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arxiv: 2603.13900 · v2 · submitted 2026-03-14 · 💻 cs.CR

Recognition: 1 theorem link

· Lean Theorem

CONFETTY: A Tool for Enforcement and Data Confidentiality on Blockchain-Based Processes

Michele Kryston , Edoardo Marangone , Alessandro Marcelletti , Claudio Di Ciccio
Authors on Pith no claims yet

Pith reviewed 2026-05-15 11:39 UTC · model grok-4.3

classification 💻 cs.CR
keywords blockchainsmart contractsattribute-based encryptiondata confidentialityprocess executiontransparencypublic blockchainbusiness processes
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The pith

CONFETTY combines smart contracts with attribute-based encryption to run business processes on public blockchains while keeping sensitive data confidential.

A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.

The paper introduces CONFETTY as an open-source tool that executes processes on transparent public blockchains without exposing private information. It uses smart contracts to handle and enforce all public steps of the process while applying attribute-based encryption to restrict access to confidential data only to authorized participants. This setup preserves the blockchain's ability to verify operations publicly and enforce business rules automatically. A sympathetic reader would care because it removes a major barrier to using public blockchains in settings where both transparency for auditing and privacy for sensitive details are required.

Core claim

CONFETTY enacts, enforces, and stores public interactions through smart contracts on a public blockchain while using attribute-based encryption to grant fine-grained access to confidential information, thereby maintaining operational transparency alongside data confidentiality.

What carries the argument

Integration of smart contracts for public enforcement with attribute-based encryption for controlled access to private data.

If this is right

  • Process execution remains fully enforceable by code even when some data stays private.
  • Public verifiability of all interactions is retained for auditing purposes.
  • Sensitive information reaches only users who satisfy the defined access attributes.
  • The same platform supports both notarization needs and confidentiality requirements without switching to private chains.

Where Pith is reading between the lines

These are editorial extensions of the paper, not claims the author makes directly.

  • The same pattern could apply to other domains such as supply-chain tracking or medical record handling that need public proof of steps yet private details.
  • Open-source release invites extensions that swap in different encryption methods or add new process types.
  • Adoption would reduce the need for separate consortium chains when privacy is the only obstacle.

Load-bearing premise

Attribute-based encryption can be added to smart contracts on public blockchains without blocking enforcement of the rules or public verification of transactions.

What would settle it

A working implementation where the encryption layer either prevents smart contracts from enforcing required steps or hides transaction details so that independent parties can no longer verify them on the public chain.

Figures

Figures reproduced from arXiv: 2603.13900 by Alessandro Marcelletti, Claudio Di Ciccio, Edoardo Marangone, Michele Kryston.

Figure 1
Figure 1. Figure 1: BPMN choreography diagram of an X-ray diagnostic analysis [5] Attribute-Based Encryption (ABE) is a public-key encryption scheme that links encrypted data with decryption keys via attributes. Such a scheme can be used to fine-grain access to data stored on IPFS for specific users. Typically, one authority generates decryption keys, introducing a single point of failure. Multi-Authority Attribute-Based Encr… view at source ↗
Figure 2
Figure 2. Figure 2: An overview of the CONFETTY architecture and functionalities CONFETTY relies on two external infrastructures used as architectural but￾tresses: (i) A Programmable Blockchain Platform (in our implementation, Ethereum), (ii) and a Tamper-proof Distributed File Storage (here, IPFS). The former maintains the public state storing transactions and runs smart con￾tracts that implement and execute the process logi… view at source ↗
Figure 3
Figure 3. Figure 3: Kick-start of the process instance setting its public state on-chain lected participant kick-starts a new process instance via the Process Interface, thereby initializing the instance’s public state by sending a transaction [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p005_3.png] view at source ↗
Figure 4
Figure 4. Figure 4: CONFETTY interface showing examples of message send and read case, but not the appointment. The a-b key of a PATIENT user participating in the same case (PID476948) can decrypt the appointment instead, but not the requestId. Notice that an INSPECTOR from the Ministry of Health, instead, can use their unique a-b key to access all the aforementioned documents regardless of the related process instance. Since… view at source ↗
read the original abstract

Blockchain technology enforces the security, robustness, and traceability of operations of Process-Aware Information Systems (PAISs). In particular, transparency ensures that all data is publicly available, fostering trust among participants in the system. Although this is a crucial property to enable notarization and auditing, it hinders the adoption of blockchain in scenarios where confidentiality is required, as sensitive data is handled. Current solutions rely on cryptographic techniques or consortium blockchains, hindering the enforcement capabilities of smart contracts and the public verifiability of transactions. This work presents the CONFETTY open-source web application, a platform for public-blockchain based process execution that preserves data confidentiality and operational transparency. We use smart contracts to enact, enforce, and store public interactions, while we adopt attribute-based encryption techniques for fine-grained access to confidential information. This approach effectively balances the transparency inherent in public blockchains with the enforcement of the business logic.

