their limitations. Then, focus on the novelty that your approach is bringing and the benefit it provides.
• Section 3. Architecture for a cement factory based on blockchain technology. Include more details (diagrams and  explanations) about the architecture, and mostly about the blockchain. It is not clear what was your specific contribution in the development of the private blockchain used and the consensus algorithm. The presentation of the private blockchain (Section 3.2.1) is too generic. 
• Section 4. Also explain how data is collected from the sensors, correlated and further used in the application.
• Section 6. Performance analysis. Also provide details about security, since it was one of the objectives of the work. Extend the analysis to include the currently used approached as well.
• Table 3 is not convincing. What does slow mean? Use some specific, measurable indicators.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper shows an implementation of a blockchain-based storage for data collected by IoT devices. The use case is of moderate interest, but the paper should be improved, starting from the title, that is is misleading: "Secure communication for ..." is not appropriate. The focus of the contribution is to secure the storage of data using a blockchain, not securing the communications.

The main problem with this work is that it is not clear why the authors rely on low-power Cortex processors for the blockchain level, instead of using a commercial PC. This particular layer does not seem to have power constraints. Using Cortex processors leads to the need of Proof of Authentication mechanisms, instead PoW. The PoAuth mechanism's weak point is that anyone with access to the machine can rebuild the blockchain in no time. Therefore, using blockchain with PoAuth does not seem to be better than use a regular database. On the contrary, PoW makes infeasible to rebuild the blockchain fast enough to keep pace with new blocks being added.

The manuscript include other incorrect claims:

• Page 2, lines 41 to 43: ..."It is a distributed database with decentralized ledgers, in which cryptographic techniques and a hash algorithm are used to secure the transfer of data between peers and over internet networks without need for a third party". This definition is incorrect. In fact, classical blockchain examples such as Bitcoin does not encrypt communications. The cryptographic techniques are used to ensure that only authorized transactions are carried out.
  
  
• Page 3, lines 111..113: "[These studies] use blockchain only for its efficiency in recording sensor data in industrial environments, and do not explore its applicability to other industrial operations". But this manuscript does exactly this: recording sensor data. 
  
  
• The 51% consensus attack is cited in several places as an example of a vulnerability of the blockchain, while it is its main strength.
  
  
• There is a confusion between Cortex processors and STM32M4 along the paper. In page 4, line 154, it is said that the STM32M4 board is used in the blockchain service, while the Cortex processors are depicted in fig. 1. A reciprocal error appears in page 7, line 235.
  
  
• Page 10, line 309. "PoAh is much more effective than traditional PoW, as it requires only 3 secs to verify a new block while PoW requires 10 min. This claim is incorrect in several ways. To verify a block already added to the blockchain is straightforward in PoW. What takes 10 min is to solve the puzzle that allows the insertion of a new block in Bitcoin, not verifying that the block has correctly inserted. Besides this, PoW in blockchain is adjusted to take 10 min regardless of the number of miners, but it is a Bitcoin design decision. It may well take 1 sec, depending on the adjustable difficult of the puzzle to be solved. 
  
  
• Line 267: The claim that ARM processors are suitable for real-time processing is misleading. It depends on the scheduling algorithm of the operating system used. Linux is not for real-time, since you can not guarantee that a given task has been finished after a fixed period of time.  

In summary, the use case is interesting, but the particular hardware architectures used should be clarified and justified (there seems to be no reason to use low-power processors in the blockchain service layer). Without this point clear, the remaining design decisions, such as to use PoAuth, makes no sense. 

Minor typos:

• Line 93: "aggrement"
• Line 93. The sentence that starts with "And" should be rewritten.
• line 116: "is expos"
• line 179: "the blockchain is lightweight"
• All references to algorithms and figures shows a point after it, such as in line 212: "Algorithm 2. describes..." Remove the point.
• Figure 3. The blockchain nodes depict STM32 processors, and it seems to be Cortex.  

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The English of the added paragraphs after the reviews needs to be edited and improved.

Author Response

Response to reviewer 2

Second round

 Original Manuscript ID: applsci-1246009

           

Original Article Title: “Secure communication for Industrial Internet of Things in a Cement Factory Based on a Blockchain Technology”

 

To: MDPI Editor

 

Dear Editor,

We would like to thank you a lot for your attention and cooperation, in addition, for providing me with your valuable notes and suggestion, that greatly improves the level of our research, in addition, to give us new chance to complete and reach the acceptance requirements. After received your suggestion that related to editing languages issues for all new paragraph, we sent it to the special office and revise the manuscript according to the editing company revision as the two PDF attached.

