NOC22-CS44: Blockchain and Its Applications
Assignment 1
Correct choices are highlighted in Yellow . Give partial marks for partially correct answers.
1. Which one is true for an ideal decentralized solution for business management?
a. A centralized authority should decide the overall trust
b. Everyone should trust and cooperate with each other
c. No one should trust and cooperate with each other
d. No one should trust each other, however they should
cooperate
Hint: In a real-time scenario a decentralized system has multiple stakeholders and the
information submitted by them is not guaranteed to be correct. A collective agreement has to be
established.
2. Which of the statements below is/are true for successful run of decentralized
distributed systems?
a. Network of different players
b. Players must trust each other
c. If they cooperate, the society gets benefitted
d. None of the above
Hint: In a decentralized distributed system, a group of parties who may or may not know or
trust each other. But they should cooperate to reach a collective decision to benefit the system
as whole. So in a decentralized system trusting everyone is not always necessary to reach a
decision..
3. Where are the transactions logs recorded in a blockchain?
a. Centralized editable database
b. Editable log file
c. On centralized immutable database
d. On append only distributed immutable ledger
Hint: Refer to the slide of week1. An immutable append only ever growing chain of data is
used for blockchain. Data once added cannot be deleted or modified later.
4. What are the properties of cryptographic hash function?
a. It should be deterministic
b. It should be collision free
c. Ability to hide the input message
d. Puzzle friendly
Hint: Refer to the Week 1 slide. All the above properties are desirable for secure hashing.
5. For a 512 bit hash function, the attacker needs to compute how many hash
operations in order to find two matching outputs in the initial round?
a. 2512
b. 2128
c. 2256
d. 260
Hint: If a hash function produces N bits of output, an attacker needs to compute only 2N/2 hash
operations on a random input to find two matching outputs initially. The attacker can use the
output combination again to use in subsequent rounds.
6. Which of the following is a correct statement about a cryptographic hash function?
a. given the same message the hash function would not return the same hash
b. it is not very difficult to generate the original message from the hash
c. a small change in the message, impacts the hash value
d. one can easily find two different messages with same hash
Hint: Refer to the Week 1 slide for the properties of cryptographic hash functions.
7. What are the security features of a hash function?
a. Non-deterministic
b. Puzzle-friendly
c. Collision-resistance
d. Preimage resistance
Hint: Refer to the Week 1 slide for the properties of cryptographic hash functions.
8. SHA-512 hashing algorithm used by Bitcoin blockchain to determine the hash of a block.
This above statement is True or False.
a. True
b. False
Hint: SHA-256 is used in Bitcoin mining to construct the Bitcoin blockchain
9. For hash computation in SHA-512, what is the size of the block that the
message is divided into?
a. 1024
b. 512
c. 256
d. 1248
Hint: The message is divided into blocks of size 1024 bits, and the output produced is a 512-bit
message digest.
10. What is the message for hash value of
“8abe09bf65aefdb8e84bd8564efb765179cc01ee3f45809e47c8c9a02f72ff83” if SHA-256
is used? (case sensitive)
a. Consensus
b. Swayam
c. SWAYAM
d. Consensus
Hint: Verify the result https://emn178.github.io/online-tools/sha256.html