Editorial analysis

A structured set of objections, weighed in public.

Desk editor's note, referee report, simulated authors' rebuttal, and a circularity audit. Tearing a paper down is the easy half of reading it; the pith above is the substance, this is the friction.

Referee Report

3 major / 2 minor

Summary. The paper presents CONFETTY, an open-source web application for executing process-aware information systems on public blockchains. Smart contracts are used to enact, enforce, and store public interactions and business logic, while attribute-based encryption (ABE) provides fine-grained access control to confidential data, with the goal of balancing blockchain transparency and data confidentiality without resorting to consortium chains or fully on-chain cryptography.

Significance. If the separation of concerns is shown to preserve both public verifiability and enforceable process logic while delivering practical confidentiality, the work could facilitate broader adoption of public blockchains in regulated domains. The open-source release is a concrete strength that enables reproducibility and community validation.

major comments (3)
  1. [Abstract and §3] Abstract and §3 (Approach): the central claim that the architecture 'effectively balances' transparency with enforcement is asserted without any security analysis, threat model, or formal argument showing that ABE decryption remains off-chain and does not weaken smart-contract enforcement or public verifiability of transactions.
  2. [§5] §5 (Evaluation) or equivalent: no performance measurements, gas costs, latency figures, or scalability results are reported for the integrated smart-contract + ABE workflow, leaving the practicality of the tool unsupported.
  3. [§4] §4 (Implementation): while the manuscript states that CONFETTY is open-source, no concrete details are given on how attribute policies are encoded, how key distribution is handled, or how the web application prevents leakage of confidential data during on-chain transaction submission.
minor comments (2)
  1. [§3] Notation for ABE attributes and policy expressions should be introduced consistently before use in the architecture description.
  2. [Figure 1 or §3] The manuscript would benefit from a clear diagram showing the data flow between the web client, smart contract, and ABE components.

Simulated Author's Rebuttal

3 responses · 0 unresolved

We thank the referee for the constructive feedback. We address each major comment below and commit to revisions that strengthen the manuscript while preserving its core claims about the separation of smart-contract enforcement and off-chain ABE confidentiality.

read point-by-point responses

  1. Referee: [Abstract and §3] the central claim that the architecture 'effectively balances' transparency with enforcement is asserted without any security analysis, threat model, or formal argument showing that ABE decryption remains off-chain and does not weaken smart-contract enforcement or public verifiability of transactions.

    Authors: We agree a dedicated security argument is missing. In the revised manuscript we will add a threat-model subsection to §3 that explicitly states the assumptions (honest-but-curious participants, standard ABE security, off-chain key management) and shows that decryption occurs entirely client-side; only public metadata and encrypted payloads are ever submitted to the blockchain. Consequently, smart-contract logic and transaction verifiability are unaffected. We will support this with informal reasoning grounded in the architecture's separation of concerns. revision: yes

  2. Referee: [§5] no performance measurements, gas costs, latency figures, or scalability results are reported for the integrated smart-contract + ABE workflow, leaving the practicality of the tool unsupported.

    Authors: We acknowledge the lack of quantitative evaluation. The revised §5 will include gas-cost measurements for the core smart-contract functions, end-to-end latency for ABE encryption/decryption within the workflow, and scalability results obtained by executing multiple process instances on a public testnet. These data will be generated from the released open-source implementation. revision: yes

  3. Referee: [§4] no concrete details are given on how attribute policies are encoded, how key distribution is handled, or how the web application prevents leakage of confidential data during on-chain transaction submission.

    Authors: We will expand §4 with the requested implementation details: policies are expressed as access trees in the chosen ABE scheme; an off-chain attribute authority issues keys according to user attributes; the web application performs all ABE operations locally in the browser before submitting only the resulting ciphertext and public metadata to the blockchain. Code references and excerpts from the open-source repository will be added to allow verification. revision: yes

Circularity Check

0 steps flagged

No significant circularity identified

full rationale

The paper is a system-description and tool-implementation manuscript. It presents an architecture that separates public smart-contract enforcement from off-chain ABE-based confidentiality without any mathematical derivation chain, fitted parameters, or predictions. The central claim (balance of transparency and enforcement) is achieved by explicit scoping of responsibilities rather than by any self-referential definition or reduction to inputs. No load-bearing self-citations, uniqueness theorems, or ansatzes are invoked that collapse the argument onto itself. The work is therefore self-contained against external cryptographic primitives and open-source implementation.

Axiom & Free-Parameter Ledger

0 free parameters · 0 axioms · 0 invented entities

The central claim rests on the unproven integration of smart contracts and attribute-based encryption preserving both enforcement and verifiability; no free parameters, axioms, or invented entities are explicitly introduced in the abstract.

pith-pipeline@v0.9.0 · 5462 in / 1013 out tokens · 24054 ms · 2026-05-15T11:39:46.893073+00:00 · methodology

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Reference graph

Works this paper leans on

20 extracted references · 20 canonical work pages · 1 internal anchor

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