Best regards,

Response to Review 2

 

One: Section 2: Related works. Present a more extended overview of the current context, like what are the currently used methods and what are their limitations. Then, focus on the novelty that your approach is bringing and the benefit it provides.

Author response:  According to your valuable notice:

A- The extension before proofreading: From line 157 to 175, from the second version,

(In our scheme, we successfully by realise the integration of blockchain technology with IoTs devices in industrial sector for device level, which considered as a challenge point in many research papers. The IoTs devices classified as resource constraint (sensors, actuators) that founding a new requirement such as lightweight security scheme, lightweight algorithms, and low power consumption [20]. Our architecture satisfy these new requirement by built the lightweight security scheme designed for this reason by utilised low-power ARM Cortex-M4 processor; moreover, adopted on fast, high scalable, and low energy proof of authentication (PoAh) as a consensus mechanism that help in enhance the computational performance.

In addition, our architecture bring many benefit and features to the internet of things network in industrial sector related to increase overall system security, stability, offer information traceability, scalability, secure remote access to valuable data, ensure the transparency, tamper-resistance (by using smart contract), and provide real-time process of status monitoring system. The collected data from IoT sensors and actuators that cannot be change by any network participants (immutable) after recording it in blockchain network also can use these data to predict the future such as production capacity, maintenance, and many other factors with provide excellent data management.  In addition, this integration enables fast reaction to the new received data, which help in enhance the quality and reduce the waste of raw materials.)

B- After proofreading: From line 159 to 176 on page 4. From the new version,

(In our scheme, we successfully realised the integration of blockchain technology with IoT devices in the industrial sector at the device level, which is considered to be a challenging point in many research papers. The IoT devices classified resource constraints (sensors, actuators) that founded new requirements, such as lightweight security scheme, lightweight algorithms, and low power consumption [20]. Our architecture satisfies these new requirements by building a lightweight security scheme, designed by utilising a low-power ARM Cortex-M4 processor. Moreover, it adopts fast, highly scalable, low energy proof of authentication (PoAh) as a consensus mechanism that helps to enhance computational performance.

In addition, our architecture brings many benefits and features to the internet of things network in an industrial sector, concerning increased overall system security, stability, offer information traceability, scalability, secure remote access to valuable data, transparency, and tamper-resistance (by using smart contract), and provides a real-time status monitoring system. The data collected from IoT sensors and actuators that could not be changed by any network participants (immutable) after recording them in a blockchain network, can also be used to predict future production capacity, maintenance, and many other factors, with excellent data management. In addition, this integration enables fast reactions to the newly received data, which helps enhance the quality and reduce the wastage of raw materials.)

Two:  Section 3. Architecture for a cement factory based on blockchain technology. Include more details (diagrams and  explanations) about the architecture, and mostly about the blockchain. It is not clear what was your specific contribution in the development of the private blockchain used and the consensus algorithm. The presentation of the private blockchain (Section 3.2.1) is too generic. 

Author response: 

A- Before proofreading: In line 201 to 207, from the second version,

(In our Blockchain service layer, we design several lightweight nodes instead of a single node, which helps the registered users and devises or machines to efficient access to the blockchain network with reduce the pressure and prevent system failure occurrence in comparison with single node strategy, which can lead to the problem of instability and overall system failure [9]. Our architecture also achieved the system stability and availability of services that make it an efficient solution for integrating blockchain technology with industrial IoTs that requires continuous data processing in real-time.)

B- After proofreading: Page 5, from line 202 to 208, from the new version,

(In our Blockchain service layer, we designed several lightweight nodes instead of a single node, which helps the registered users, devices or machines to efficiently access the blockchain network, reducing the pressure and preventing system failure from occurring, compared with a single node strategy, which can lead to problems of instability and overall system failure [9]. Our architecture also achieved the system stability and availability of services that make it an efficient solution for integrating blockchain technology with industrial IoTs, which require continuous data processing in real-time.)

