I’ve given a keynote speech recently at the 12th Asia-Pacific Symposium on Internetware (Internetware 2020). The conference was originally planned to take place in November 2020, but was postponed to May 12–14, 2021. In my keynote, I’ve talked about the security and fairness issues in smart contracts. An abstract of the talk is as follows.
Smart Contract Security and Fairness: A Tale of Two Contending Parties
Abstract: It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. Smart contracts are computer programs running atop blockchain platforms to manage large sums of money, carry out transactions of assets, and govern the transfer of digital rights between multiple parties. Smart contracts bring hope to transparent and trustworthy exchange of value in a trustless environment. Yet, in reality, the trustworthiness of smart contracts are under constant threats, with people losing millions of dollars. In this talk, I will cover the two sides of the same coin, demonstrating how the security and fairness of smart contracts are both due to the mismanaged conflicting interests between contending parties. I will also present solutions we have developed in the past few years and suggest potential future research directions.