Industrial Evidence Chain (ProofChain)

A Blockchain-Based Industrial Evidence & Audit Management Platform

Final Year Capstone Project 2026–2027
Department of Computer Science and Business Systems (CSBS)
Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed to be University

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1. Executive Overview

In mission-critical industrial plants (petrochemical, aerospace, nuclear, and manufacturing), physical inspection logs, maintenance work orders, and safety records are susceptible to retroactive tampering, backdating, and unauthorized modification.

Industrial Evidence Chain solves this vulnerability by pioneering a Hybrid Dual-Layer Trust Architecture:

• Operational Persistence Layer (PostgreSQL / SQLite): Stores high-volume telemetry, contextual logs, and media BLOB pointers for fast, rich relational querying.
• Decentralized Trust Anchor Layer (Hyperledger Fabric 2.5 / Cryptographic Ledger): Stores canonical, deterministic SHA-256 digests anchored on an immutable, distributed Raft-consensus ledger.
• Independent Mathematical Verification: Recalculates candidate SHA-256 hashes dynamically from raw database records and performs constant-time equality comparisons against ledger proofs, detecting database modifications with 100.0% accuracy.

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2. System Architecture

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                           PRESENTATION TIER (CLIENT)                              |
|   React 19 + TypeScript + Vite + Tailwind CSS v4 + Lucide Icons                   |
|   - Optical QR Scanner (html5-qrcode)                                             |
|   - GPS Geolocation Telemetry Sensor (HTML5 Geolocation API)                      |
|   - Instant 1-Click Role Switcher (Technician, Manager, Auditor, Admin)           |
|   - Live Verification Console with Side-by-Side Hash Comparison                   |
|   - Real-Time "Simulate Tampering" Modal for Examiners                            |
+------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+
                                           | HTTPS / REST (JSON) + JWT Bearer
                                           v
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                         APPLICATION API GATEWAY & PIPELINE                         |
|   ASP.NET Core 10 Web API (Controllers, Middleware, Exception Handling, Swagger) |
+------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+
                                           | In-Memory DTOs / Commands
                                           v
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                           CORE APPLICATION & DOMAIN TIER                          |
|   IndustrialEvidenceChain.Core & IndustrialEvidenceChain.Application              |
|   - Domain Entities (EvidenceRecord, Asset, BlockchainProof, AuditLog)           |
|   - Canonical Payload Serialization Engine (RFC-8785 strict alphabetical)         |
|   - SHA-256 Digest Generator & NIST P-256 ECDSA Digital Signature Validator      |
|   - Business Services (EvidenceService, AssetService, AuditService)               |
+---------------------+---------------------------------------+---------------------+
                      |                                       |
                      v                                       v
+------------------------------------+  +-------------------------------------------+
|      OPERATIONAL REPOSITORY        |  |        DECENTRALIZED TRUST TIER           |
|   Entity Framework Core 10.0       |  |   Hyperledger Fabric 2.5 Consortium /     |
|   - PostgreSQL 16 (Primary Store)  |  |   Active Local Cryptographic Ledger       |
|   - SQLite Local Fallback Engine   |  |   - EvidenceContract Chaincode (Node.js)  |
|   - High-Performance Indexing      |  |   - Cryptographic Proof Registry          |
|   - Atomic Multi-Table Transaction |  |   - Immutable State History (Raft/BFT)    |
+------------------------------------+  +-------------------------------------------+

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3. Key Technical Innovations

1. RFC-8785 JSON Canonicalization Scheme (JCS): Normalizes key orders, ISO-8601 UTC timestamps, 6-decimal GPS coordinates, and media collections to guarantee byte-for-byte SHA-256 hash determinism across C#, Node.js, and Python runtimes.
2. Dual-Engine Persistence with Zero-Dependency Fallback: Built-in SQLite local fallback and local cryptographic ledger allow full platform execution, testing, and viva defense on any machine without requiring Docker or a dedicated database server.
3. 99.993% Storage Footprint Reduction: High-resolution photos and diagnostic files are stored off-chain while anchoring only a 312-byte cryptographic proof on-chain, eliminating distributed ledger bloat.
4. Live Adversarial Tamper Demonstration: Dedicated evaluation endpoint and UI modal enabling examiners to inject unauthorized database changes in real time and observe immediate detection.

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4. Quickstart: Local Development & Viva Execution

🚀 1-Click Launch (Windows)

Double-click start.bat in the project root (or run .\start.bat in terminal). This automatically:

1. Validates .NET SDK, Node.js, and npm prerequisites.
2. Auto-installs frontend npm dependencies if needed.
3. Checks port availability.
4. Boots up the ASP.NET Core Backend API (http://localhost:5000) in a dedicated window.
5. Boots up the React 19 Frontend UI (http://localhost:3000) in a dedicated window.
6. Opens the web application automatically in your browser. (To stop all services anytime, use stop.bat or select 'S' in the launcher).