C- Before proofreading: In line 218 to 225, from the second version,

 (Different from other works, in our architecture, the blockchain network receives the data from lightweight nodes as encrypted data; that efficiently helps in increase the security of the valuable data with overall system security by adding another stage of encryption; which efficiently increase the difficulty of disclose encrypted data even if any unauthorised user can access to the blockchain network. In addition, all blockchain ledgers used the hashing function mechanism, asymmetric encryption, and digital signature that already adopted inside the blockchain network to verify incoming new blocks.) 

D- After proofreading: In line 219 to 226, pages 5 and 6 from the new version,

(Different from other works, in our architecture, the blockchain network receives the data from lightweight nodes as encrypted data; this efficiently helps increase the security of the valuable data with overall system security by adding another stage of encryption. This efficiently increases the difficulty of disclosing encrypted data, even if any unauthorised user can access the blockchain network. In addition, all blockchain ledgers used the hashing function mechanism, asymmetric encryption, and digital signature, already adopted inside the blockchain network to verify incoming new blocks.)

E- Before proofreading: In line 239 to 247, from the second version,

(At the first, the participant nodes generates transaction proposal to create new block, then the nodes sign the new transaction with private key and directly broadcast it to the blockchain network. After receiving the proposed block in the network, trusted nodes verifies the signature with source public key, after that the trusted nodes evaluate MAC address and compare it with the received one. After completing the authentication step, authenticated block broadcast to the network with PoAh identification. The user add new block to the chain after compute the hash value to link the next block, then retrieve the previous block hash to save it to current block. Otherwise, the nodes drop unauthenticated block.)

F- After the proofreading: Line 240 to 248, Section 3.2.2, pages 6 to7, from the new version,

(First, the participant nodes generate a transaction proposal to create a new block and then the nodes sign the new transaction with a private key and directly broadcast it to the blockchain network. After receiving the proposed block in the network, trusted nodes verify the signature with a public source key; the trusted nodes evaluate the MAC address and compare it with the received one. After completing the authentication step, the authenticated block is broadcast to the network with PoAh identification. The user adds a new block to the chain after computing the hash value to link the next block and then retrieves the previous block hash to save it to the current block. Otherwise, the nodes drop the unauthenticated block.)

Three: Section 4. Also, explain how data is collected from the sensors, correlated and further used in the application.

Author response:

A- Before proofreading: Page 8, in line 288 to 303, from the second version,

(Data storage starts after complete the registration step of all sensors and actuators that participants in the blockchain network successfully, the next step represents the process of storing data provided from these sensors and actuators to the blockchain network through lightweight nodes as depicted in Figure 3. The process start when feed the new data from sensors to the STM32. Then, STM32 responsible for preparation the received data (prepossess) and sent it to the lightweight nodes in the blockchain service layer. The lightweight nodes (ARM Cortex-M4) check the registration ID of the device to verify it or deny the proposed transaction. If it is true, then executes the ECDSA directly and generate the public and private key after encrypted the received data. Then send the new proposed transaction to blockchain network for storage purpose after checking the PoAh, and then send a copy of all transactions to the lightweight nodes to provide a backup of these transactions that can using it in case of single node crash. The smart contract and lightweight node interact with each other to execute the transaction. The smart contract responsible for gives allowance to transaction for store the encrypted data inside the blockchain network. Algorithm 4 summarizes the data collected and storage process.)

B- After proofreading: Pages 8 to 9, in line 301 to 316, from the new version,

(Data storage starts after completion of the registration step for all of the sensors and actuators that the participants in the blockchain have networked successfully. The next step represents the process of storing data provided from these sensors and actuators to the blockchain network through lightweight nodes, as depicted in Figure 3. The process starts when new data from the sensors is fed to the STM32. The STM32 is responsible for preparing the received data (prepossess) and sending it to the lightweight nodes in the blockchain service layer. The lightweight nodes (ARM Cortex-M4) check the registration ID of the device to verify it or deny the proposed transaction. If it is true, then it executes the ECDSA directly and generates the public and private key after encrypting the received data. The proposed transaction is sent to the blockchain network for storage purposes, after checking the PoAh, and a copy of all transactions is sent to the lightweight nodes to provide a backup of these transactions, that can be used in case of a single node crash. The smart contract and lightweight node interact with each other to execute the transaction. The smart contract responsible allows the transaction to store the encrypted data inside the blockchain network. Algorithm 4 summarises the data collection and storage process.)

Four: Section 6. Performance analysis. Also provide details about security, since it was one of the objectives of the work. Extend the analysis to include the currently used approached as well.

Author response:

A- Before proofreading: Lines 443 to 453, from the second version,

(The last criterion of our comparison is the security attacks, which attackers can exploit the vulnerability point in the system to satisfy its goals. As in Table 3, the authors of [14, 20] used PoW as a consensus algorithm, which susceptible to 51%, Sybil, balance, and double spending attacks [11, 35]. The authors of [18] utilized the IBS as a consensus mechanism, which is susceptible to Sybil and DDoS attacks [9], then, the authors of [19] adopted on PoC, which is also susceptible to 51%, double spending and Sybil attacks [35]. In addition, the authors of [21] utilized the PBFT for verifying process, this algorithm expose to sybil attacks, while the authors of [22] depends on Delegate PoS, this algorithm also vulnerable to 51%, double spending and Sybil attacks [35]. With our architecture, we success by resistant to all of aforementioned types of attacks through the utilising the private blockchain, smart contract, ECDSA, lightweight nodes and PoA algorithm.)

B- After proofreading: In line 456 to 467, page 14, from the new version

(The last criterion of our comparison is the security attacks, in which attackers can exploit the vulnerable points in the system to satisfy their goals. As in Table, the authors of [14,20] used PoW as a consensus algorithm, which is susceptible to 51\%, Sybil, balance, and double-spending attacks [11,35]. The authors of [18] utilised the IBS as a consensus mechanism, which is susceptible to Sybil and DDoS attacks [9]. The authors of [19] adopted PoC, which is also susceptible to 51\%, double spending and Sybil attacks [35]. In addition, the authors of [21] utilised the PBFT for the verifying process and this algorithm is exposed to Sybil attacks, while the authors of [22] depend on Delegate PoS, and this algorithm is also vulnerable to 51\%, double spending and Sybil attacks [35]. With our architecture, we succeeded in being resistant to all of the aforementioned types of attacks by utilising the private blockchain, smart contract, ECDSA, lightweight nodes and PoA algorithm.)

Five: Table 3 is not convincing. What does slow mean? Use some specific, measurable indicators.

Author response: 

A- Before proofreading: In line 438 to 442, from the second version,

(The sixth criterion represent the consuming time to complete a task, which related to the performance of the proposed framework that depends on consensus algorithm type, utilizing of resources, execution time, and energy efficiency. From experiment results, our framework requires the lowest time than other frameworks.)

B- After proofreading: In line 451 to 455, page 14, from the new version,

(The sixth criterion represents the time it takes to complete a task, which relates to the performance of the proposed framework and depends on consensus algorithm type, utilising resources, execution time, and energy efficiency. From experimental results, our framework requires less time than other frameworks.)

Six:

A- Before proofreading: Page 14, line 473 to 480, from the second version.

(In our work, we have proposed a decentralised, scalable, lightweight, low power, and trusted security architecture for a cement factory as industrial application area based on the blockchain technology, we successfully by realise the integration of blockchain technology with IoTs devices in industrial environment. Our proposed system carries out user and device registration using a private blockchain. Then all transmitted data are stored in blocks as transactions with sending a copy of all transactions to the lightweight nodes to provide a backup of these transactions for use it in case of single node crash.)

And from line 489 to 494,

(In addition to adopted on fast, high scalable, and low energy proof of authentication (PoAh) as a consensus mechanism that help in enhance the computational performance by elimination of reverse hash function process used in PoW, also eliminated centralised dependencies, which makes blockchain is lightweight and more suitable for resource-constrained devices.)

B- After proofreading: Page 15, 486 to 493, from the new version

(In our work, we have proposed a decentralised, scalable, lightweight, low power, trusted security architecture for a cement factory as an industrial application area based on blockchain technology. We successfully integrated blockchain technology with IoT devices in an industrial environment.

Our proposed system carries out user and device registration using a private blockchain. Then, all transmitted data are stored as transactions in blocks while sending a copy of all transactions to the lightweight nodes to provide a backup of these transactions for use in case of a single node crash.)

And from line 503 to 507,

(In addition to the fast, highly scalable, and low energy proof of authentication (PoAh) adopted as a consensus mechanism that helps to enhance the computational performance by elimination of the reverse hash function process used in PoW, it also eliminated centralised dependencies, which makes blockchain lightweight and more suitable for resource-constrained devices.)