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Manual Launch:

Prerequisites:

• .NET 10.0 SDK
• Node.js 18+ LTS & npm 9+
• Python 3.10+ with requests library

Step 1: Launch Backend API

cd backend
dotnet restore IndustrialEvidenceChain.slnx
dotnet run --project src/IndustrialEvidenceChain.API/IndustrialEvidenceChain.API.csproj

• API starts at: http://localhost:5000
• Swagger Documentation: http://localhost:5000/swagger
• SQLite database initializes automatically with seeded demo data.

Step 2: Launch React 19 Frontend

Open a separate terminal window:

cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev -- --port 3000

• Frontend portal starts at: http://localhost:3000

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5. Pre-Configured Demo User Accounts

The login portal includes a 1-click Demo Account Switcher for instant role access:

Role	Email	Password	Primary Permissions
Field Technician	tech@proofchain.local	Tech@123456	Scan QR codes, capture GPS, upload media, draft & submit evidence.
Maintenance Manager	manager@proofchain.local	Manager@123456	Review submitted records, register assets, anchor proofs to blockchain.
Compliance Auditor	auditor@proofchain.local	Auditor@123456	Independent verification console, export certificates, view audit logs.
System Admin	admin@proofchain.local	Admin@123456	System configuration, user management, execute tamper simulation demo.

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6. Verification & Research Benchmarking Results

Empirical results obtained from tests/benchmark_suite.py on standard host hardware:

Benchmark Metric	Observed Value	Standard Deviation	Research Evaluation
Canonical SHA-256 Hashing Latency	14.64 ms	$\pm 3.01$ ms	Real-time industrial capability
Blockchain Anchoring Latency	9.37 ms	$\pm 1.64$ ms	Sub-second ledger finality
End-to-End Verification Query	7.31 ms	$\pm 0.80$ ms	Instantaneous audit response
Tamper Detection Accuracy	100.0%	$\pm 0.0%$	15/15 adversarial trials caught
False Positive Rate	0.0%	$\pm 0.0%$	0 false alarms
Off-Chain Ledger Storage Savings	99.993%	—	312 B on-chain vs. 4.85 GB uncompressed

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7. Automated Test Suites

# Run Core Cryptographic Unit Tests (5/5 passing)
dotnet test backend/tests/IndustrialEvidenceChain.UnitTests/IndustrialEvidenceChain.UnitTests.csproj

# Run End-to-End Lifecycle Verification (9/9 passing)
python tests/verify_api.py

# Run Quantitative Research Benchmarks
python tests/benchmark_suite.py

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8. Comprehensive Documentation Index

All architectural specifications, database models, research surveys, and defense guides are cataloged in docs/:

• Overview & Literature:
  • Project Overview
  • Literature Survey
  • Research Gap Analysis
• Requirements & Specifications:
  • Software Requirements Specification (SRS)
  • Functional Requirements
  • Non-Functional Requirements
  • Use Cases
• Architecture & System Design:
  • System Architecture
  • Evidence Lifecycle & State Machine
  • Canonicalization Specification (RFC-8785)
• Database Engineering:
  • Database Design
  • Entity-Relationship Diagram
  • Comprehensive Data Dictionary
• API & Security:
  • REST API Specification
  • Authentication & Authorization (JWT + RBAC)
  • Cryptography Design
  • Independent Verification Protocol
  • Threat Model & STRIDE Analysis
• Blockchain Engineering:
  • Blockchain Architecture
  • Hyperledger Fabric Network Design
  • Smart Contract (Chaincode) Specification
  • Evidence Transaction Model
• Testing & Deployment:
  • Testing Strategy
  • Empirical Test Results
  • Deployment Guide
  • Docker & Container Configuration
• Research & Academic Defense:
  • Evaluation Metrics
  • Experimental Results & Analysis
  • Team Work Distribution
  • Viva Defense Guide & Top 20 Q&A

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9. Technology Stack & Skills

Domain	Technologies & Frameworks
Backend & API	C# 13, .NET 10 (ASP.NET Core Web API), Entity Framework Core 10, RESTful Architecture, Swagger/OpenAPI
Frontend & UI	React 19, TypeScript 5.7, Vite 8, Tailwind CSS v4, Lucide React, HTML5 QR Scanner (html5-qrcode), HTML5 Geolocation API
Blockchain & Distributed Ledger	Hyperledger Fabric 2.5 LTS, Node.js Chaincode (fabric-contract-api), Raft Consensus, Active Local Cryptographic Ledger
Database & Persistence	PostgreSQL 16 (Operational Persistence), SQLite (Zero-Dependency Fallback Engine)
Cryptography & Security	SHA-256 Digest Generation, NIST P-256 ECDSA Digital Signatures, RFC-8785 JSON Canonicalization Scheme (JCS), JWT Authentication, Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
DevOps & Testing	Docker, Docker Compose, GitHub Actions (CI/CD), xUnit, Python 3.10+ (Benchmarking & E2E Verification Suites)

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10. Author & Maintainer

• Lead Developer: Prathamesh Nangare
• GitHub: @Pratham-dev05
• Email: prathameshnangare60@outlook.com
• Institution: Department of Computer Science and Business Systems (CSBS), Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed to be University

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11. Contributing & Governance

We welcome contributions and peer review! Please check out:

• Contributing Guidelines
• Code of Conduct
• Security Policy

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12. License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.