C- Before proofreading: Page 2, line 54 to 67, from the second version,

(With blockchain features such as distributed ledger, distributed database, distributed consensus mechanism, transparent, timestamp, and traceable that provided trust system can efficiently resist to many types of cyber security attacks [10]. By merging the blockchain technology and exploit its features in new environment founded with industrial IoTs, we ensure systems security and data integrity of autonomously transferring of data between nods (M2M) in industrial environment that help in increasing the possibility of robotic control system with remote observation of machines events to make the right decisions in time. With our proposed architecture that depicted in figure 1, we integrated the technology of blockchain/smart contract and IoTs in cement factory as industrial environment (private blockchain). Our proposed architecture consist of three layers (Physical, Blockchain service, Application) work together to build the lightweight security scheme by utilised STM32 and low-power ARM Cortex-M4 processor; moreover, adopted on fast, high scalable, and low energy proof of authentication (PoAh) as a consensus mechanism that help in enhance the computational performance [10,11].)

D- After proofreading: Page2, line 54 to 68, from the new version,

(Blockchain features, such as distributed ledger, distributed database, distributed consensus mechanism, transparent log, timestamp, and traceability provide a trusted system that can efficiently resist many types of cybersecurity attacks [10]. By merging the blockchain technology and exploiting its features in a new environment (founded on industrial IoTs), we ensure the system’s security and data integrity during the autonomous transfer of data between nodes (M2M) in an industrial environment. This helps increase the possibility of a robotic control system with the remote observation of machine events, to make the right decisions in time. With our proposed architecture (depicted in Figure1), we integrated the technology of blockchain, smart contract and IoTs in a cement factory as an industrial environment (private blockchain). Our proposed architecture consists of three layers: Physical, Blockchain Service and Application. These layers work together to build a lightweight security scheme by utilising STM32 and a low-power STM32F427 processor. Moreover, adopting a fast, highly scalable, low energy proof of authentication (PoAh) as a consensus mechanism helps to enhance the computational performance [10,11].)

 

Three: 

A- the first proofreading certificate as, 

27 April 2021
To whom it may concern,
RE: Proof-Reading-Service.com Editorial Certification
This is to confirm that the document described below has been submitted to Proof-Reading-Service.com for editing and proofreading.
We certify that the editor has corrected the document, ensured consistency of the spelling, grammar and punctuation, and checked the format of the sub-headings, bibliographical references, tables, figures etc. The editor has further checked that the document is formatted according to the style guide supplied by the author. If no style guide was supplied, the editor has corrected the references in accordance with the style that appeared to be prevalent in the document and imposed internal consistency, at least, on the format.
It is up to the author to accept, reject or respond to any changes, corrections, suggestions and recommendations made by the editor. This often involves the need to add or complete bibliographical references and respond to any comments made by the editor, in particular regarding clarification of the text or the need for further information or explanation.
We are one of the largest proofreading and editing services worldwide for research documents, covering all academic areas including Engineering, Medicine, Physical and Biological Sciences, Social Sciences, Economics, Law, Management and the Humanities. All our editors are native English speakers and educated at least to Master’s degree level (many hold a PhD) with extensive university and scientific editorial experience.
Document title: Secure Communication for a Cement Factory Based on a Blockchain Architecture
Author(s): Samir M. Umran
Format: British English
Style guide: Not supplied

 

B- the second proofreading certificate as your suggestion as,

24 June 2021
To whom it may concern,
RE: Proof-Reading-Service.com Editorial Certification
This is to confirm that the document described below has been submitted to Proof-
Reading-Service.com for editing and proofreading.
We certify that the editor has corrected the document, ensured consistency of the spelling,
grammar and punctuation, and checked the format of the sub-headings, bibliographical
references, tables, figures etc. The editor has further checked that the document is
formatted according to the style guide supplied by the author. If no style guide was
supplied, the editor has corrected the references in accordance with the style that
appeared to be prevalent in the document and imposed internal consistency, at least, on
the format.
It is up to the author to accept, reject or respond to any changes, corrections, suggestions
and recommendations made by the editor. This often involves the need to add or complete
bibliographical references and respond to any comments made by the editor, in particular
regarding clarification of the text or the need for further information or explanation.
We are one of the largest proofreading and editing services worldwide for research
documents, covering all academic areas including Engineering, Medicine, Physical and
Biological Sciences, Social Sciences, Economics, Law, Management and the Humanities.
All our editors are native English speakers and educated at least to Master’s degree level
(many hold a PhD) with extensive university and scientific editorial experience.
Document title: Secure data of Industrial Internet of Things in a Cement Factory
Based on a Blockchain Technology
Author(s): Samir M. Umran
Format: British English
Style guide: Not supplied

 

Note: We attached the two certificates as PDF to the editors email.

Thanks again for your every effort and spending you precious time to provide such important comments, we hope this round our manuscript reached the level of satisfaction by you and the journal.

Sincerely yours,

Corresponding author.

Reviewer 3 Report

I have taken your considerations into account, however, do not send a response to reviewers without using a spell checker. The answer to the last three questions are not acceptable. 

Author Response

Response to reviewer 3

Round two

 Original Manuscript ID: applsci-1246009

Original Article Title: “Secure communication for Industrial Internet of Things in a Cement Factory Based on a Blockchain Technology”

To: MDPI Editor

Dear Editor,

We would like to thank you a lot for your attention and for providing me with your valuable notes and suggestion, that greatly improves the level of our research. In addition, to give us a new chance to complete and reach the acceptance requirements.

Best regards,

 

Response to Review 3, Round two

Six: There is a confusion between Cortex processors and STM32M4 along the paper. In page 4, line 154, it is said that the STM32M4 board is used in the blockchain service, while the Cortex processors are depicted in fig. 1. A reciprocal error appears in page 7, line 235.

Author response:  Dear Sir, we have corrected the mistakes you mentioned to it as:

1- On page 4, line 152, from the first version,

Before change: (STM32M4 board).

After change: (STM32F427 that based on ARM Cortex-M4). As on page 5, line (195). 

2- In figure1:

            A - In physical layer,

            Before change: (STM32), from the first version.

            After change: (STM32 board), from the current version.

            B - In the blockchain service layer,

            Before change: (ARM Cortex-M), from the first version.

            After change: (STM32F427), from the current version.

3- On page 7, line 232, section 5, from the first version,

Before change: (ARM Cortex-M). The STM32 family of 32-bit Microcontrollers based on the ARM Cortex-M

After change: (STM32 board). It is the same, but to be more clear for the reader, as on page 10, line (326). 

4- On page 7, line 234,

Before change: (STM32), from the first version.

After change: (STM32 board). As on page 10, line (328), from the current version.

5- On page 7, line 240,

Before change: (STM32), from the first version.

After change: (STM32 board). As on page 10, line (334), from the current version.

6- On page 7, line 243,

Before change: (four STM32 development boards), from the first version.

After change: (four STM32F427).  As on page 10, line (337), from the current version.

Note: Dear Sir,

We used the STM32 boards (Microcontroller) based on ARM Cortex-M in the physical layer (Industrial environments). While STM32F427 based on ARM Cortex-M4 in the blockchain service layer (lightweight nodes).

Seven: Page 10, line 309. "PoAh is much more effective than traditional PoW, as it requires only 3 secs to verify a new block while PoW requires 10 min. This claim is incorrect in several ways. To verify a block already added to the blockchain is straightforward in PoW. What takes 10 min is to solve the puzzle that allows the insertion of a new block in Bitcoin, not verifying that the block has correctly inserted. Besides this, PoW in blockchain is adjusted to take 10 min regardless of the number of miners, but it is a Bitcoin design decision. It may well take 1 sec, depending on the adjustable difficult of the puzzle to be solved. 

Author response: Dear Sir, we built our clime depending on many research paper which deals with this point of comparison between PoW and PoAh as an experimental result such as:

• Reference [10], the authors also mentioned using PoW to mine the blocks in the network, which validate a new block every 10 min on average.
• Reference[11], the authors also mentioned to blocks verification time, which is about 10 mins in bitcoin.
• Reference [12], which prove the 3 second time to authenticate new block by adopted on PoAh mechanism, while it required to 10 mins to validate the new block with PoW.
• Reference [26], the authors mentioned to the new blocks generate every 10 min in the blockchain network by adopted on a PoW consensus mechanism.
• Reference [30], the authors mentioned the time required to generate blocks as, In a real-world problem, the mining process is essentially an inverse to a hash function. In the standard blockchain, the parameters update fortnightly, and new blocks generate every 10 min.

But after all aforementioned references, we remove the comparison (execution time perspective) from section (6.2) and (7),  to be as:

1- Section 6.2, page 10, line 297 to 298, on the first version:

Before change: (PoAh is much more effective than traditional PoW, as it requires only 3 secs to verify a new block while PoW requires 10 min.).

After change: (PoAh is a lightweight consensus algorithm that much more effective than another traditional consensus. In addition, the major impact of PoAh is the low latency and energy consumption designed especially for IoTs applications. From the point of view of resource utilisation, PoAh is an ideal selection for resource-constrained devices in IoTs private networks as it consumes minimal energy [10-12, 26,30].). As on page 13, line 390 to 395 on the current version.

2- Section (7), page 11, line 328 to 330 from the first version:

Before change: (PoAh is based on a cryptographic authentication scheme that makes it faster than other consensus algorithms, which requires only 3 sec to verify a new block while PoW requires 10 min [10–12,30,31].) As on page 12, line 409 to 412.

After change: (PoAh is based on a cryptographic authentication scheme that makes it faster than other consensus algorithms, which designed to reduce the latency and energy consumption for each transaction. In addition, its specialised to resource-constraint IoTs nodes [10-12, 26, 30].). As on page 13, line 422 to 425 from the current version.

I am so appritiate your decision.

Eight: We corrected all typos you mentioned to it as:

1- On page 3, line 92 (First version):

            Before change: (aggrement).

            After change: (agreement). As on page3, line (114) in the current version.

2- On page 3, line 92 (First version):

            Before change: (And design new mechanism).

            After change: (Then, authors design new mechanism). As on page 3, line (114) in the current version.

3- On page 3, line 114 (First version):

            Before change: (which is expos to).

            After change: (which is exposed to). As on page 3, line (137) in the current version.

4- On page 5, line 177 (First version):

            Before change: (makes the blockchain is lightweight).

            After change: (helps the blockchain to be lightweight). As on page 6, line (231) in the current version.

5- On page 6, line 210:

Reviewers note: (All references to algorithms and figures show a point after it, such as in line 212: "Algorithm 2. describes..." Remove the point.).

• After change: (Figure1 shows the proposed architecture for a cement plant in an internet-connected industrial environment.). As on page 4, line (180) from the current version.

Note: we worked on removing all point after all other algorithms and figures number as your valuable notes such as:

• After change: (Algorithm 1 shows the steps of the PoAh consensus algorithm.). On page 7, line (252) from the current version.
• After change: (Algorithm 2 describes the process of user registration in more detail.). As on page 7, lines (286-287) from the current version.
• After change: (Algorithm 3 summarises the device registration process in the blockchain network.). On page 8, lines (298-299) from the current version.

6- Reviewers note: (Figure 3. The blockchain nodes depict STM32 processors, and it seems to be Cortex.)

Authors replay:

Dear Sir, the lightweight nodes designed by adopted on STM32F427 based on ARM Cortex-M4, we corrected it as:

Before change: (4×STM32F), figure 3, page 8 (First version).

After change: (4×STM32F427). Figure 4, page 10 from the current version.

Note: We added the remark on page 7, line 261 to 271 as below:

Remark: The integration of blockchain technology with IoTs in the industrial sector ensures system security and data integrity. In the physical layer of our proposed architecture, we utilised ultra-low-power STM32 boards. While, in the blockchain service layer, the lightweight nodes consists of four STM32F427 (based on ARM Cortex-M4) were designed to provide high performance for asymmetric cryptography algorithms (ECDSA) by improving computational performance. PoAh was utilised as a consensus mechanism that provides a prospective security solution for IoT structure and an adequate level of robustness when used with ECDSA. In addition, it is an ideal selection for resource-constraint devices. The application layer provides administration services, device management, and data visualisation, which provides data access control and management.

Note: We attached the proofreading certificates (before and after changes) to the editors email. 

 

Finally, I am very sorry for the typos in point six from the last report.

 

Thanks again for your every effort and spending your precious time to provide such important comments, we hope this round our manuscript reached the level of satisfaction by you and the journal.

 

Sincerely yours,        

Corresponding author.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf